Language Development in Children

bound morpheme

cannot stand alone

child-directed speech (CDS)

Form of speech often used in talking to babies or toddlers; includes slow, simplified speech, a high-pitched tone, exaggerated vowel sounds, short words and sentences, and much repetition; also called parentese.

bound morpheme

cannot stand alone

child-directed speech (CDS)

Form of speech often used in talking to babies or toddlers; includes slow, simplified speech, a high-pitched tone, exaggerated vowel sounds, short words and sentences, and much repetition; also called parentese.

communicative competence (407)

phonological, pragmatic

elicitation

reliable production of a response by a stimulus in unconditioned or conditioned reflexes

comprehension

the action or capability of understanding something

cross-sectional

different age groups are tested at the same time

decontextualized language

Language that relies heavily on itself in the construction of meaning. Begins to emerge during the preschool period.

critical period

a specific time in development when certain skills or abilities are most easily learned

FOXP2

mutations of this gene impede ability to make mouth and jaw sequences required for speech; accompanied by difficulties for written language

derivational morpheme

affixes that create a new word by changing from noun to verb ex. argue-argument, happy-happiness, sad-sadness

linguistic displacement

the ability to talk about things that are not present

free morpheme

can stand alone

inflectional morpheme

the morpheme which is added does not change the grammatical function of the word, a noun remains a noun and a verb remains a verb - chair becomes chairs (still a chair right?) or LOOK becomes LOOK-REPEATEDLY

innate

existing from birth, inborn

internalized representation

the mental, or inner cognitive image or map of external reality

lateralized

localized on one or the other side of the brain

linguistic competence

inner knowledge one has of language and all of its linguistic rules and structures

longitudinal

describes research that measures a trait in a particular group of subjects over a long period of time

morpheme

smallest unit of meaning

morphology

study of form

neologisms

Made-up words that typically have only meaning to the individual who uses them.

performance

The manner in which something or somebody functions, operates, or behaves

phoneme

smallest unit of sound

phonetics

study of speech sounds

phonology

the study of speech sounds in language

pragmatics

the appropriate use of language in different contexts

semanticity (symbolism)

representation of objects, events and ideas symbolically

a word is a symbol for referent AND symbols are arbitrary

semantics

Meaning of words and sentences

species specific

pertaining to just one species

species uniform

refers to the observation that the major milestones of language occur in the same way and at the same general time in all members of the species

Syntax

The arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language.

Bloom and Lahey

form (syntax, morphology, phonology), content (semantics), use (pragmatics)

Lenneberg's observations

1. onset of speech is regular
2. speech is not suppressible
3. language cannot be taught to other species
4. language everywhere have some universals

Hockett's design features of language

ALL
1. mode of communication (signal transmission)
2. semanticity (meaning)
3. pragmatic function (there is usefulness)
SOME
4. interchangeability (can send and receieve)
5. cultural transmission (only learned through interactions between other speakers)
6. arbitrariness
7. discreteness (complex messages from smaller parts)
HUMANS
8. displacement (things that are not there can be described)
9. productivity (never before said but not understood

LCC

Less Clinician Control
Less Clinician Contrivance

activation nodes

models of individual neurons or assemblies of neurons in the brain

language faculty

Term used by Chomsky for a "component of the human mind" that accounts for children's innate knowledge of language.

learnability problem

the fact that children master their native tongues across the world in spite of the supposed indecipherable nature of language

mirror neurons

active when you make a movement and also when you watch someone else make a similar movement

negative evidence

A child being corrected once they utter a sentence that is not grammatically or syntactically correct

object permanence

the understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of view

operant conditioning

Learning based on the consequences of responding.

principle of parsimony

favors the hypothesis that requires the fewest assumptions

poverty of imagination

In linguistic theory, the notion that just because one cannot imagine how language might be learned, this does not prove that it was not learned (is innate)

poverty of the stimulus

A hypothesis that humans must have innate language capabilities because we learn our native language in the absence of environmental conditions, such as direct instruction or a large number of correct and incorrect examples.

recasts

restructuring inaccurate speech into correct form

scaffold

in Vygotsky's theory, a framework that offers children temporary support as they develop higher levels of thinking

universal grammar

a proposed set of highly abstract, unconscious rules that are common to all languages

Markov sentence models

Processing models of sentence production that assume that the probability of the next word to appear in a sentence is determined by the words that have already occurred

feature-blind aphasia

A grammatical deficit characterized by difficulty in using grammatical morphemes, such as the forms of the past tense. Some researchers have claimed that this disability is genetically determined

lack of negative evidence

children are not informed about what is not grammatical, parents correct for truth not for grammar

Competition model (MacWhinney)

Interactionist

Repeated exposure to reliable language input strengthens children's "correct" representations of the morphology, phonology, and syntax of their language.

Reliable input; Strengthened representation

Theory

needs to have:
- hypothesis
- be supported data
- account for the patterns of all learners
- accommodate wide diffs in what is normal
- accommodate diff rates & styles

Structuralism

concerned with the actual form of an utterance

Functionalism

what function is being comunicated

Competence vs. Performance

A person may have an internalized system of rules that constitutes a basic linguistic competence, but this competence may not always be reflected in the person's actual use of the language (performance)

Nativism vs. Empiricism

Nativism: Belief that we are born with the ability to learn language - We are predestined to learn language

Empiricism: Belief that the environment and its interactions with the child are most important in the child learning language

LAD

language acquisition device
Chomsky
hypothetical brain structure enabling our species to learn and produce language

interactionist

Cognitive, social, and usage/gestural

evidence refuting behaviorism

- parents respond more to content to form
- too rapid

behaviorism

language is reinfirced like any other behavior
- more renforcement models = more skills
- concerned w/ observable stuff

classical conditioning

a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events

IDD

Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

serial processing

Cognitive process involving considering each input one at a time

parallel processing

the processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously

parallel-distributed processors (PDPs)

memory results from weblike connections among interacting processing units operating simultaneously, rather than sequentially

linguistic

- language is innate in humans
- children have internsal grammar prompting productivity
- grammar generates all possible sentan ces in a language
- LAD triggered by info/enviornment

nominalist fallacy

the belief that simply naming a phenomenon also sufficiently explains that phenomenon

evidence of linguistic

- children use unmodeled words
- similar pattetns accross langs
- deaf children invent signs w/ hearing parents

evidence refuting linguistic

- a poverty of imagination
- children get negative evidence
- no neurologic basis for a critical period

cognitive

- language is just another of our many skills from cognitive development
- only the cognitive precursors are innate, not lang

Constructivism

structures immerge as a result of the interaction bettween the child's current cognitive functuionin and current linguistic and non and envionrment

Constructivism evidence

- new functions are expressed in old forms and and vice versa
- cognition and languge milstones happren todether
- objectpermsance & dissaperence words

Constructivism refuted

- dissociated b/w cognition & language
- Willisam's syndrome & turners
- research shows no link

priming (interactionost

An enhanced ability to think of a stimulus, such as a word or object, as a result of a recent exposure to the stimulus

Selected evidence in support priming

Computer simulation of acquisition of past tense- never gets the rule but performance the way that children learn languages

Selected evidence to refute priming

- assumes text presentation
- difficult w/ sequential and lang is sequential

social interactionist theory

-the structure of human language may have arisen from language's social communicative function in human relations.
- function of lang in soc com are through central development
- children cue parents to supply appropriate lang experience that children requirement for lang
- innate linguistic predisposition must interact with the environment to mature

child-directed speech

the high-pitched, simplified, and repetitive way adults speak to infants

Zone of Proximal Development - Vygotsky (ZPD)

- the difference between what children can do with assistance and what they can do alone
- supplying supportive communication input and adjusting to match the child's abilities

ZPD support

- comprehension feedback from a child(what?) elicits simp
speech
- mothers who spend more time talking about the object of child vis gaze patterns had babies who used first words earlier and initial vocab
- outcomes for children who have been neglected

ZPD refuted

- CDS not necessary or even helpful to learning
- is it benifit equally in ages
- much of the dat re correlational

screen time

sedentary time spent using an electronic device, such as a television, computer, or video game player

Gestural and usage-based theorists

roots of lang are commu pointing and icon pantomine
usage
- grammar emerges through cognitive and socia; skills
- social
- pattern finding facilitates lang acquisition

Gestural and usage-based theorists support

- the ability of apes to communicate in gesture is better than vocals
- neural underpinnings in sigh language processing and spoken are similar

joint attention

two individuals focus on one thing

theory of mind

an awareness that other people's behavior may be influenced by beliefs, desires, and emotions that differ from one's own

prelinguistic kids

- around the first 12 months
-responsive to language
- vocalization
-communications through nonword vocalization and gestures

intentional communication

a message that is purposely sent to a specific receiver

infant-directed speech (IDS)

the simplified, exaggerated, high-pitched tones that adults and children use to speak to infants that function to help teach language

head-turn preference procedure (HPP)

a method of testing very young infants' linguistic knowledge or preferences by measuring the amount of time they turn their heads in the direction of a sound file

protodeclarative

baby points to, touches, or holds up an object while looking at others to make sure they notice

Gaze coupling (dyadic gaze)

Turn-taking behavior where eye contact is established between parent and child and then broken, then re-established

first words

10-15 months

protoword

A word that is symbolic to the child and possibly the family but not to the world at large

protoimperative

A preverbal communicative gesture in which the baby gets another person to do something by reaching, pointing, and often making sounds at the same time.

Spectrograms

A pattern for sound analysis that provides a three-dimensional display plotting time on the horizontal axis, frequency on the vertical axis, and intensity in color or gray scale

Janet Werker

research on infants' ability to detect phonemic contrasts in NATIVE vs. NONNATIVE languages: interested in the kinds of perceptual biases infants bring to speech perception
infant turns head when detect change in sound or "CATEGORICAL BOUNDARY"
Found that 6-8 month olds can distinguish speech sounds in ALL OF WORLDS LANGUAGES
declines 8-10 months, disappears after 1 year
illustration of maintenance loss, can discriminate in speech sounds they've never heard

Pat Kuhl

-Language has a critical period
-No language learning occurs without human interaction

Gestural and usage-based refuted

- cant track
- more info needed