Language Development Exam 2

Joint Attention

caregiver and child are focusing on the same object or event at the same time

Motherese

• type of adult speech production used with babies

  • short, simple sentences, high pitch, significant pauses, exaggerated facials, repeats babies and own utterances, utilizes object or activity baby is engaged in

Contingent Responses

• caregiver’s reaction/response to infant’s behavior; influencing infant’s behavior

• includes use of turn taking, responding to infant as communicative partner, mirroring

Expansions

• caregiver expands a child’s utterance into a complete form

• he/she does not change the order of the words in the child’s utterance and maintains what is believed to be child’s communicative intent

• ex: “Mommy Daddy” = Yes, Mommy and Daddy are here

• ex: “Mommy book” = Mommy, get a book for me?

How do expansions assist in language development?

• helping child better understand the grammatical functions of words and rules for combining them

• keeping communicative effort focused on subject the child selected

• reinforcing turn-taking in conversation

• also may be helpful in acquiring grammatical morphemes, such as plurals, possessives, and tense markers

Extensions

• when a caregiver does more than expand the child’s utterance by providing a more syntactically accurate model and additional semantic information

• ex: “Daddy go” = “Yes, Daddy went to work”

Hart and Risely Study: Child Directed Speech

• amount of parent talk to child directly relates to variation in IQ and language ability

• Amount of talk to child birth - 3 years predicts academic success at 9 & 10 years

• children with advanced language have parents who talk to them significantly more

Overextentions/overgeneralizations

one word expressed multiple meanings

ex: all animals with four legs = dogs

Underextensions

one word offers narrow application of a given meaning

ex: all juices are apple juice

Brown Stage 1

• Description

• Age Range (mos)

• MLU

• Semantic roles and grammatical relations

• 12-26 mos

• 1.0-2.0 MLU

Brown Stage 2

• Description

• Age Range (mos)

• MLU

• Grammatical morphemes and the modulation of meanings

• 27-30 mos

• 2.0-2.5 MLU

Brown Stage 3

• Description

• Age Range (mos)

• MLU

• Modalities of the simple sentence

• 31-34 mos

• 2.5-3.0 MLU

Brown Stage 4

• Description

• Age Range (mos)

• MLU

• Embedding of one sentence with another

• 35-40 mos

• 3.0-3.75 MLU

Brown Stage 5

• Description

• Age Range (mos)

• MLU

• Coordination of simple sentences and prepositional relations

• 41-46 mos

• 3.75-4.50 MLU

Morpheme

smallest unit of meaning in a word

Free Morpheme

• stands alone

• is a single word

• exists by itself as a unit of meaning

Bound Morpheme

• unit attached to words that adds information to the meaning

• can be derivational or inflectional

Inflectional Morpheme

• may only be a suffix

• changes meaning of word by marking grammatical meaning

• marks syntax such as plural, possession, and verb tense

Derivational Morpheme

• may be a prefix or a suffix

• the addition of the grammatical marker changes the class or category of the word

• ex: slow vs slowly

Present progressive

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• She running

• 19-28 mos

Preposition in

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• Milk in cup

• 27-30 mos

Preposition on

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• Doggie on bed

• 27-30 mos

Regular plural

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• Girls playing

• 27-33 mos

Irregular past tense

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• Mommy went work

• 25-46 mos

Possessive

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• Billy’s bike

• 26-40 mos

Uncontractible copula

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• Billy was bad

• 27-39 mos

Articles the & a

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• Daddy eating the cookie

• 28-46 mos

Regular past tense (-ed)

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• Mommy looked

• 26-48 mos

Regular 3rd person singular

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• She eats

• 26-46 mos

Uncontractible auxiliary

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• I was eating

• 29-48 mos

Contractible copula

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• Billy’s bad

• 29-49 mos

Contractible auxiliary

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• He’s running

• 30-50 mos

Irregular 3rd person singular

• Example

• Age range of mastery (mos)

• Daddy has cookie

• 28-50 mos

What does the vocabulary explosion refer to?

a rapid expansion of vocabulary at 18-24 months

Proto-Imperatives

• gesture (such as pointing) accompanied by vocalizations to indicate a request

• 8-9 months

• significant for recognition of adults as agent able to act on babies behalf

Proto-declaratives

• gesture (such as pointing) to indicate interest

• 8-9 months

• social implications

Protowords

• early words 1-2 syllables

• must be ritualized and consistently applied for a specific meaning

• ex: baba

Steps of Word Learning

1) The child hears the word or received the auditory cue (auditory cue)

2) The child’s memory is activated to recall previously learned-stored sounds and syllables (phonological representation)

3) The phonological information is then applied to semantic understand (word comprehension)

Why is there a noun preference during Word Learning?

• 80% of early vocabulary = nouns

• Objects are static and have shared qualities we agree upon, making them easier to learn

Fast-mapping

• the ability to learn new vocabulary when there is no overt expression of what this new word means

• an explanation for rapid vocabulary acquisition

Type-Token Ratio

• the purpose of it is to measure the pool of vocabulary words

• to measure frequency of use of novel words within a language sample

Perlocutionary Stage

• Age

• 2 characteristics

• Birth- ~8 mos

• Infant responds in a reflexive way to environment

• CG acts as if intentional messages sent

Illocutionary Stage

• Age range

• 2 characteristics

• 8-12 mos

• Intentional, but no words

• Combine gesture and vocalization to express a range or specfici and recognizable communicative functions

Locutionary Stage

• Age range

• 2 characteristics

• ~1 year +

• Expressive language development, intentional and uses true words

• Many communicative functions expressed

Dores’ Primitive Speech Acts: Labeling

identifies an object

Dores’ Primitive Speech Acts: Answering

responds to inquiry

Dores’ Primitive Speech Acts: Requesting an action

directed eye gaze, word production or prosodic changes; waits for response

Dores’ Primitive Speech Acts: Requesting an answer

asks for information from caregiver

Dores’ Primitive Speech Acts: Calling

attempt to gain attention of caregiver

Dores’ Primitive Speech Acts: Greeting

acknowledges caregivers presence

Dores’ Primitive Speech Acts: Protesting

rejects action or object

Dores’ Primitive Speech Acts: Repeating/Imitating

partial repetition

Dores’ Primitive Speech Acts: Practicing

produces a word or prosodic pattern without anyone in the room

Presupposition

an assumption that the child makes concerning what the caregiver understands regarding the subject of the conversation

Conversation

an informal or casual exchange of ideas, thoughts and feelings

Pragmatics

verbal and non-verbal rules of social interaction, commonly related to as social language; language use