Ch 2 - Communication Development in Infancy

Prelingustic

Occuring before the infant can speak

Screen Time

Amount of time infant/child spends engaged with digital device

Child-Directed Speech (CDS)

Special speech register used when talking to children

• Short sentences

• Greater repetition & questioning

• Higher & more variable intonation

Headturn Preference Procedure (HPP)

Method of testing infants on linguistic knowledge by measuring time they turn towards direction of a sound

Joint Attention

Mutual attention between child and parent

Contingent Comments

Comments made by one conversational partner that follow the topic of the other speaker

Sensitive Interaction Style / Responsive Interaction Style

Way of interacting with a language-learning child that takes lead from child’s interest

• Parent labels what child is pointing at

Verbally Intrusive Interactional Style / Controlling Interactional Style

Way of talking to infant that involves constant redirection of child’s attention

Categorical Perception

Innate auditory human skill where physical distinctions among tokens of sound are imperceptible within sounds classified as single phoneme in language

• Change rapidly across physical threshold that leads to perception of a different phoneme

Statistical Learning

Language learning where ability to use general cog. mech. to use distributional cues in input to derive rules of linguistic elements & co-occurrence probabilities

• Without resort to innate linguistic knowledge

Selective Attention

Ability / process of attending to particular stimulus among others

Phonological Working Memory

Process of receiving, analyzing, storing, and processing sound elements in language

• Might be required by the need to repeat linguistic stimuli

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Refers to autism & other related developmental disorders that share characteristics

• Asperger syndrome, Rett syndrome

Intentional Communication

Communicative act that an individual engages in purposefully

Theory of Mind

Assumptions individual holds about state of knowledge of others

• Children must develop this to speak to others at an appropriate level and to understand others intentions

Protowords

Sequence of sounds (used by child) that has relatively consistent meaning but not based on adult word

Low-Structured Observation

Method of studying young children that relies on free play with standard set of toys

Structured Observation

Research design that imposes consistency on observation by keeping constancies

• Bringing kid into lab playroom and giving them each the same toy

Communicative Temptation Task

Task designed to elicit communication efforts from infant

Late Talkers

Inability to produce at least 50 unique words or any multi-word combo by age of 24 months

Auditory Brainstem Responses (ABR)

Tests to measure unvoluntary electrophysiological activity from audiotry nerve in response to sound

Otoacoustic Emissions (OAE)

Sounds produced by cochlea either spontaneously or involuntarily by presentation of auditory stim

• Can provide info on health and function of hair cells in cochlea

Otitis Media with Effusion (OME)

Infections of middle ear, which can affect child’s speech and language development

Newborn

• Turns head to look in direction of sound

• Prefers listening to native language

• Prefers mother’s voice > strangers

• Discriminates many sounds used in speech

1-2 Months

• Smiles when spoken to

4-6 Months

• Shows recognition of own name and first words in lab settings

6-8 Months

• Able to segment words from fluent speech

8-10 Months

• Begins to lose ability to discriminate nonnative speech sounds

• Starts responding to own name and familiar routines

• Shows clear recognition of first words

Imperatives

Infant indicated they want the caregiver to perform an action, rejections & requests

Declaratives

Infant calls caregivers attention to something by gesturing or pointing (direct attention)