L7 Language and Education

Ch 9

What are the three components of language?

• Form ⇒ syntax (grammar - rules for forming sentences), morphology, phonology

• Content ⇒ semantics (meaning of words & sentences) 

• Use ⇒ pragmatics (how language is used appropriately in diff social contexts)

What is the difference between phonemes and morphemes? What is prosody?

• Phonemes ⇒ basic units of sound that can change the meaning of a word

• Morphemes ⇒ basic units of meaning that exist in a word (e.g. prefixes, roots, suffixes, or radicals in Chinese characters)

• Prosody ⇒ melody of speech (e.g. pitch, intonation, pauses)  

Fill in the blanks

• Broca’s area (frontal area of left hemisphere - inferior frontal gyrus) 

  • Broca’s aphasia = difficulty in speech articulation

• Wernicke’s area (temporal lobe)

  • Wernicke’s aphasia = difficulty in speech comprehension 

• __________ connects Wernicke’s and Broca’s area

What is the general localisation of auditory functions for each hemisphere?

• Left hemisphere ⇒ listening to speech

• Right hemisphere ⇒ processing speech   

Within the theories of nature and nurture, which supports the “nature” perspective?

• Universal grammar ⇒ idea that there is a system of common rules and properties for learning any of the world’s languages

• Language Acquisition Device ⇒ proposed that all people have LAD, though there is no specific associated brain region

  • LAD is area of brain that sifts through language, applies universal rules, and tailors system to specifics of language spoken in young child’s development

• Nativist theory of language acquisition ⇒ children learn native language with ease due to innate biological/genetic predisposition

Within the theories of nature and nurture, which supports the “nurture” perspective?

• Poverty of the stimulus ⇒ env stimulus of language input can be impoverished to support (activate LAD) the linguistic output that emerges 

• Learning perspective

  • observational learning - children learn words they hear spoken by others

  • operant conditioning - more likely to use new words if reinforced

• Professional vs welfare family - amount of child-directed speech

What does the interactionist perspective say about language acquisition?

• Biologically based competencies and lang env interact to shape lang development 

• Similar as Piaget/Vygotsky

  • lang dev depends on maturation of cog abilities + social interactions w adults contribute to dev

What is the name for special education needs related to language development? 

• Speech and Language Impairment (SLI) or Developmental Language Disorder (DSD) 

• not associated w known biomedical condition

What are the four categories of SLI?

• articulation problems (speech sound disorder) - pronunciation issues

• language problems (language disorder) - difficulty in comprehension and expression

• fluency problem (fluency disorder) - stuttering

• voice problem (voice disorder) - loss of voice, difficulty in volume control, etc

What are the neural bases of SLI?

• inferior frontal gyrus

• caudate nucleus

What kind of language disorder is dyslexia?

• reading + visual/perceptive difficulties in reading (+ writing depending on cultural context)

• specific learning disorder in DSM5 ⇒ 80% is dyslexia

• prevalence of 10% globally

• neurodevelopmental disorder

• more cognitive resources and working memory

• brain region: broca’s area, inferior frontal gyrus

Describe the stages of language development for babies

• Birth - communicate through any sound

• 0-2 m/o - cooing 

• 3-4 m/o - consonant sounds 

• 4-6 m/o - babbling 

• 7-12 m/o - word segregation (detect target word in stream of speech) 

• 12 m/o - social and linguistic cues used (joint attention, syntactic bootstrapping), goes from receptive vocab → expressive vocab (choosing word from picture → showing picture to label)

  • first words (usually noun > verb)

• 12-18 m/o - holophrases (single word that functions as a complete phrase or sentence)

• 18-24 m/o - rapid expansion in vocab, telegraphic speech (early combination of 2-3 words), functional grammar (emphasis on semantics, meanings being expressed)

When does culture-bound listening begin to emerge?

• between 6-8 m/o - infants can recognise sound changes regardless of language

• culture-bound listening begins to develop at 10 m/o

What kind of mistakes do children make when first developing their language skills?

• over extension - applying broader word category

• under extension - referring to specific subset within broad category

• over-regulation - over applying syntactic/language rules

What is mastery motivation and what does it impact?

• striving for mastery - inborn & universal

• some infants are more mastery oriented than others

• affects later achievement behaviour

  • babies who attempt to master challenges at 6-12 m/o score higher on mental dev tests at 2 y/o

What effect does babies watching educational videos have on their language abilities?

• for each hour spend watching videos, babies understood 6-8 fewer words 

What effects does educational preschool programmes have on toddlers?

• provides initial adv in basic academic skills

• ultimately depends on quality of programme

  • sometimes may result in child being less creative and more anxious in test conditions

What kind of preschool programmes are the most beneficial?

• programmes w mix of play and academic activities

• Abecedarian Project → children showed cognitive gains during and after, completed more years of education than control

What conditions allow for early education to have positive effects?

• stimulates cognitive growth

• provides programming for parents

• includes follow up in elementary school (to facilitate transition) 

• full-day programmes (routine, help w transition)

• allow time for play and social interaction 

What “awareness” increases during middle childhood?

metalinguistic awareness

• knowledge of lang as a system

• concept of words

• defining words

• grammar