Week 6 | Infancy Language

Language Comprehension (receptive)

Understanding what others say or write or sign

Language Production (productive)

Speaking or writing or signing

What are the 4 components of language development?

• Phonological - phonemes

• Semantic - morphemes

• Syntactic - syntax

• Pragmatic - how to use

What are Phonemes?

The smallest distinguishable sound units of a language

• newborns prefer sounds from their native language

How do we distinguish Phonemes?

Perceive speech sounds as belonging to discreet phonemic categories (/p/ and /b/)

When does this ability diminish and what is it called?

Over the first year of life, perceptual narrowing

• infants: most languages

• adults: only their native language

Statistical learning + 8 year olds ability

Ability to learn regularities in language, such as which speech sounds make up words

• 8 year old: 2 minutes

What is Novelty Preference?

Awareness of statistical likelihoods of syllable co-occurence

Producing sounds: 4 types of sounds

• Crying newborn: all cries are not equal

• Cooing 2-3 month: vowel sounds “ooooh”

• Babbling/canonical syllables 6-7 month: consonant-vowel combos “mama”

• Conventional words 12 month: words for objects/events

what do 2-3 year olds have trouble with?

Pronouncing specific words like spaghetti

Semantic development: What is Receptive language?

The ability to understand language and the meaning of words and phrases

When do kids understand nouns vs verbs?

6 months = understand first noun

10-13 months = understand verbs

Holophrastic language? What ages to kids get it?

Using a single word to express a compete thought

12 month: First word, largely nouns/names

18-24 month: Vocabulary spurt

What are the two common errors within holophrastic language in young children?

• Overextension

  • stretch the meaning of words

• Underextension

  • restrict the meaning of words

First words in different language backgrounds

For children who speak different languages, their first words are simple nouns referring to objects

Fast Mapping

Rapidly learning a new word simply from the contrastive use of a familiar and unfamiliar word

• ex: get the chromium tray, not the red one

Syntactic development: Syntactic Bootstrapping

Children learn the meaning of words by using the context in which the words appear

“The duck is cradling the bunny”

“The duck and bunny are cradling”

18-24 month old producing sentences

Multi-word utterances

Telegraphic speech?

Simple 2 word sentences

ex: daddy cook

Morpheme

The smallest unit of meaning in language

Pragmatic development: What are Protoconversations?

Caregiver-infant give and take dialogue, including words, sounds, and gestures well timed and responsive to each other

How do infants use social cues?

Infants user social cues that signal the speakers attention and intention to learn new words

ex: gestures, eye gaze

Attention vs Intention

Attention = what the speaker is focusing on

Intention = what the speaker is trying to communicate

Do infants use gestures to communicate? What are 2 types

Yes

Protoimperatives

• Using adults to get things for you

Protodeclaritives

• Sharing an experience with another person (point at dog)

Learning the meanings of words: Nativist Theory

Human brains are prewired to acquire language

• Language Acquisition Device - Noam Chomsky

• Language-making Capacity - Dan Slobin

Cognitive Bias (2 fundamental assumptions)

• Whole-object assumption

  • a novel word will refer to a whole object, not a part

• Mutual exclusivity assumption

  • a given entity only has one name (‘where is the blicket?”)

How do deaf children apply to the Nativist Theory?

Deaf children with little exposure to sign language acquire language milestones at roughly the same time as hearing children

What are the two things required for Language Acquisition?

• A human brain (has 3 components)

• A human environment

What are the three components of the human brain required for language acquisition?

• Species-specific and species-universal

• Brain language

• Critical period

Species specific & Species universal

• A species-specific behaviour

• A species-universal behaviour

What are the 2 main areas of Brain Language relation

Left hemisphere specialization

• Broca’s area (speech production)

• Wernicke’s area (speech comprehension)

Critical period hypothesis

Theres a biological window in life (birth to puberty) where humans naturally and effortlessly acquire a first language

• Early deprivation

• Brain damage at different ages

• Billingual with different exposure onset ages

A Human Environment is also required.

What is Infant-directed talk?

The distinctive mode of speech that adults adopt when talking to babies and very young children

What are a couple points about Infant-directed talk?

• Common but not universal

• Emotional tone, Exaggeration

Summary

Describing language development

• Phonological

• Semantic

• Syntactic

• Pragmatic

Explaining Language Development

• Nativist account

• What is required? (humans brain + environment)