Language and Speech Development: Exam 1

Speech

• Verbal or spoken means of communicating

• Requires precise neuromuscular coordination, planning, and sequencing of oral motor movements

• Involves other aspects involving voice quality, intonation, and rate which change the meaning of what is said

• Contains phonemes - specific sounds/sound combos such as /s/ or /sl/; involves how we say our sounds and use our articulators effectively

• Humans are the only beings that can produce the complexity of speech sounds/combinations; animals make sounds, but not near the complexity of human speech production

Language

• Socially shared code system for representing concepts through symbols and rules of how they’re combined

• Safe code in which we make symbols stand for something else

• Form of social behavior maintained by verbal communication

• Involves/consists of/requires:

  • 5 parameters: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics

  • Involves gestures, facial expressions, and body postures to convey messages and change meaning or interactions with others as well

  • Affected by and based on biological, cognitive, psychosocial, and environmental factors

  • Requires understanding of non-verbal cues, motivation, and social-cultural rules

Communication

• Exchange of information and ideas, needs, and desires between 2 or more people

• Complex; involves speech, language, hearing, memory, and planning

• Involves and is affected by social and cultural norms and situations

• Involves encoding, transmitting, and decoding the intended message (also requires a sender and receiver, each party must understand the message conveyed)

Communicative competence

If a speaker successfully transmits a message, and a receiver successfully understands the message sent; the degree of success in communication measured by the appropriateness and effectiveness of the message

Paralinguistic cues

Intonation, stress/emphasis (most complex bc it changes meaning, signals, or mood), speed/rate of communication delivery, and pause/hesitation during communication

Non-linguistic cues

Gestures, body posture, facial expression, eye contact, head nod/body movements, and physical proximity/physical distance

Metalinguistic cues

Help us analyze language, think about language, and judge how appropriate or correct language is when we say or hear things

Language is a social tool

• Without communication, language has no purpose

• The purpose of language is to be a code of transmission between people

• Language is how we are social with others

Language is rule-governed

• The way we arrange our words and sounds into forming language isn’t random

  • The rules that form language help us as users to create/form and understand the messages between one anohter

Linguistic competence

Understanding the rules of languages

Linguistic performance

Using the rules of language appropriately

Syntax

• The form or structure of a sentence; this specifies word, phrase, sentence order

• Contains a noun phrase and a verb phrase

• Involves an arrangement of words to form an overall meaningful sentence

• Denotes word order and overall structure of a sentence

• Contains different types of sentences (passive, active, questions, declaratives, commands, or exclamations)

• As children mature, they begin to use complex constructions such as compound and complex sentences

Morphology

• The study of word structure and how words are formed out of morphemes

  • Morpheme - smallest meaningful unit of language; these are used to form words

• Consists of free morphemes - words that can’t be broken down into smaller parts (ocean, book, color, connect) and bound morphemes - words that can’t stand alone and must be joined to a free morpheme to make sense (“ing”, plurals, possessive /s/, and past tense “ed”)

• Can change the meaning of a word

• Understanding these is important when performing a language and speech sample

Phonology

• The scientific study of the sound systems and patterns used to create sounds and words of a language

  • Phoneme - smallest unit of sound, placed in slashes (/p/ for example); The English language contains 44 phonemes

• Contains phonological rules - explain how phonemes are distributed and sequenced through a language

  • Sequencing phonology rules - explain differences in sound production/modifications when 2 phonemes occur next to each other; and discuss the act that certain sounds aren’t placed together to form a word (for example, you can end a word with “nd” but cannot begin a word with “nd”)

Semantics

• The study of the meaning of language which is conveyed by the words, phrases, sentences, and conversations we speak during communication

• Consists of a person’s vocabulary, antonyms, synonyms, multiple meanings of words, humor, and figurative language like metaphors, idioms, and proverbs

• Consists of semantic categories: recurrence, rejection, causality, overextension, under-extension, world knowledge, fast mapping, and categorization

Pragmatics

• The study of rules that govern the use of language in social situations

• Being successful means that both speaker and listener understand acceptable language use

• Involves functions of language:

  • Labeling

  • Protesting

  • Commenting

  • Knowing when to talk without being redundant

  • Keeping sentences in a logical and coherent order

  • Turn-taking

  • Staying on topic

  • Repairing communication breakdowns

  • Using a normal flow of discourse

Dialect

Subcategories of a parent language that uses similar but not identical rules

Style shifting

A variation from formal speaking to informal speaking based on the situation

Code-switching

Being able to vary language rules between 2 different languages during interactions

Articulators consist of:

• Lips, teeth, tongue, hard and soft palate, pharynx, larynx, lungs, and diaphragm

• Help us produce our speech production effectively and our articulation

Articulation is developed in sounds from ________ to most ___________.

easiest; difficult

Substitution in articulation

Ex: “gog” for “dog”, “tar” for “car”, “tee” for “see”

Omission in speech

• Leaving a sound out of a word

• Ex: “cu” for “cup”, “poon” for “spoon”, “at” for “hat”

Baby milestones:

• Should be cooing as early as 2 months

• Babbling by 10 months

• First word by 1 year/12 months

• Putting two words together by 2 years/24 months

Chomsky’s theory:

Says language is innate

Skinner’s theory

Behaviorist theory (says language is learned through the environment)

Piaget’s theory

Language development is based on developmental stages

Vygotsky’s theory

Social learning theory (language is learned through social interactions and interaction with others)

Outer/external ear

Consists of the auricle (pinna) and auditory canal

Middle ear

Air-filled cavity, contains three small bones (malleus, incus, stapes), the eardrum, and the eustachian tube

Inner ear

Contains the oval window and round window, semicircular canals, and cochlea

Normal gestation period:

• Typically 38-42 weeks

• Anything below is premature, anything above is post-mature

Birth to 3 months:

• Startle reflex, eye blinking

• Limb movement

• Head turning toward/away, suck swallow breathe pattern should be established

• Coos, gurgles, and reflexive sounds noted

• Prefers vowel sound productions

• Beginning to discriminate between high and low sounds

12 months:

• Understand up to 25 words receptively, but typically only produces the first word at this age

• Sound imitation of common household sounds, animals, and first consistent word emerges

18 months:

Tremendous growth in vocabulary comprehension, 100-200 words understood; first 50 words now being used

24 months:

Understands and follows verbal directions well with critical elements, begins to understand “wh” questions, and begins placing 2 words together to form short phrases

36 months:

Shares auditory experiences from memory, will hold a seemingly appropriate conversation with an inanimate object, using over 200 and even up to 1,000 words but understanding between 2,000-3,000 words

Conductive hearing loss

Occurs when hearing loss occurs b/c sound is prevented due to problems through the ear canal and middle ear; may be caused by wax impaction, fluid/otitis media, or due to physical abnormalities/abnormal fusion of middle ear bones or failed development of ear canal; results in inability to hear soft sounds or even conversation

Sensorineural hearing loss

Occurs when damage to the cochlea (inner ear) or auditory pathways that deliver information to the cochlea occurs; involves damage to the neural structures of the sensory system; may occur in one or both ears and may have different levels of hearing loss in each ear; can range from mild (not hearing soft sounds only) to total deafness

Congenital hearing loss

Present at birth; 50-60% occurs due to this and may be genetic

Acquired hearing loss

Develops after birth due to infection, physical damage, occurring during birth, maternal health conditions during pregnancy (environmental conditions)

Genetic hearing loss

• When one or both of the child’s parents have hearing loss

  • Although it should be noted that 90% of children born with hearing loss have parents with normal hearing, which is termed non-genetic

  • Non-genetic makes up the other 40-50% of pop. born with hearing loss and stem from maternal health conditions and infections during pregnancy; also considered “environmental” because the conditions stem from the child’s prenatal environment

Idiopathic hearing loss

Hearing loss when the cause is unknown

Common signs of hearing loss in children:

• No response when called

• Inconsistent response to sound

• Delayed speech and language development

• Unclear speech; problems with possible voice, fluency, and resonance as well

• Misunderstanding or not following directions

• Frequent requests for clarification (saying “huh” and “what”)

• Sound turned up on electronic equipment (radio, TV, computer, games, etc.)

Newborn Hearing Screening/Early Hearing Detection:

• Performed on all newborns before hospital departure; part of the National Institutes of Health Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program; this ensures that hearing loss is identified in newborns and that follow-up medical/audiology services are provided in a timely manner

• All newborns and infants who do not pass the initial screening are rescreened and should have confirmatory audiological and medical evaluations no later than 3 months of age

• All infants with confirmed permanent hearing loss should receive early intervention as soon as possible, no later than 6 months of age

• Case history interview is done with parents, as well as instrumentation like tympanometry, ABR, VRA, etc.

Different types of amplification:

• Primary goal being to ensure that speech is audible at a variety of loudness levels, infant/child should be provided the most appropriate and efficient hearing aid possible/customized hearing aid

  • Body aid - worn under person’s shirt

  • Behind the ear - fits behind the ear and has an internal receiver

  • In the ear - a small unit which fits within the concha of the external ear

  • In the canal - fits in the ear canal and is less visible

Cochlear implant

• For those who have profound hearing losses and cannot benefit from hearing aids

• Electronic devices surgically placed in the cochlea and other parts of the ear; deliver sound directly to the acoustic nerve endings in the cochlea

• Even if the patient is profoundly deaf, there is often a large residual population of primary cochlear neural elements and a cochlear implant can take advantage of those elements

• Deliver electrical impulses, converted from sound, directly to the auditory nerve

Receptive language

The understanding of language; to comprehend the message; also involves the ability to understand and comprehend spoken, written, and non-verbal speech and language skills (also involves understanding the meaning of words, concepts, questions, and figurative language)

Language comprehension

One’s ability to understand the linguistic information in a message (what’s happening, who’s speaking, what was previously said, visual information available); involves vocabulary, grammar, content analysis, and inference making

Red flags of language comprehension

• Not listening or responding

• Not following directions

• Not repeating or imitating

• Little speech development

• Problems processing oral directions

• Immature vocabulary

• Poor reading skills as children grow

• Poor reading comprehension

Birth to 1 year:

• Alert to sound

• Quiets to smiles when you talk

• Turns or looks toward voices or people talking

• Recognizes loved ones and some common objects

19-24 months:

Uses and understands 50 words, puts 2 words together

2-3 years:

Uses 3-4 words, often says “watch me,” know their name, begins to use plurals, asking “wh-” and “how” questions, begins to use possessives (i.e. daddy’s socks)

4-5 years:

Producing most sounds correctly, carrying on full-blown conversations, producing sentences that are longer and more complex

Gestures

• Communicate meaning and accompany speech development and production

• Can be manual, facial, or other bodily movements

• Essential for speaking

Deictic gestures

• Showing, giving, pointing, and using ritual request gestures to communicate

• These are repetitive, symbolic body movements used to communicate a request

• Raising a hand to ask a question; moving an adult’s hand toward bubbles to show they want them

• Also consists of hand waving, nodding head for yes/no, blowing kisses, and shrugging shoulders (I don’t know)

Representational gestures

• Hand, body, and facial movements that convey information about a person, object, location, or event

• Iconic gestures or “baby signs” - baby sign language is a set of simple hand gestures and movements, or signs that correspond to common words you use with your body everyday

• Moving arms in air to symbolize an airplane, pinching your fingers close together to signify that an object is small

Emblem gestures

• Emblematic

• Body language, conveys a clear verbal meaning without the use of words

• May be used in place of speech or with it

• Examples are: “A-OK, thumbs up, peace sign, shhhh, finger over lips to “be quiet” or even just a look from someone that lets you know you’re in trouble

Beat gestures

• Hand movements made in time with speech and can influence how speech is perceived

• Quick up down hand movements used w/ speech to help ifnluence how speech is heard or perceived

• Made when the speaker emphasizes a word or phrase

• Help with pragmatics and understanding of what’s being said

• Children begin using beat gestures around 2 years and later help with the child being able to tell stories as well as word recall

________ is the most common first gesture that happens.

Pointing

Gestures can also replace _______________.

language and speech in children (may be an issue as the child grows up)