Language development Chapter 6

Adults and language teaching

No direct, but some

Child is presented with ______ due to adults and language adaptation

A good role model

Increases chance that child will?

Respond again, adults want to keep the conversation going

Cognitive development is related to_____

Memory- increase of memory

Acquisition and use of language and syntax

Language delay vs. normal developing in terms of play level

Children who are language delayed tend to play with inandiment objects such as blocks, children without language delay tend to play with anatimate objects such as dolls and figures, and they play with them with words.

Relationship between comprehension and production.

Dynamic relationship. Comprehension is always greater than production, you know a lot more than you say.RElationship changes as the child gets more mature, relationship is complex.

Does a child fully comprehend a word before he produces it?

No

Can you use a word without knowing its full meaning?

Yes, they figure it out, then they fine tune comprehension and production together. They've heard it before, they can repeat it. They use it and get feedback and then can learn the exact meaning.

Before you can use even ten words you know ____.

50

Before word recognition, a child learns that a word _____. Same concept of a CPF. A child knows how a word goes together, syllable patterns.

Means something

Toddlers and words

Toddlers rely on the use of objects and the semantic relationships in order to figure out what a word means.

Toddlers and comprehension

Ex: Parent asks, do you want to read a book? Parent picks up a book and shows it to child and child figures out what book is.

Child expressive strategies. Linguistic knowledge. Children use what 4 expressive strategies

1) Evocative Utterances

2)Hypothesis-testing

3)Interrogative Utterances

4)Selective Imitation

Evocative Utterances

Names-means to name something, evoke a response. Then adult gives feedback. Positive correlation between verbal input by adults 20 months and vocabulary size and utterance length by 24 months. Children and verbal parents, children are more verbal than parents.

Hypothesis testing

When child is guessing what a word is.

-Intonation pattern- A question intonation pattern. Then the parent responds

-Direct way of gaining information.

Interrogative Utterances

Question words- ex: why, what, "wassat" (for what's that?), dat (for that).

-Early words

-Direct request

-Questions before words-point

-24 months- There is a positive correlation between the number of questions asked by children and the vocabulary size.

Selective Imitation

A whole or partial repetition of an utterance of another speaker within no more than three successive child utterances.

____ % of toddler's speech may be imitative

20

Complexity of imitation

Often better than what they would reproduce in their own speech. They can imitate a lot even if they cannot produce this language. Learning strategie.

Imitation decreases-when and why?

At about two years old when child's language complexity increases. They can imitate about anything because their memories are better.

Imitation of single words important for ______

vocabulary growth

Purpose of selective imitation

May serve as a conversational device. May serve as a positive response (ex: do you want a cookie? Child says, cookie!)

Adult forms- imitation makes the adult form more accessible to the child. You have to remember how to do it and produce it on your own, a high-level skill.

What does selective imitation enable?

Child to be apart of an adult conversation

Selective imitation strategies.

Focus operations

Substitution operations

Focus operations

Minimal linguistic skill

Age 3

Will repeat one or two words of the adult. Ex: Parent says "Time to go night-night now," child says "night night"

Substitution operations

Substitute words

Example, Parent says "Time to go night-night," child says "night-night blanky."

Topic- structure, Topic is maintained, but more semantic information is given (ex: I want my blanky)

What happens to selective imitation?

As spontaneous speech increases imitation decreases.

What do children imitate?

What they are in the process of learning or have just learned.

Selective imitation enables

The children to participate in conversation and explore new words.

Verbal routine

When a child has processed and memorized an entire utterance as a unit. Words aren't separate in a unit. Ex: See ya, by, becomes seeyaby. Read a book, readabook. Around 20 months they begin to separate the units.

Bootsrapping

Pul yourself up by your bootstraps means figure it out and help yourself. Application to language: Use what you know to figure out what you don't know. Sematic and Semantic means using what you know to figure out the word meanings and word types.

Dan Slobin

Universal language- Learning strategies. 1978- linguist who was interested in what kids do universally, what do kids do across different languages and cultures. Learned 40 different languages. Patterns of development or behavioral strategies children use to learn syntax. Strategies inferred.

Slobin 1

-Pay attention to word endings before prefixes.

- -s, -er, ed endings before un- and dis-.

Slobin 2

Phonological forms of words can be systematically modified. Pronunciation. Ex: box can boxes.

Slobin 3

-Pay attention to word and morpheme order. First principle, or one of the earliest principles that children learn.

-Morpheme order in child speech, even in delayed speech children can figure out morpheme order.

Ex: S-V-O word order to comprehend what you say to them.

Slobin 4

-Avoid interruption and rearrangement of linguistic units

- Processing, strain on processing

- Questions

-New structures- tacked on to the end of sentence.

Ex: Bed, no. What you are eating.

-Later- they get better and move the structures.

Slobin 5

-Underlying semantic relations should be marked overtly (obviously) and clearly.

- Meaning

-Clear semantic notions are learned very early.

-Ex: In English passive tense is hard, so kids learn it later. It is easy in Arabic so its learned earlier.

-Marking "unmarked" words. I goed instead of I went. Noun example: Mans instead of men. Fots or feets instead of feet, etc.

Slobin 6

-Avoid exceptions- If you have a rule use it.

- Overgeneralize- Instead of the baby fell the baby falled.

-If you have a rule, always use it! Kids learn these rules early. Learn how to make past and plural and jaren.

Slobin 7

-Grammatical markers should make sematic sense

-Overgeneralizations, children limit their categories to appropriate semantic categories.

Confusions: don't mix up prepositions and pronouns but might confuse he and she.

Slobin Summary

-Cognitive growth is seen through language development

-Other languages- These traits are apparent across many languages.

-Syntax- rules attempt to explain how children acquire syntax.

Motherese/Parentese

Adult speech a to a toddler (not an infant). Similar to IDS but directed to an older audience. Modifications to how mom speaks so toddler can respond better. A little more stringent in how she accepts responses, expects more answers.

Characteristic of motherese

-Paralinguistic- Higher pitch, slower rate, smooth rhythm

-Lexical- simple vocab, talks about what a toddler can see, what they are doing. Not about things that are far away or not present

-semantic- shorter utterences, lots of interagative

-Syntactic- shorter utterences, ltos of interagative

-Conversational- very conversational, really encourage child to participate. Main goal is to get the child to participate.

Effect of Motherese

-Aids in getting child to participate

-Process the adult utterance. Slower, more interesting. Helps the child to figure out what she is doing.

-Helps to elicit a response, with a toddler you want a correct response, or an answer to a question.

-Assumption is that it helps in development

-The most important part is to engage in conversation with the child.

Fathers

Fathers and caregivers, make a lot of clarification requests, asking what they said or what they meant

Prompting, parental behavior: 3 types:

1)Fill-in- ex: look, this is a ____

2)Elicited imitation- get the child to imitate, ex: "say book, say duck" tell them to say it.

3)Questions: "Is this a duck? No, it's a hen!"

____ - _____ % of speech directed toward children are questions. Helps train them to be a conversation partner, you want a response.

20-50

Less than ___ % of kids utterances are followed by verbal approval

10%

Reinforcement is given for ____

truth value.

Types of responding behaviors:

Expansion

Extension

turnabout

Expansion

-A more mature version of a child's utterance that maintains word order. Ex: child says "mommy eat," mommy says "mommy is eating."

- About 30% of moms response to child's utterances are expansions.

-Mom assumes that her expansion is what the child would say if the child had the words.

What happens to expansion?

It goes away when child's utterances get longer than 2 words.

Extensions

-Semantically related topic.

-Ex: "mommy eat," to "mommy hungry"

-Gives more information

Reformulations/recasts

Adult checking- The adult is checking to make sure they understand. Older, use when child is saying more complex utterances.

Parental imitation

Parents often imitate their children as well. Child says something, parent repeats, and sometimes child will repeat again. Learning and processing- sometimes its a loop.

Conversation with Preschoolers

-Encourage, often conversations with preschoolsers are met with a lot of encouragement.

-Use prefix words- purpose? Wx: well, now. Get there attention, let them know they are listening.

-Use redundant utterances- Let them know that they are listening. Ex: yes, oh, ok umhm

-Not disruptive

Turnabouts

Definition: Child says something, you respond and then ask for more information. Ex: child says "I falled down" mom says "you fell down, how?"

-Dialogue builder.

Contingent Query/ Clarification Request

Type of a turnabout- a clarification. Usually do this if the information isn't clear.

-Teaches the child he must satisfy the needs of the listener.

-Can be just a word- ex: what?

Play and language

Develops within a context of play. A child's work is play. develop all of their language skill within this context.

-Ideal because: non-goal, pressure, frustration, shared, turn-taking.

In North America, boy and girl differences

Adults emphasize domestic activities a lot with girls and emphasize exploratory contexts a lot with boys.

Mothers of late-talking children

mothers of these children often lower their expectations, which is not a good thing because it puts them behind more

Cultures and verbal precocity

we often say that early talking kids will be smart which is not always true

IDS and culture

Not all cultures engage in IDS or mothereas

Reading and TV

Research shows that having a kid in front of a TV does not increase his vocabulary but reading does. Watching T.V your brainwaves are flat, but reading they are not.

Differences and language learning

Regardless of all the differences, children learn language at about the same time without any direct teaching.