Language Acquisition and Aphasia

stages of language acquisition in order from youngest to oldest

prelinguistic, one word, multi word

prelinguistic stages

reduplicated babbling, jargon babbling

reduplicated babbling

first stage, repeating the same syllable over and over again, 6-12 months

jargon babbling

second stage, using different syllables, having a conversation but you don’t know what they’re saying, adding melody to voice, 9-18 months

one word stage

third stage, forming and repeating real words one at a time, can comprehend more than what they can produce, 1 year

multi word stage

last stage, putting about 2 words together and learning the rules of combining words, 2 years

Ashcraft’s 2 key features of the one word stage

holophrastic speech, over/underextensions

holophrastic speech

one word stands for a complex idea (I want milk)

overextensions/underextensions

broad/narrow use of words (calling all animals dog)

common one word stage words

nouns, names of people/objects, hi/bye

multi word utterances

growing syntactic knowledge (how to combine words), but syntax is often incorrect even though meaning is clear

errors in children’s speech

overregularization errors - applying rules incorrectly, saying goed/runned

what do overregulation errors suggest

internal rule use rather than imitation

regular verbs

adding -ed at the end (walked)

irregular verbs

having non-standard endings (went, eat, ate)

how do we form regular vs irregular verbs

regular is done by applying a grammatical rule, irregular must be memorized

why does Pinker state that irregular verbs are vulnerable because they rely on fallible memory

because they can be forgotten or confused, and if forgotten the wrong rules get applied (singed)

database

stores known irregular words

rules/grammar

applies general syntax rules

aphasia

language disorder that impairs speech

Broca’s aphasia

high comprehension, low fluency with using/connecting words, problems finding words

where is damage for Broca’s aphasia

Broca’s area in front left temporal lobe

Wernicke’s aphasia

low comprehension, high fluency of using/connecting words

were is damage in Wernicke’s aphasia

Wernicke’s area, back left temporal lobe

conduction aphasia

can’t understand or repeat non-words that don’t have meaning/don’t go together, fluent speech, good comprehension

where is damage for conduction aphasia

arcuate fasciculus (between Broca’s and Wernicke’s)

anomic aphasia

word finding problems, high comprehension, fluent speech

where is brain damage in anomic aphasia

lateral left temporal lobe

what are common causes of aphasia

stroke, trauma, surgical lesions