Language Development Exam 3 (Final)

Nativist Theory: Primary Theorist and Central Belief

Chomsky, Language is Innate

Behaviorist Theory: Primary Theorist and Central Belief

Skinnier, Language is Learned

Social Interactionalist Theory: Primary Theorist and Central Belief

Vygotsky, Language is the result of Social Interaction

Cognitive Interactionalist Theory: Primary Theorist and Central Belief

Piaget, Language is the result of Cognition

Semantic Interactionist Theory: Primary Theorist and Central Belief

Bloom, Study structure of early language in context of speaker’s intended message

Linguistic Universals

Language is a universal experience for all humans regardless of culture, language, or geography. There are underlying commonalities in all languages relating to syntax.

Commonalities in languages (Nativist)

• rules for organizing words

• distinguish between subject vs predicate

• allow for embedding clauses

• rules to indicate tense and plurality

• some common sounds

What does LAD stand for?

Language acquisition device

Explain the LAD:

1. It is a mechanism or function of the brain. There is no specific location to the LAD. It is considered in terms of its function

2. The LAD supports language learning by serving as a reservoir of all the syntactic rules required by the child’s language environment

3. The LAD is active critical period of language learning. After this period the LAD specializes in the child’s primary language(s) and language learning becomes more difficult

Transformative Generative Grammar

1. Explains the ability to produce unlimited number of grammatical sentences

2. Every language has deep and surface structures

   1. Phrase structure rules (deep): universal rules, Transformations (surface): language specific rules

Example of a Phrase Structure Rules (deep, universal rule)

The girl is going to hit the ball - question?

Example of a Transformational Rule (surface, language specific rule)

Is the girl going to hit the ball?

Operant

Any behavior whose frequency of occurence changes as a consequence of the response that follows it

Operant Conditioning:

1. Conditions voluntary behaviors through reinforcement when a behavior occurs

2. Consequences can increase or decrease the likelihood that similar behaviors occur under similar circumstances

Reinforcement

Occurs when frequency of behavior increases as a consequence of the response (+ or -)

Punishment

Occurs when frequency of behavior decreases as a consequence of the response. An averse stimulus that decreases the likelihood of a response

Positive Reinforcement

A stimulus that increases the frequency of a response when it occurs contingent on that response

Negative Reinforcement

A stimulus that increases the frequency of a response when it is removed contingent on that response

Example of Operant Conditioning and Language:

1. caregiver provides models

2. child imitates models

3. closest imitations are reinforced by the caregiver:

   1. giving what child wants

   2. responding with another comment

   3. giving attention

What are the three major interactionist theories?

*think six (SCS)

1. Semantic

2. Cognitive

3. Social

Semantic Interactionism + Proponent

Study structure of early language in context of speaker’s intended message

Proponent: Lois Bloom

Social Interactionism + Proponent

A child’s intent to communicate (not passive) leads them to interact with people who can respond to that intent. Caregiver meets intent and provides appropriate language model.

Language acquisition is a product of early social interactions with caregivers who provide language models.

Proponent: Lev Vygotsky

Zone of Proximal Development

Opportunities that family/caregivers have to provide/help kids make steady progress in development

Scaffolding

A child learns a given task through guidance (i.e. puzzles). The adult will gradually withdraw supports and reintroduce supports if child is failing more than succeeding

1. The child and adult talk with one another, learning the skill of solving a problem

2. Language is learned; becoming; private speech

3. Draws upon what child already knows

Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognition:

1. Cognitive development is the result of the interaction between child’s factors (innate abilities, self-directed exploration) and environmental/cultural factors (social experiences)

2. Children’s cognition and language influence each other; language is a key factor

Private Speech

This is when children talk to themselves and use it to guide through interactions

How does Private Speech assist in cognitive development?

1. Language guides us through actions to help think through problems and tasks

2. Language helps children; pay attention, memorize, and recall information, formulate and execute plans to solve problems, think ponder, muse

3. Language moves from an external activity “out loud” becomes “silent” or internalized

   1. This is observed in make-believe play and is linked to academic achievement

What are four Biological Factors that Vygotsky identified as precursors or innate biological skills required for cognition and language?

*think MAPS

1. Memory

2. Attention

3. Perception

4. Sensation

What are social and environmental factors promoting cognition?

1. Interactions with Other Who Knows More (OKM)

2. Cultural factors

3. Social Experiences

Cognitive Interactionism

Language emerges as a product of cognitive organization and development (not learned or innate). Although language is not innate, the cognitive precursors are innate

What is the premise of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development?

Cognitive acts organize children’s environments and are result of their adaptations to their environments

Schemata + Example

Cognitive structures that help children process, identify, organize, and store information (a category)

ex) a small, furry, four-legged animal is a dog

Assimilation + Example

A cognitive process whereby a new stimulus is fitted into an existing schema

ex) a child sees a cat for the first time and calls it a dog 

Accomodation + Example

A cognitive process whereby new schemas are created for information that does not fit existing schemata

ex) a child sees a cow and calls it a dog, but it is too big, and now creates a new category for a cow 

Equilibrium

A cognitive process to maintain balance between existing schemata (assimilation) and the creation of new schemata (accommodation)

ex) a child sees a cat and because they can differentiate from dogs, recognizes it as a cat 

Example of Equilibrium

Learning that not all four-legged animals are “dogs,” but that some are cats

Identify Piaget’s Four Stages of Intellectual Development:

*think specific (SPCF)

1. Sensorimotor: birth to two years

2. Pre-Operational: two to seven years

3. Concrete Operations: seven to eleven years

4. Formal Operations: eleven to fifteen years

Piaget’s Four Stages of Intellectual Development: Sensorimotor

• birth to two years

• primary skills: object permanence, means to ends

• highly reflexive and motor orientate

• does not manipulate ideas conceptually

Piaget’s Four Stages of Intellectual Development: Pre-Operational

• two to seven years

• child begins to think conceptually

• categorize things in her environment

• can solve physical problems

• studies in conservation and egocentricity

Piaget’s Four Stages of Intellectual Development: Concrete Operations

• seven to eleven years

• primary skills: conservation and perspective taking

• ability to think logically in concrete physical problems

• can place stimuli into categories based on order and level

Piaget’s Four Stages of Intellectual Development: Formal Operations

• eleven to fifteen years

• cognitive abilities become fully developed

• child can think abstractly, solve problems mentally, develop and test hypotheses

• reasons and thinks logically, abstractly

Rules of Piaget’s Stages:

1. Stages are NOT independent

2. Ages attached to stages are not absolute

Distancing + Example

The child relates to new stimuli from a greater and greater distance

ex) consider representation of a play object (egg) from requiring a play object that looks, feels, and acts like an egg —> an object in shape of an egg —> a block representing an egg —> to an invisible egg until —> we reach the written form as the most distant

Representation + Example

The idea that the stimulus or object can represent something else

ex) while outdoors, grass and sticks can represent food during play

Object Permanence + Example

Understanding the existence of objects and people in their absence

ex) a child reaching for a toy hidden under a blanket

Causality

The understanding that events can cause other events

Means to Ends + Example

There are ways or means of obtaining a goal (end), this is related to causality

ex) a child cleaning their room in order to be allowed to play with their friends

Compare and Contrast Piaget with Vygotsky

Cognition

The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses

Perception

The processes by which a person selects, organizes, integrates, and interprets the sensory information s/he receives

Two primary modes of Perception that promote language development:

1. Visual (consider how social interactionists would relate to this)

2. Auditory (consider how nativists would relate to this)

Theory of the Mind

• an understanding of mental states of oneself and of others

• this understanding develops over time to assist us in considering other people’s thoughts, feelings, and knowledge

• perspective taking

• ex) a girl puts a ball in her basket and leaves the room. While she is gone, her friend moves the ball from the basket to a box. When the girl returns, where will she look for the ball?

Accent + Example

Relates to differences or variations in speech production or pronunciation

ex) American vs British: tomato vs to-mah-to

Dialect + Example

Both language and speech differences

ex) soda vs pop vs coke

Identify 7 variables that influence speech and language:

1. Region

2. Social class, education, and occupation

3. Race and ethnicity

4. Gender

5. Situation or context

6. Peer group association or identification

7. First language community or culture

Bilingualism

the ability to speak two language and/or frequent use (as by a community) of two languages