early social skills and language/ communication development

what early socialisation do infants display?

• primary intersubjectivity: first month is attention to faces, eye contact, produce vocalisations, imitate sounds and gestures

• secondary intersubjectivity: older infants are more sophisticated, pointing, turn-taking, and shared attention

what is the motivation infants have with dyadic mimicry (primary intersubjectivity)?

• infants imitate

• newborns mimic facial expressions

• 3-4 months imitate sounds

• limited form of imitation and no understanding of others’ intentions

• but shows that infants motivated to engage in others

do infants have a preference to faces?

from birth infants prefer to look at things that are face like

what did Senju & Csibra (2008) find about attention to faces and eye gaze?

6mo infants only follow the gaze to the object if preceded by mutual eye gaze

what was Adamson & Frick (2003) study into secondary intersubjectivity?

still face experiment

• parent freezes and stops responding

• the interaction breaks down (baby cries, points, turns away, looses posture)

• attempts to repair the interaction (social engagement cues)

how does the visual cliff (sorce et al., 1985) demonstrate social referencing?

infants will look to the parent for an emotional cue of how to respond

• shared attention to the situation, transfer of info

• infant bases their actions on what the parent responds like

what intentional communication do infants show during secondary intersubjectivity?

• eye contact/ pointing to direct another’s attention

• consistent use of vocalization to indicate a specific goal

• evidence of child waiting for response

• persistence if not understood

what are the modes of communication?

• turn-taking

• joint attention

• sharing focus of attention

• following attention

• directing attention

how do infants develop turn-taking?

• infants from 3 months alternate vocalisation with their caregivers

• by 12 months, very few overlaps between ‘speakers’

• proto-conversations - similarities between turn-taking in early vocalisations and later conversations

• until the 3rd year children can’t control turn-taking in language

what is joint attention?

initial interaction that incorporates either the child and adult or the child and an object

• triadic attention

shared awareness of the shared attention

how do children learn the names of objects better?

when they are attending to the object when its named

how do routines help with language development?

• much of early language is learnt in routines

• caregivers structure routines around the child

• routines create a shared context. the child knows whats coming next

• highly repetitive routines provide a scaffold for language learning

what are disadvantages to joint attention?

• during 1st yr, moths constantly monitor the child’s line of regard - early joint attention is lead by adults

• twins often show language delay - linked to the amount of time spent in joint attention episodes with mother

how do you get into joint attention?

following attention

• following points

• following eye gaze

direct attention

• imperative pointing

• declarative pointing

what is the development of infants learning to point?

• 9mns: can follow points in front of the child not to the side

• 12mns: begin to check back with pointer

• 14mns: follows point across line of sight

when can infants follow eye gaze?

they cannot track eye gaze’s until around 18mns before that they can only follow head directions

• infants can follow gaze behind barriers

  • 12mns: understand gaze may signal something interesting

what is imperative pointing?

to get adult to do something

what is declarative pointing?

to direct adult’s attention to something

• at 12mns infants can indicate when adult finds the ‘wrong’ object and respond negatively when attention is directed to the infant and not the object