SLHS 513 Exam 2

Social Interactionist Theory

Children acquire language to interact with others due to their desire to share their thoughts

Social Interactionist Theory Support:

- Social interaction is critical for language development

- Children raised in isolation don't develop language but groups of children w/o language input do create new languages

- Younger siblings acquire conversational skills earlier

- Children require a communicative partner to motivate conversation

(i.e: only learn from interactive TV shows)

Social Cognitive Skills:

Joint Attention, eye contact, imitation, turn-taking, gestures, vocab play, intention reading 

Joint Attention

-  The ability to focus on the same object or activity as someone else

- (Vocabulary building, Labeling objects, Following gaze/pointing)

- Critical for word learning

- Longer joint attention=Easier acquiring language

• Birth – 6m: Development of patterns of attending to social partners

• 6m – 1 year: Emergence of joint attention 

Intention Reading

The ability to interpret/read another person's intentions

- 1st year: Understand actions as goal-oriented

- 18 months: Able to infer probable intentions of others

- 24 months: Distinguish accidental from intentional actions

Contact Deictic Gestures

1. “Early” gestures, require contact between child and caregiver

2. Handing over toy, pushing hand away

Distal Deictic Gestures 

1. No contact required, pointing/reaching (distance)

2. Comes after contact gestures

Representational Gestures

Iconic gestures/baby signs — gestures that have meaning

1. Object related – hand to mount to represent drinking 

2. Conventional Gestures – culturally defined, used socially 

• Represent some action or concept rather than specific object 

• Waving “bye”, finger to lips for “quiet”

Infant auditory perception (especially speech perception)

- Adequate for hearing speech since birth

Shortly after birth infants can differentiate:

- -Mother's voice from stranger's voice

- -Familiar passage from unfamiliar

- -Native language from foreign ones

Infants have early preferences for speech

- Prefer Speech over non-speech sounds

- 3 months:

--Human non-speech sounds (cough, hiccup, etc.)

--Environmental noises (running water)

Discrimination of speech sounds:

- 4 weeks:

- - /u/ vs /i/, /I/ vs /a/

- - /p/ vs /b/, /d/ vs /g/

- Infants who are not yet learning words pay closer attention to individual sounds (phonetic details)

- Older children pay closer attention to whole words rather than individual phonetic details

Categorical perception

Range of stimuli that differ continuously are perceived as belonging to only a few categories (ba —> pa)

- Adults and 4 moth old infants BOTH show consistent sound categorical perception

"Universal Listeners"

-Young infants can discriminate between phonemes in their native language but also in foreign languages

-By 12 months, they can ONLY discriminate phonemes in native language

-tuning of speech perception

Distributional Learning

- Frequently occurring sounds

--(ex: if the sounds /la/ vs /ra/ are meaningful, clear examples of borth will occur in the language)

----6-8 month old infants can better distinguish sounds (e.g., /d/, /t/) that have clear examples versus sounds that are more similar to each other

Detection of Phonotactic Regularities

~9 months

- Detect permissible/impermissible sound irregularities

--(e.g., /ps/ must be word final, not word initial)

- Helps infants segment words from continuous speech

Infant Speech Perception

-6-7 month olds w better discrimination in native language=more rapid language development

-BUT children who are better at discriminating NON-native sounds are SLOWER at learning native language vocab

-Better discrimination in native language=bigger vocab

Cognitive Functions for Language Learning 

Working Memory, Attention, language processing, perceptual abilities, theory of mind 

Working Memory (cognitive functions)

1. The ability to hold and manipulate information in the mind temporarily

2. Helps children remember words and sentences while learning to speak and understand

Attention (cognitive fucntions)

1. The ability to focus on specific sounds and meaning while ignoring distractions 

2. Enables children to concentrate on language input and learn from conversations 

Language Processing (cognitive)

1. The ability to understand and produce langue

2. Involves recognizing sounds, constructing sentences, and making sense of what others say 

Perceptual Abilities (cognitive)

1. Skills related to using senses to interpret the environment 

2. Allows children to hear, see and understand language in context, supporting world recognition and meaning

Theory of Mind (cognitive)

1. Understanding that others have different thoughts and feelings 

2. Helps children grasp social cues and nuances in language, enhancing communication and comprehension  

3. Tone of Voice, Facial Expression, Gestures/body language (nodding head), contextual understanding (highchair = mealtime), Perception of others knowledge (When an adult speaks about an object that is hidden, the infant starts to understand that the adult has knowledge that they do not)

Statistical Learning:

The ability to track distributional information in the input signal and organize it (based on frequency & co-occurrence)

-Used to analyze language input (structure into patterns)

-Contributes to phonology, lexicon & syntax

-NOT language/domain specific

-Infants (8 months) were exposed to a nonsense stream of speech

--Infants could segment "words" and "part words"

Rule Learning

Infants can find patterns in their input (simple & complex)

-Generalize to novel/new instances

Phonological Rules (sound patterns): Infants start to recognize the sounds of their language by paying attention to which sounds are frequently used together and in what order

Word Order (grammar rules): Infants start to pick up on the basic rules of word order in their language (sentences usually follow a "subject-verb-object" pattern)

Patterns in Word Forms: Walk —> walk-s or walk-ed

Phonological memory

-Short term or working memory: how well can children remember a newly encountered sound sequence

Relates to vocabulary

-Attaching a sound (name) to an object requires you to remember the sound (name)

Phonological memory predicts:

- Current and future vocabulary

- Grammatical development

- For adolescents: their vocabulary learning in a foreign language.

Central executive function in working memory

Controls and manage cognitive processes (boss of the brain)

Main Roles:

• Allocating Attention: Deciding what to focus on

• Switching Between Tasks: Move smoothly from one task to another

• Inhibiting Distractions: Controls impulses

• Managing working memory: keeps important information active in your mind while you use it 

Schemas 

Mental frameworks or concepts that help individuals organize and interpret information

• Experience-Based Learning: forms based on their interaction with object and people around them 

• Assimilation: encounters something new that fits existing framework , they assimilate that info

• Accommodation: when new info doesnt fit into exciting framework, the child adjusts and creates a new one 

 Explicit Feedback 

• when parents tell children what they are saying is incorrect, and tell them what to say instead 

• Not good

Implicit Feedback 

• For ungrammatical sentences, parents are more likely to ask for clarification, or repeat with corrections

  • I goed home → you went home 

• Less pressure, clinically overall increased responses

Characteristics of Input

Quality: Consistent responses from the parent that are related to the child’s previous speech or gesture, fluent topics

• Joint attention

• Depth of information

• Play

Quantity:

• Large amount of input, with varying degrees of complexity, different syntactic structures, and extensive vocabulary

Sociolinguistics 

• The study of how language serves and is shaped by the social nature of human beings

Accent

• The description of aspects of pronunciation and intonation which identify where an individual speaker is from, regionally or socially 

Dialect

• A more general tern referring to pronunciation patterns and the features of grammar and vocabulary that are a particular to a given variety of a language. Can also reflect region and social class

Standard vs Nonstandard Dialects 

• Standard: Elevated for social/political reasons 

  • Associated w/ formal speech and writing

  • Used in newspapers and books 

  • Taught in schools and to native speakers of other languages 

• Non-Standard: May be stigmatized (e.g. African American English)

  • Linguistically, all varieties are equal and “non-standard” varieties serve valuable purposes 

CODE SWITCHING

• Finishing an entire thought in one language and switching to another language and finishing an entire thought 

Code Mixing

In one sentence, mixing both languages together (more agua)

Simultaneous Bilingualism

• Experience two or more languages from birth (or within the first year)

Sequential Bilingualism

• Second language learning begins after first language largely established and underway (approx. Age 3)

Fusion — Language differation in bilingual

• children initially blend the languages into one and differentiation happen after 

Autonomous differation — Language differation in bilingual

• Children separate the languages and acquire each individually

 Interdependent differentiation — Language Differentation

• Children separate the languages but they influence each other during acquisition (crossover)

Language loss

• A rapid shift from the first language to the second language, L1 abilities are reduced and diminished

• Language Attrition:

• No loss of ability but does not advance either

Language Shift

• Occurs across generations and time towards L2

Acceleration (bilingualism)

• Bilinguals may demonstrate a faster rate of acquisition than their monolingual peers 

• May be due to the features of one language facilitating the acquisition of features of another language  

Deceleration (bilingualism)

• Bilinguals may demonstrate a slower rate of acquisition than their monolingual peers 

• May be due to the features of one language impeding the acquisition of features of another language

Transfer (bilingualism)

• A unique effect where the features of one language occur in another language context 

• This is not in reference to the rate in which children acquire language, but is referencing the interaction between two languages (transfer of one language features to another)

Preferential linguistic profiling 

• e.g people with a british accent sound smart or those who speak with a french accent sound sexy 

• Discriminatory Linguistic Profiling 

• People with a non-standard American English accent sound uneducated or thinking all black men sound the same 

Language Profile of Austism

• Prelinguistic Development

  • Decreased vocal output (unusual tone)

  • Delayed language acquisition 

  • May show regression between 12-18 months

  • Reduced nonverbal communication 

    • Gesture

    • Gaze

    • Joint attention 

• Vocabulary/Semantics

  • May have particular difficulty with emotion and mental state words 

• Morphology and Syntax

  • Can show morphosyntax deficits

  • Complex syntax difficulties

• Receptive language can oftentimes be more impaired than expressive language

• Pragmatics 

  • Difficulty reading nonverbal cues

  • Limited use of language

  • Difficulty with conversational discourse

  • Echolalia/jargon/perseveration  

Developmental Language Disorder

Language impairment with no obvious accompanying conditions

• Deficits in one or more domains of language that impact an individuals ability to understand and/or produce written and/or spoken/signed language 

• Early language delay 

  • Expressive language onset later than average by about 1-2 years 

  • Seem prepared to learn language, but with language delay, prelinguistic skills intact

• Vocab:

  • Many children may not produce words until they are 2 

  • Word learning deficits

• Morphology:

  • It takes a long time for kids to fully understand and use certain parts of verbs correctly (adding -s for present tense; -ed for past, is and are, am and was)

• Syntax

  • Delayed onset and less sue of complex syntax 

• Difference in language growth

  • Are unlikely to “catch up” to their TD peers

  • Vocab growth follows typical trajectory, morphosyntax does not 

English-language learners:

centers English as the main language being acquired, but does not reference other languages being learned.

Dual-language learners

recognizes that bilingual children are learners of two languages and that acquisition is an on-going process

Culturally and linguistically diverse

• recognizes that culture and language are closely intertwined; broad term.