communication: interacting & speaking

early communication

begins w/ bonding, touch, and early interactions

• infants learn social skills before language

• Touch causes release of oxytocin which activates brain leading to better attunement between baby and infant (“synchronous interactions emerge”)

  • Oxytocin helps child feel good & calm, and also helps them learn better

• Mom will exaggerate, slow down, and repeat facial expressions, movements, and sounds/words
  

infant directed speech

• Voice has higher pitch, more exaggerated contrasts between low & high sounds, and elongation of vowel sounds - slow down and simplify

• Infants show preference over adult directed speech

• Elicits infant attention, encourages participation, imitation, and learning sounds of language

• Even seen w/ deaf moms using sign language (slower, repetition, exaggeration)

joint attention (JA)

• Ability to follow someone’s gaze and pointing to look at something

• Coordination of JA by 11 months

• Children start to pint to indicate wants at 9-10 months

• Way children are learning and ability to show it over time

• Absent in children w/ moderate to severe autism

learning theory of language

• Learn through reinforcement, shaping, and imitation

• When baby babbles “dada”, what does parent do?

• Can’t describe all aspects of language learning

  • (ex: over-regulation)

over-regulation

child learns that you put “s” to make plural, or “ed” to make past tense and then says “foots” or “goed”; children will learn rule, then overuse that rule

nativist theory

noam Chomsky

• Language acquisition universal

• Biological brain structure that allows this - “Language Acquisition Device/LAD” accounts for deep structure of language

• Surface Structure

surface structure

• specific language you learn (English, Thai, German) dependent upon your experiences (i.e., learning theory)

Functional (pragmatic) theory of language development

• Drive to learn language bc need it to communicate to get our needs met

• Learn through parent-infant dyad (e.g., joint attention)

• Learn words better when looking at objects [nouns learned before verbs]

• Use more words/gestures w/ mother than w/ peers/alone

• Parents best learn language through face-to-face interaction w/ adults

hybrid theory

• Current language theorists believe that language is learned by combo of all 3 theories.

birth - 2 months language milestone

• reflexive communication consisting of crying, body movements, facial expressions

  • Don’t really have control over

2-6 months language milestone

• cooing, grunts, squeals, raspberry sounds. Progresses into long vowel sounds (aaa, ooo [3-4 months])

cooing

• initially begin w/ non-descript sounds made by lips, tongue, throat

6-10 months language milestone

babbling - vowel-consonant combinations (dada, baba, gaga, mama) then (dabagaba [putting them all tgt])

• Easier to say dada than mama

4-6 mos perceptual narrowing

cross culturally babies make same sounds

perceptual narrowing

brain adapts to environmental experiences, enhancing sensitivity to frequently encountered stimuli while diminishing sensitivity to less familar ones

6-9 mos perceptual narrowing

(sounds become narrowed to speech of your native culture; i.e. sounds of language you hear)

echolalia

echolalia

• imitate sounds you hear

10-12 mos perceptual narrowing

no longer can distinguish contrasts of non-native language. Lose ability to discern sounds from those languages

first words

• 10-14 mos

• Usually noun (family names, objects)

• receptive language

• expressive language

• Usually, understand words before you can produce

• All kids benefit from “sign language”

  • Kids can imitate gestures before they can speak

receptive language

understanding of words

expressive language

production of words

12-18 mos of age

• Most communication in single words, “holophrases”

• Learn words for objects (nouns), social interactions (no/yes, bye-bye) and simple concepts (more, done)

• Learn 2-3 words/week

• Typical development - by 18 months can have 90 words

[wide variations]

holophrases

• where one word carries sentence worth of meaning (e.g.., “shoes” means “i want to put on my shoes and go outside to play”)

18-24+ mos

• Naming explosion - learn 5+ words/week from 18-24 but can learn 9-10 words per/DAY from 24 mos+

• Caused by “fast mapping”

• “telegraphic speech”

• Babbling decreases, but pronunciation poor (only ur parents may understand you at 24 months)

• Wide variation in vocab-

fast mapping

• can hear word once and can connect it to categories they have already mastered

telegraphic speech

• Start to combine words into short sentences

• (more juice, all done milk)

24-36 mos

• Spurt in MLU

• Learn nouns (10 mos) before verbs (20 mos)

• By 3 yrs, 75% of speech should be clear

• By 4 yrs, 100% should be clear

mean length utterance (MLU)

• # of morphemes [e.g., word/ending to word (-ing or -ed)]

nouns

• concrete things you can see, touch, & feel

verbs

• relationship between things, intangible & more abstract

30-36 mos

•  start asking “why”

  • Use frequently until 4-5 yrs

  • Used to continue convo, seek reassurance and connect to adult

  • Don’t need long response

  • Ask “what do you think?” or “let’s find out tgt”