Development of Language in Children - Chapter 1A

Vocabulary flashcards covering the definitions and components of language development, literacy, and influential factors in early childhood.

Communication

The act of imparting or exchanging information by speaking, writing, or using any kind of medium, functioning as a two-way verbal or non-verbal process.

Literacy

The ability to read and write that gives one the command of a native language for the purpose of communicating, involving skills in learning, speaking, reading, and writing.

Language

A system of intentional communication and self-expression through sounds, signs, gestures, or symbols that are understandable to others and shared as a code to express thoughts.

Auditory acuity

The ability to hear sounds and distinguish different pitches, which develops swiftly as newborns respond to moderately loud sounds and the human voice.

Sensory motor development

The process of using senses and motor movements to gather experiences that support early language growth and are stored in the brain for later use.

Social factor (Language influence)

The verbal environment where children from highly verbal "professional" families may hear nearly three times as many words per week as children from "welfare" families.

Cognitive factor (Language influence)

An influence where the frequency of input affects the rate of learning; children hearing a high proportion of a language form learn it faster.

Linguistic factor (Language influence)

The influence of current vocabulary on new learning, such as toddlers assuming a new word refers to an object they do not yet have a label for.

Phonology

A language sound system consisting of specific sounds and the rules for putting them together.

Phoneme

The smallest unit of sound that can change a word’s meaning, such as the sounds made by the letters "k" and "c".

Morphology

The rule system that governs how words are formed in a language.

Morpheme

The minimal unit of meaning; a word or part of a word that cannot be broken into smaller meaningful parts, such as the word "help".

Syntax

The component of language involving putting words together in the correct way to form clear phrases and sentences.

Semantics

The study of the meaning of words and sentences, where every word has a set of attributes related to its meaning.

Semantic features

Required attributes related to meaning that words share or differ in; for example, "girl" and "woman" share features but differ regarding age.

Pragmatics

The conventions of becoming a competent language user, including the use of spoken language, body gestures, and facial expressions to communicate.