[SP 137] Early Verbal Language

EMERGING LANGUAGE

Period in which conventional words are just beginning to appear as viable forms of communication

Toddler 18-36 months developmental level

Mostly gestures and vocalizations in communicating Correspond to chronological age of toddlers

gross motor

starting to walk, still developing, not at its best, increasing ability to move around

fine motor

grasp small things and draw

play

* Develop self-help skills (do simple everyday tasks on their own & continue to develop that as they grow older)

COGNITION

* Playing near other people and playing with toys appropriately (how to play with certain toys)
* Engages in parallel play

parallel

**Cognition and Language** develop in _______ and are strongly associated

TRUE

\[T/F\] High cognitive ability does not necessarily lead to good language development

Experiences and environmental stimulation

plays a big role in how language develops

KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURES

Guide the children’s acquisition of words

* a lot of language development is how we make use of knowledge structures in order to guide their acquisition of words

Event-based

* Early words are first comprehended and produced in the context of everyday events
* The more that words are repeated or routine in nature, the easier it will be for children to acquire words in these kinds of sequence of events
* Used to form scripts, temporal and causal in nature
* Used by preschoolers
* Provides basis for next knowledge structure that would influence word acquisition for older children which is taxonomic/word knowledge

Taxonomic

* Categories and word classes
* Used by kindergarteners and older children
* This is how they start to acquire words and learn how to organize them
* Organize words in labels

CRITERIA TO BE CONSIDERED AS FIRST WORDS

1. Phonetic approximations of adult words
2. Produced with clear intent to refer to a particular situation or object
3. Used consistently and generalizes to all appropriate exemplars

Phonetic approximations of adult words

* Recognizably close to the pronunciation of the adult form of the word
* Ex: “Wawa” → Similar to “water”
* The consistent sound children use to refer to a particular object is not an approximation of the adult word (Ex. meow is not the same as cat)

Produced with clear intent to refer to a particular situation or object

* When the word is used, it occurs in the presence of a reference (child has underlying meaning or concept to that utterance)
* Should be produced by an object and situation
* Imitation or Babbling is not a first word, there is no clear intent to their production

Used consistently and generalizes to all appropriate exemplars

* Wawa refers to water in a glass, in a bottle, in a bathtub, in a pool, etc... (generalizes to all appropriate exemplars)

HOLOPHRASES

* Single words that represent phrases frequently used by adults
* Expresses a single communicative intention
* This is because children’s cognition at this age is still developing (working memory is still limited to processing one-word so they combine the phrases)

GESTURES

* Words develop to fulfill the intentions originally conveyed by _________
* Declarations/statements
* Requests for object
* Requests for information or questions

Children continue to use gestures despite the appearance of first words:

* To back up for speech
* To compensate for limited articulation and phonation
* Articulatory skills are still developing, words can be inaccurate
* To facilitate word retrieval
* To help recall words

14 months

\[what age\] children will make use of both words and gestures to communicate

22 months

* they will start to rely more on words and not gestures alone anymore

Deictic

Pointing, showing, requisition (referring to things)

Iconic

convey meaning through form/action of gestures (e.g., circle = mimics form of circle, bird = mimics flapping of arms)

spontaneously

Almost all toddlers use gestures ____________ with speech and sound making

TYPES OF GESTURE-SPEECH COMBINATIONS

1. reinforcing
2. supplemental

Reinforcing

Gesture & speech produced convey matching information

* Ex: pointing to dog + saying dog

Supplemental

Gesture that conveys different information from speech

* Ex: requesting type of gesture + dog = asking for a dog

gesture-speech combinations

Semantic relations expressed thru ______-_______ __________ precede those heard in word combinations

Implications for clinical practice:

In facilitating children who have no words yet, you might want to facilitate first gesture-speech combinations to eventually help them produce word combinations

MULTIWORD UTTERANCES

Children begin combining words at around 18 months (1 year and 6 months)

18 months

Children begin combining words at around ___ months

TRUE

\[T/F\] Transition forms: don’t really combine 2 actual words together

CV (constant-vowel) syllable before/after word

Ma baby, te baby

Vocalization before/after word

beda cookie, beda baby

Word reduplication

doggie doggie

Multiword Utterance Patterns

1. word combinations
2. pivot schema
3. item-based constructions

\[DEFINTION\] Word Combinations

What Multiword Utterance Pattern?

* equivalent words that encode an experience, sometimes as two successive one-word utterance
* Not actual multi-word utterances but 2 single word utterances in succession
* No grammar yet, they only encode what they see where the words are interchangeable, like “bed doggy = doggy bed”, still encodes the same experience

\[DEFINTION\] Pivot Schema

What Multiword Utterance Pattern?

* one word or phrase structures the utterance by determining intent. Several words may fill the "slot” as in “want + things I want”
* No internal grammar
* You can invert the order, and the intent is still the same
* More systematic
* One word or phrase structure determines the intent of that utterance and they simply fill in the blanks of the word/phrase structure
* Ex: Want ___ (things I want)

\[DEFINTION\] Item-based constructions

What Multiword Utterance Pattern?

* Start to have internal grammar
* Seem to follow word-order rules for specific rules
* Appears to have an internal grammar to it
* You can’t change the order of the utterance
* Ex: baby eat =/= eat baby ○ May contain morphological markersseem to follow word-order rules for specific rules. may contain morphological markers

\[EXAMPLE\] Word combinations

water hot

wave bye

drink cup

\[EXAMPLE\] Pivot Schema

throw ball

throw block

throw airplane

more juice, more cookie, more bottle

want blanket

want up

want out

\[EXAMPLE\] Item-based constructions

baby eat

hug baby

baby’s bed

daddy driving

drive car, drive to grandma

MORPHOLOGY

Appearance of making word combinations allow us to see grammar compare to single-word production

Morpheme

smallest meaningful linguistic unit utterance you hear

50 words

Co-occur with learning first __ words (18 months - 2 years)

Grammatical Morpheme

Present progressive

plural

preposition (in)

preposition (on)

possesives

past tense

Present progressive (-ing)

* 19-28 months
* Example sentence: Baby eating

Plural (-s) and Preposition (in)

\
* 27-30 months
* Example sentence: Doggies, toy in there

Preposition (on) and Possessives (‘s)

* 31-34 months
* Example sentence: food on table, mommy’s book

Past tense (regular and irregular)

* 43-46 months
* We painted; I ate lunch

= MLU

total # of morphemes / total 3 of utterances

increasing MLU

As children grow older, they have ______ _______; used to gauge how children are developing

Roger Brown

* studied early morphological development in children
* he documented how many morphemes would develop based on the age of the child

expressive

In ________ language:

* First words should not be imitation

LEXICAL ENTRY branch into 3:

1. Sound that make up that word
2. Meaning
3. Part of speech

\[IL\] Sound that make up that word

international alphabet symbols, sounds exactly for the word sun

\[IL\] Meaning

contains a mental imagery of what is a sun

\[IL\] Part of Speech

a sun is a noun, you can’t use it in the context of a verb and can’t put tenses

12-18 month old

Words a __ to _ month old child uses

* Most are nouns
* Referring to the present, immediate environment
* Intent: something they want, identify, initial environment, express what they want at the moment
* the vocabulary size of children vary by quite a lot
* there are children who have a larger vocabulary than others

predominant

___________ of nouns regardless of language spoken (Bornstein et al., 2004)

* Nouns are __________ because they are usually familiar with them (lots of interactions)

FALSE

\[T/F\] Nouns are used more often by children

Mid level of generality

* Dog - not too broad (animal) and not too specific (type of dog)
* Beagle - too specific

INCREASE

Proportional _________ in verbs after acquisition of 100 words

INITIAL LEXICON

* Mid level of generality
* Proportional INCREASE in verbs after acquisition of 100 words
* Development of verbs
* Enhanced through use
* Need to use acquired words to enhance vocabulary (use it or lose it)

use it or lose it

Need to use acquired words to enhance vocabulary

16-18 month olds:

What age?

learning words primes the child’s lexical system to learn even more words

VOCABULARY GROWTH

* Slow in the first few months after they start acquiring words

INCREASED

________ rate during the 2nd half of the 2nd year (1 year 6 months old)

18 AND 2

Expressive vocabulary

* ___ months → 50 words
* __ y.o. → 150-300 words

Variability

___________ in vocabulary size dramatically decreases by the 3rd year of life

\[VARIABILITY\] 18 months

>16% have few words (variability larger than mean)

\[VARIABILITY\] 24 months

84% have vocab >150 words (variability is only half the mean)

\[VARIABILITY\] 30 months

30 months → 84% have vocab >450 words (variability from mean is only 18%)

VOCABULARY SPURT

* Occurs during 18-24 months or when expressive vocabulary reaches 50 words
* Underlying growth in cognitive capacities
* Learning and using words

50

VOCABULARY SPURT

* Occurs during 18-24 months or when expressive vocabulary reaches ___ words

1. More articulation control
2. Syntactic patterns

Unknown cause and reason for timing but may be related to:

prime

The more they learn and use words the more their brain gets _______ to absorb such words

lexicon size

Grammatical development is more closely associated with ________ ________ than chronological age

WORD-USE ERRORS

Words acquired during initial lexical growth are more likely to be both under- and overgeneralized than words acquired later

Overextension

Child uses the word in an overly generalized manner and the meaning becomes to broad compared to the adult meaning

\[DEFINITION\] Categorical

Word extends to other words in the same category

\[EXAMPLE\] Categorical

Example:

“Dog” = all 4-legged animals

\[DEFINITION\] Analogical

* Word extends to other words that are perceptually similar
* Items that share a trait

\[EXAMPLE\] Analogical

Example:

“Ball” = all round in shape

\[DEFINITION\] Relational

Word extends to things that are semantically or thematically related

\[EXAMPLE\] Relational

“Flower” = semantically related (everything used in gardening as flowers)

Underextension

Common to both receptive and expressive language, wherein they use words in a highly restricted context

Overlap

Words overextend in some circumstances and under extends in others

\[example\] overextension

example:

athena calls pills inside the bottle as "candy”

\[example\] underextension

example:

Call pills inside the bottle candy (overextension), but doesn’t consider the chocolate bar a candy (__________)

Category membership error

* Think the 2 words are conceptually similar
* Ex: Horse is same as the cow

Pragmatic error

* Know the 2 objects are conceptually different, but don’t know what to call the other object
* Ex: They know the horse isn’t a dog so they don't know what to call it

Retrieval error

* Know the name of the object but can’t retrieve the correct word, so they unintentionally select a different word
* Ex: They retrieve the wrong word even though they are aware that it isn't a horse

Early level of communication functions (Preverbal Stage):

* Requests
* Reject
* Comment

Request for information

* Using language to learn about the world
* “wassat” to ask for the name of that thing
* Eventually expands to actual WH questions
* Rising intonation to make a question

Acknowledgements

* Providing notice that the previous utterance was received
* Through imitation of a part of the utterance
* “Did you go to school today?” Child: “go school”

Answers

* Responding to a request for information with a semantically appropriate remark
* imitating but actually responds with semantically appropriate answer

2 and >5

Intentional communication (whether verbal or nonverbal)

* 18 months: __ instances /minute
* 24 months: __ instances /minute

Presupposition

* The process whereby a speaker makes background assumptions about a listener’s knowledge
* Make assumptions on what the listener or the person you’re talking to knows or does not know about that certain topic causing inclusion or deletion of information based on your assumptions

Before 3 y.o.

* children do not understand the effect of not providing enough information to their listener
* Uses pronoun but not what it refers to