Language Development
Vocabulary:
Auditory cortex: In the left hemisphere it is tied to language in the right hemisphere more designated for sound and pitch
Broca’s area: A region of the brain concerned with the production of speech
Wernicke’s area: A region of the brain concerned with the comprehension of language
Language: A form of communication, that is regular. This means that there are rules (like grammar) that indicate how it should be used. It is also productive, meaning there are no limits about how much can be relayed, there are many combinations that work together to create ways for expression
Critical period: There is a point of time that after it, language acquisition is much more difficult. If there is no language exposure during this time, language abilities will likely not develop. During this time, language develops very easily. This ends by around 7 years old (theorized but vague), and definitely before puberty
Language acquisition device (LAD): Theorized by Noam Chomsky, the innate ability to use and gain grammar, has an aspect of universal grammar
Universal grammar: An aspect of language acquisition devices, an inborn rule base applied to all language that includes things like subjects and verbs, and word order, present in all languages. Limits to this include vague overall rules, however, as not all languages share the SAME rules
Homesign: A children’s ability to communicate with those around them to ‘make their own language’, particularly with deaf children to communicate with those around them, evidence for nativist language development
Nicaraguan sign language: Evidence for nativist language developments, children came together to create this from various homesign systems independently over the course of 2 decades
Interactionist perspective: Describes how there may be some native capacity to langue development predisposition, though a strong desire to understand others and be understood provides social motivation to develop language though environmental interaction
Native capacity: A strong desire to be understood and understand others
Domain specific: The question of if language development only occurs with specific capacities that don’t interact with other forms of information processing (which would be domain general), how specific is it?
Speech perception: Turns raw sensory input into meaningful information. Can include things like simple statements that have simple meanings (the dog chased the ball)
Word: An individual unit of a phrase (the)
Phoneme: The smallest unit of sound that makes a meaningful different in a language, parts of a word (/th/). Changing one can change the word (/d/ /aw/ /g/ → /f/ /aw/ /g/, dog → fog)
Voice onset time (VOT): The time between when a consonant is released and when vocal cords vibrate. Negative indicates vibration is before, 0 at the same time as release, and positive when vibration is after. There is a continuum between /b/→/p/
Phonetic rules: Language follows specific patterns, some letter combinations are ‘legal’ when some aren’t (sp is normal, sr isn’t for the start of words). When these rules are broken, there may be a word boundary between the two. This is an example of a statistic regularity and learning
Statistical learning: The identification of patterns within phoneme patterns in a language, prominent in infants acquiring language. Allows for parsing speech based on learned statistical regularities, emerges around 7-9 months. The more frequently sounds are heard together, the more likely that they are a word. Also, the less conflicting information there is the more likely it is a word
Infant directed speech (IDS): Contains positive affect, variable in pitch but higher, slow, animated and exaggerated, long pauses between ideas
Adult directed speech (ADS): More monotone, standard and straightforward, faster and at an even rate with less pauses
Cooing: Sounds babies make based on vowel sounds, starts around 2 months
Babbling: Adds consonants to cooing, strings of repeated combinations (bababa), universal without speech exposure and begins around 6 months, deaf infants do this with their hands, lasts until 10 months where there are words
Protodeclarative: Describes gestures that are made while looking at others, done with the intention of getting noticed (looking at a person while pointing at a giraffe), used for communication before words, disappears/combines with speech at around 2
Protoimperative: Describes a gesture that is made to get another person to do something (pointing at a toy to make a parent get it), used for communication before words, disappears/combines with speech at around 2
First words: Emerge around a year (average), tend to come from babbling sounds and be mama, papa, nigh nigh, ball, hi. Simplistic. More words are understood than are actually produced, produced words are understood about 5 months prior
Vocabulary spurt: Happens around 18 months when babies know around 50 words, after this they rapidly gain new words. By 6 years, kids know around 10K words. Increases exponentially to 40K by 5th grade. 150K by college
Underextension: When a word is applied too narrowly (only one stuffed animal is “bear”, not any other stuffed bears or actual bears)
Overextension: When a word is applied too broadly (dog is used for any animal with 4 legs and a tail)
Fast-mapping: The phenomenon where a kid will connect a word to a meaning after very brief exposure. Can be done with nouns and verbs. If a word is unknown, a child will come up with a word based on known words (calling a gardener “plantman” based on the idea of a mailman). Metaphors are also used to communicate things that aren’t known (pillows in the sky = cloud)
Holophrastic period: Kids use one-word phrases, words are “high content” (one word might mean ‘i want this’)
Telegraphic speech: 1.5 to 2.5 years, when kids use speech that is a couple words but more high content and less with grammatical structure and connecting words (‘eat cracker’ means ‘I want to eat crackers’)
Subject-Verb-Object sentences (SVO): Full sentences, high content but grammatically correct, contain a subject, verb, and object. Emerges around 3. Later, morphemes are added to complexify ideas (‘ed’, ‘s’)
Overregularization: A word rule is applied too broadly (breaked vs broke, mouses vs mice)
Recasting: Correction of inaccurate speech by a mentor, should be used to promote future language learning (“I leaded the class today!”, “Oh, you led the class?”)
Expansion: Elaboration on telegraphic speech to fill in the gaps, supports language development (“Go car”, “Do you want to go for a car ride?”)
Pragmatics: The ability to engage in effective and appropriate communication, develops around 2. Involves things like turn taking. At 4, children will adjust the way they speak based on the other person’s age, sex, social status. This tend to break down in challenging situations like on the phone
People:
Noam Chomsky (1957): A nativist as it relates to language developments, argues grammar is too difficult and complex to be ‘discovered’ by children and acquired, and therefore argues there is an innate language acquisition device that is used to produce and comprehend language, comprised of universal grammar (an inborn rule base applying to all language). Contradictions include how grammar develops gradually, and how universal doesn’t completely comprise everything. His theories also don’t include the impacts of motivation on language learning, leading to nativism and interactionism debate
Lisker + Abramson (1970): Did a study on phonemes, /b/→/p/ to show that phonemes are perceived categorically. This varies, due to the way accents make differences in phoneme production, along with variations in voice. This is why variations in sound can be categorized, once these distinguishments are made, it is difficult to distinguish the phonemes of another language (perceptual narrowing)
Saffran et al (1996): Did studies on statistical learning with artificial speech patterns of syllable combinations. Since babies can’t write yes or no, they used listening time (as they like new things), combinations that were novel had longer listening times and were recorded as a ‘no’. They were better at determining novel items from new. Words were trisyllabic and nonsense (or another language), after stream is played there are a few played for the infant to ‘recognize’. If Pa is always followed by biku there is 100% chance it is a word, and if ku is followed by gola half the time, there is a 50% chance it is a word
DeLoache (2010): Did a study on how screen time has impacted ability to learn new words from videos, found that kids learned the best when parents were watching a video with their kids and educating them, overall showing online videos weren’t doing much for teaching kids (no difference from control). Videos can be used to assist but not replace learning.
Language development requires a human brain and experience with the human brain early on. It is species specific to humans, as other animals cannot form various languages. Parrots are simply reciting things that they hear without understanding, gorillas can use sign language to label objects but struggle with grammar. Pets can recognize their names and other simple things, but it is only recognition
Language development should be supported, when mistakes are made they should be given constructive feedback and not punished.