Exam Notes on Language, Early Childhood, Middle Childhood, and Adolescence

Definition: A communication system using symbols regularly to create meaning; a rule-based combination of symbols enabling communication.
Symbolic Representation: Using ideas, images, or symbols to represent objects or events.
Phoneme: The smallest unit of sound that differentiates meaning in a language.
- English contains about 45 phonemes.
- By 10 months, a child's phoneme recognition mirrors adult native language speakers.
Morpheme: The smallest unit of meaning in a language, composed of one or more phonemes.
- Some morphemes are prefixes or suffixes that modify words (e.g., adding "ed" to a verb makes it past tense).
Semantics: Rules used to derive meaning from morphemes.
Syntax: Rules governing sentence construction in a language.
- English requires each sentence to have a noun and a verb, which can be modified by adjectives and adverbs.
Pragmatics: Effective and appropriate communication with others.
- Includes turn-taking, staying on topic, volume and tone of voice, and appropriate eye contact.
Contextual Information: Surrounding language to aid interpretation.

Children's representational abilities are evident in language development.
Symbolic representation develops at the end of the sensorimotor stage (ages 0-2).
Major Tasks in Early Language Development:
- Learning sounds & patterns.
- Word learning.
- Grammar development.
- Pragmatics (social language use).
Theories of Language Acquisition:
- How do we acquire language?
- Is there a critical period?
- What is the role of the environment?

Produced by vocal tract positions and movements (lips, teeth, tongue, vocal cords, throat).
Sign languages define phonemes by hand shape and movement.
Phonemes are the smallest units of sounds in a language.
Contextual information helps in language interpretation.

Consistent order of learning language structures across children and cultures.
- Crying: Newborns
- Cooing: 6-8 weeks; repeating vowel sounds (e.g., "ahhhh")
- Babbling: 6-10 months; repeating consonant sounds (e.g., "ma-ma-ma")
  - 10 months: Intonation begins.
  - 7-11 months: Language-specific sounds.
- Gestures: Infants use gestures before first words.
First Words and Sentences:
- Linguistic Speech (10-14 months): First word.
  - Transition from babbling to true speech.
  - Holophrase: One word expresses a whole sentence (e.g., "ba" for "I want a banana").
- Telegraphic Speech (18-24 months):
  - 2-3 words expressing one idea (e.g., "No do" for "Do not do that").
- Vocabulary spurt (~18 months).
Receptive vs. Expressive Language:
- Receptive: Understanding language.
- Expressive: Producing language.

Cooing: One-syllable consonant-vowel combinations.
Babbling: Intentional vocalizations lacking specific meaning but with consonant-vowel sequences.
Gesturing: Children communicate information through gesturing long before they speak.
Vocabulary increases from 50 to hundreds of words in a few months.
Comprehension precedes production in language development.
More words spoken to children before age 3, correlate with larger vocabulary.
Vocabulary Errors:
- Underextension: Word refers only to a specific object (e.g., "kitty" is only your cat).
- Overextension: Word refers to all similar objects (e.g., all 4-legged animals are "doggy").
  - Due to limited vocabulary.
Infants learn conversation pace and pauses.
Around 4-6 months, infants vocalize sounds needed for any language.
Babbling helps understand the social, communicative function of language.
Deaf babies also use gestures to communicate.
Receptive Language: Understanding more than can be said (around 10 months).
Infants learn their name first (around 6 months).
They shake their heads “no” by 6-9 months.
“Mama” and “doggie” are usually said around 10-12 months.
Holophrastic Speech: One-word expressions (e.g., "ju" for juice).

Innate and learned aspects through linguistic environment interactions.
Aspects of Language Learning: Nativism, Brain Areas for Language, Environmentalist Perspective (Behaviorism & Learning Theory), Social Pragmatics.
Nativism:
- Noam Chomsky proposes a language acquisition device (LAD) in human brains.
- Children are born with knowledge of general syntax rules.
Environmentalist Perspective (Behaviorism & Learning Theory):
- Language acquisition via observation, imitation, association, and reinforcement.
- Children learn languages better than they hear them, refuting purely imitative learning.
Social Pragmatics:
- Children use pre-linguistic skills (pointing, gestures) for communication.
- Linguistic repairs when misunderstood.
Critical Period:
- A time when learning can easily occur, especially for language (infancy to puberty).

Broca’s Area: In the left frontal lobe, near the motor cortex; responsible for language production, studied by Paul Broca.
Wernicke’s Area: Next to the auditory cortex; responsible for language comprehension.

Children’s pronunciation becomes increasingly accurate between 1 and 3 years, but some problems may persist until school age.

Language acquisition device(LAD): Universal grammar underlies all human language.
Deep structure: The idea is represented in the fundamental universal grammar that is common to all languages
Surface structure: The idea or how it is expressed in any one language.
There is still debate about Chomsky’s idea that there is a universal grammar that can account for all language learning.
All languages should share past, present, future tense.

Language acquisition is driven by properties of the language environment
Learning Theory: Occurs through the principles of learning, including association and reinforcement

A time in which learning can easily occur, for language.
Early childhood: Physical, cognitive and socioemotional development during the ages from two to six.

Growth:
- Children grow about 3 inches in height and gain 4-5 pounds each year (ages 2-6).
- 2-year-olds: 23-28 pounds, 33-35 inches tall.
- 6-year-olds: 40-50 pounds, 44-47 inches in height.
- 6-year-olds start to have adult-like body proportions.
Growth Rate:
- 2-3 years: 1,000-1,400 calories.
- 4-8 years: 1,200-2,000 calories.
Brain Maturation:
- By age 3, the brain is 75% of its adult weight.
- By age 6, the brain is 95% of its adult weight.
- Prefrontal cortex: Thinking, strategizing, controlling attention and emotion; improves with practice and myelination.
- Corpus callosum: connects the two hemispheres of the brain.

Early childhood is when most children acquire basic locomotion skills (running, jumping, skipping, throwing, catching, kicking) between ages 2-5.
A four-year-old may put clothes on themselves but struggled two years prior.
Motor skills development may continue in middle childhood.
- Age 2: 20 different types of scribbles
- Age 3: Using the basic structure of scribbles to create shapes and are beginning to combine these shapes to create more complex images.
- Age 4-5: Creating images that are more recognizable representations of the world.
Neuroplasticity: The brain's ability to change its structure and function in response to experience or damage.
Left hemisphere grows dramatically between ages 3-6 (involved in language skills).
Right hemisphere continues to grow throughout early childhood (spatial skills).
Corpus callosum growth spurt between ages 3-6.
The brain is most