Communication Development - The First 4 Years
Vision and Hearing Abilities of Newborns
Vision
- newborns are nearsighted at birth
- they’re sensitive to brightness & color
- they recognize an object that reappears within 2.5 seconds
- by 2 months, the newborn has some short-term mental images for people and objects in their environment
- within a few months, vision and reach are coordinated
- this is very important for developing communication skills
Hearing
- able to distinguish loudness and duration of sound
- within days, the newborn can discriminate between different phonemes (sounds of speech)
- within 2 weeks, fluid in the middle ear drains and improves hearing
- they learn to coordinate vision and hearing in the first few weeks
- they can turn their head toward a sound
Infant Motor Skills
- the control of large muscles moves progressively downward
- the control of the head, neck, and trunk development occurs first so sitting is accomplished by 6 months
- the exploration of objects (characteristics and functions) form early concepts that are the bases for word definitions
- by 1 year, the infant progresses through crawling to walking
- not all babies crawl, but can usually crawl at around 8 months
- females tend to be early with language milestone and males tend to be early with motor milestones
Infant Communication
- Caregivers talk to newborns/infants as if the babies understand
- caregivers are very important in the formation of communication
- As babies begin to understand, caregivers modify speech to maximize child’s participation
- By 1 month, infant initiates interaction by gazing at caregiver & vocalizing
- To maintain infant’s attention, the caregiver exaggerate facial expression, voice, and vocalizes more often
- Infants respond to this exaggeration and both partners affect the interaction
“Conversations” with Infants
- More conversational turn taking begins between the infant and caregiver at about 12 weeks
- At 6 weeks, infant can fix on caregiver’s eyes and “hold it” with eye-widening and brightening
- The infant is more likely to look and continue looking at a caregiver who looks back
- Play begins
- Stimulus-response sequence: if the infant signals, the caregiver will respond
- learned at 0-3 months
- a relatively constant stimulus/signal results in a predictable response
- At 3-4 months, more predictable patterns have emerged
- rituals (eg feeding/diaper changing)
- game playing (peekaboo)
- At 6 months, the baby’s interest in toys increases
- now interactions often involve the caregiver, baby and object
- Joint attention: shared focus of 2 or more people on the same object
- Parent reference to objects, people, events outside of immediate context increases
- At 8-9 months intentionality (goal-directedness) develops
- The baby considers his audience when attempting a communicative act
- Different behaviors signal different intentions
- At 12 months, first meaningful words are used
Speech Development
- In newborns, speech starts with reflexive sounds like burping, vegetative sounds
- Most oral reflexes disappear/are modified by 6 months
- except the big 4 reflexes
- gagging
- yawning
- coughing
- sneezing
- Initially, newborns cry on inhalation and exhalation
- efficient sound production gradually increases
- By the end of the 1st month, caregivers tell the reason for crying by different sound patterns
- Crying helps the baby modify breathing patterns and get used to air flow across the vocal folds
- vocal folds: where speech sounds originate)
- Non-crying sounds are more important in speech development
- These sounds usually accompany feeding or produced in response to the caregiver
- Sounds contain phonation or vocal fold vibration at the larynx
- phonation: voicing or producing sounds of speech
- The child does not yet have the ability to produce fully resonated and articulated speech sounds
- Speech production is by chance
Some Definitions
- Resonation: Modification of the vibratory pattern of the laryngeal tone through changes in the size and configuration of the vocal tract
- The vocal tract is the nasal cavity, mouth, and pharynx/throat
- Articulation: Rapid and coordinated movements of the tongue, teeth, lips and palate to produce speech sounds
Speech: The First 12 Months
- 2 months:
- cooing or gooing
- sounds from the back of the throat
- 4 months:
- babbling may begin with a consonant-vowel structure
- 5 months:
- babies imitate the tone & pitch of caregivers
- 6 months:
- more labial (lip) sounds produced as muscle control moves forward from the back of the mouth
- “ma ma” and “pa pa”
- 6-7 months:
- reduplicated babbling begins
- babies can make longer strings of sounds
- the actual consonant-vowel patterns sound the same but intonation & pitch can vary
- The baby begins to adapt to the speech patterns of their environment
- Stops, nasals, and approximant phonemes predominate consonants of English in baby’s vocalizations.
- Stops: the sound stops in the oral cavity (pa, ba, ka, etc.)
- Nasals: the sound goes through the nasal cavity (mm, nn, etc.)
- Approximate phonemes: similar phonemes to english (wa, etc.)
- 8-12 months:
- Echolalic stage: babies can repeat what they hear
- not a lot of meaning in this speech
- variegated babbling- “ma ba ga”
- Babies notice contrasts in pitch, vowels, and consonants
- Jargon: long strings of sound with adult-like patterns
- adults cannot understand this
- the rhythm of speech sounds like an adult but it has no meaning
- bad if jargon persists after 18 months
Language Development
- Learning language encompasses learning that one thing can represent another
- Language is related to cognitive skills
- Cognitive skills & language develop together
- For a baby, their mom’s voice will come to represent their mom
- Later, other noises and objects will come to represent events and other objects in the baby’s environment
- Then a symbol or the word “mama” will provoke the image of their mom
- At about 18 months, the baby will use “mama” to refer to mom even when she’s not there
- Around 12 months, children produce their first true words
- By 18 months, children can usually produce 50 single words and begin to combine 2 words
- Jargon and babbling decrease during this time
- Red flag if jargon doesn’t decrease after 18 months
- By age 2, a toddler has an expressive vocabulary of 150-300 words
- Early word combinations follow predictable patterns
- agents come before actions and actions come before objects
- Example: “mommy eat”, “eat cookie” etc.
Phonological Processes
- Phonological processes: children reduce and simplify words to forms that they are able to say
- Final Consonant Deletion: reducing the consonant-vowel-consonant structure of most words to a more familiar consonant-vowel structure
- Phonological processes typically recede by age 4
- Red flag if phonological processes don’t recede by 4 years
The Preschool Processes
- By age 3, a child’s vocabulary is now 900 words
- By age 4, a child’s vocabulary is 1500 words
- During this time, the emphasis of language development shifts from pragmatics & semantics to language form (syntax and morphology)
- Pragmatics: language use in social contexts
- Semantics: vocabulary knowledge & use
- Syntax: grammar
- Morphology: order of words
Syntax & Morphology
- At age 2, children produce short 2-4 word phrases/sentences
- At age 3, the word order rules used by younger children form the basis for more elaborate grammar
- Now most children’s utterances contain a subject and verb
- By age 5, 90% of adult syntax is acquired
- Children at this time are using compound sentences and dependent clauses
- EXAMPLE OF SYNTACTIC PROGRESS:
- Toddler: “No cookie”
- 2-3-ish: “Doggie no eat”
- Preschool: “mommy can’t catch me”
- For the English-speaking preschooler, language becomes more complex as it becomes longer
- This is clinically measured by calculating the Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) of a child’s language.
- The child’s MLU may be compared to normal data for their age group to note any significant discrepancies that may indicate a language skill delay or disorder
Speech During the Preschool Years
- By age 3, most children have mastered vowel sounds and the consonants p,m,h,n,w,b,k,g,d
- By age 4, children have added t,f,”y”
- At least 50% of 4-year-olds say /r,l,s,”sh”,”ch”, z/
- Children with neuromuscular problems, sensory deficits, perceptual problems, or poor learning skills will have difficulty acquiring all the sounds of English.
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