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
  • “cat” becomes “ca_”
• 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.