Lecture 3 - Language Development

Question 1

What is Halliday (1975)’s function of language?
7
- first 4 = physical, social and emotional needs
- last 3 = relate to env
***

Answer 1

First 4: Physical, social and emotional needs

1. Instrumental - to express needs
2. Regulatory - influence others behaiour
3. Interactional - social relationships
4. Personal - express identity

Last 3 relate to the environment

5. Representational - exchange information
6. Heuristic - learn about the environment
7. Imaginative - explore the imagination

Question 2

What are the 4 skills required for communication
*** phonoloy
- morph
master structure
context

Answer 2

1. Produce basic sounds
   - phonology
2. Understand meanings
   - Morphology
3. Master structure
   - Syntax - rules
4. Appreciate Context
   - Pragmatics - social conventions

Question 3

What are the 4 phases of spoken language development?

• pre-linguistic stage

Answer 3

1. Pre-linguistic Stage
   - perception and production
2. First Words
3. Further Words
4. Grammar

Question 4

Outline perception in the pre-linguistic phase when born

• Cat in the hat

Answer 4

• Born with innate abilities
• Can recognise mums voice (Cat in the Hat) - DeCasper and Spence 91986)
• Discriminate all speech sounds

Question 5

Outline perception in the pre-linguistic phase at 1-2 months

- intonation

Answer 5

• Attend to individual letter sounds - syllables and words
• Sound-to-mouth match - perception (distress if not matched)
• Intonation, pattern & stress
  
  • prefer positive tone
  • prefer musical patterns of intonation

Question 6

Outline production in the pre-linguistic phase at birth

- types of crying - Dunstan (5 types)

Answer 6

• Communicate through crying
• Dunstan (photgraphic memory of sounds) argued this is the types of cries, that differ in sounds:
  1. Hungry
  2. Tired
  3. discomfort
  4. Gas
  5. Burp

Question 7

Outline Outline production in the pre-linguistic phase in babies
5 things
****

Answer 7

1. Cooing (1-2 months) - practice sounds and move mouth
2. Vocal Play - can control speech muscles, to explore
3. Consonants (6-7 months) - similar to cooing, just different sounds
4. Babbling - one syllable (Canonical/ reduplicated)
   - exploratory process, every baby does it, even deaf children
5. Gestural language

Question 8

Outline pre-linguistic interactions in new borns

• proto conversations
• Motherese

Answer 8

• interactions crucial for language development
• pragmatics, joing attention, turn taking
  •not speaking over baby important for later conversations
• Protoconversations - when baby stops feeding, mother makes a nonverbal action, then baby will feed again
• Motherese - exaggerating words, high pitches. Infants more likely to respond to high pitches. Help acquire language as they are exposed to exaggerated forms.
• Fitting language around the baby - teaches them conventions of language and turn taking

Question 9

Outline pre-linguistic interactions in 9/10 months

****

Answer 9

Communication: 9/10 months
- Meaningful gestures
•copying is important for bonding
- babbling changes - becomes more conversational/ intonations
- Comprehension (better than production)
- Triadic interactions occuring between mum, child and object

Question 10

Outline pre-linguistic interactions - receptive language

- Word growth from 10 months to 13 months

Answer 10

10 months = 30 words

13 months = 100 words

Question 11

Outline first words: 1-2 years old

• meaning to the baby

Answer 11

• word = sound used to consistently represent something
• Comprehension preceeds production
• Phonologically consistent forms (meaning to the baby) - e.g. vroom= car
• First conventional word at around 1 year - usually something they interact with (a noun)

Question 12

Outline further words

***

Answer 12

• Intially slow: 1-3 words per month
• 10 months: 30 words, related to the context the child is in
• 18-24 months: 10-20 words per week

Question 13

How does this explosion in vocabulary happen?
***
Gopnik & Meltzoff (1987)

Answer 13

1. Naming insight = realising everything has their own name - constantly asking: whats that?
2. Categorisation = learn you can categorise everything. Finding out that ‘balls’ can include footballs, baseballs etc

(Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1987)

Question 14

Outline further words by 6 years old

**

Answer 14

vocab = 15,000

• Middle childhood = 10,000 a year
• Categories, plurals, suffixes
• underextention -> overextention

Question 15

Outline Underextension and overextension

Answer 15

Underextension = only apply a word to one object within a category

• e.g. a cup only applys to my special cup
• e.g. kitty only applys to my cat

Overextention = using one word for an entire categore
- e.g. Calling a dog, horse and cat a kitty because they have 4 legs

naming things is very important as adults correct and guide the child as the try to name things

Question 16

Outline Grammar - Morphology & syntax

• Holophrases
• Grammar exlosion

Answer 16

Holophrases (precursors to sentences) = occur around 12-18 months

• First sentence = short, inconsistent, just copying
• e.g. “i tried”
• Grammar explosion: 24mo 4-5 sentences
• 30 months: 8-10 sentences

Over-regularisations of the rule: e.g. teeths

Question 17

Outline later grammar (3-4 years)

• Complex
• audience

Answer 17

Complex sentences

• variations
• tenses
• ambiguity - sentences that could mean two things: the shooting of the hunters was awful
• conversation
• audience - adapt to who they are talking to
• persuasion

Question 18

Outline grammar at 8-9

*****

Answer 18

8-9 years: understand relationship between morphologically related words: enables vast and rapid vocab expansion

Question 19

Outline methods to stimulating childrens language development

Answer 19

• Talk and listen to child - with child, not at child
• encourage conversations
• Ask open-ended questions
• name things int he environment - look a cow
• Answer their questions
• check you understood their intended meaning
• Read to them
• Model good language

Question 20

Outline Zeedyk (2008)*** -Buggy

Answer 20

The direction buggy’s face is important for intellectual and cognitive development
- mother speech drops by half when buggy is forward facing

Question 21

How do children learn a language?

**

Answer 21

They dont set out to learn it, they just observe the movements of faces and voices and gradually reproduce these

Question 22

Outline Nativsit theories for how children learn language

Answer 22

• A child is born with everything they will need for language
• Born with ability to learn rules for word order speaking
• We cant pick up all these rules and vocab from just observing
• And that parents dont always speak in full grammatically correct, advanced language
• Language Acquisition Drive (LAD)
• Cross culturally similar but wide individual variation

Question 23

What are the 3 nativists theories

**

Answer 23

Chomsky, pinker, Slobin

Question 24

Outline Environmental theories for how children learn language**

Answer 24

• Through imitating something, that gets reinforced by parents
• Motherese/ parentese
• Parents correct factual erros but not grammatical errors

Question 25

Outline limitations of environment theories

Answer 25

X - children say words they cant have ever heard - i goed over there X - if childs mistake is funny/ cute, we may not punish it, so they could say it again X - Motherese not in all cultures/ mothers (depressed) X - over-regulation errors - parents dont do them

Question 26

Outline cognitive theories of language acquisition - Brain areas * ****** twins

Answer 26

- They try and locate where this LAD is in the brain - Several regions important: left hem: brocas/ wernickes - Also found that vocab was more similar in MZ twins - no difference in grammatically skills

Question 27

Outline the interactional approach for developing language

Answer 27

- Genes + environment - We do have a strong biological predisposition to develop language - but need the environment to help us - if a brain area associated with language is damaged, other areas take back over

Question 28

Outline a limitation of nativist theories | **** - language destroyed

Answer 28

- Language is not destroyed if there is lesions - shows that there is not one single LAD

Question 29

Outline individual differences in typically developing children******** First word? style

Answer 29

Rate: - 25% complex sentences at 30 months - First word: 8-18 months X - But even at 3 years, some aren't making simple sentences Style: - Expressive/ holistic style (me, you) vs referential style (nouns/ objects) - different sytles result from different combinations of genes and environmennt - Style of parent/ child - eg. shy child

Question 30

What are the 4 categories of language impairment | ********************************************************************

Answer 30

1. Social/ env depreivation (Genie) - eg. mother depressed, socio/economic status 2. Cognitive language impairment 3. Physiological impairment 4. Communication Problems

Question 31

Outline the case of genie*****

Answer 31

Extreme neglect and abuse from father (from 20 months) - no apparent cognitive impairment - just for sentences/ grammar - found emotionally disturbed, malnourished, completely mute - Susan Curtiss was the researcher

Question 32

Outline Genies development in receiving language

Answer 32

- immediately responded to others speech - After 11 - understood words, but not grammatical sentence structure - Developed a large vocabulary but couldnt learn grammar/ sentences/ syntax - Parts of her brain responsible for grammar was not stimulated, so they died off - Eventually got some grammatical knowledge, but now much. She had missed the critical period

Question 33

Outline Genies development in producing language

Answer 33

- Produced any sound sequwnce - Spoke spontaneously after about 5 months - 3-4 word sentences, plurals, possessives - Never reached normal levels of using language - issues with intonation, tenses and word order - better development on IQ than language

Question 34

Outline Lenneberg (1967) - critical period

Answer 34

compared childrens vs adults with lesions - Children can recover language skills after lesions, but adults were worse at recovery - downs syndrome older children were worse - there is also a Critical period for learning a second language, in which it is easier - In deprivation cases, better off if found before age 7

Question 35

What are the limitations of comparisons made from genies case?

Answer 35

X - single case study X - Not clear how much language she had been exposed to X - Uncertain exactly when she was deprived of language X - Cant be sure she didnt have learning difficulties X - psychological trauma - managed to recover, but children dont always do

Question 36

Outline cognitive impairment, the second category of language impairment 6 impairments

Answer 36

1. Phonological dyslexia - difficulties with patterns of speech sounds 2. Verbal dyspraxia/ developmental apraxia - difficulties with how brain communications with speech muscles 3. Dysathria - neurological disturbances with using tounge/ lips etc 4. Semantic pragmatic disorder/ high functioning autism - problems with perceptive/ expressive language/ conversational skills 5. ASD/ ASperger's syndrom - trouble with irony/ sarcasm/ metaphors - non-verbal signals too 6. Selective mutism

Question 37

Outline deveopment dyslexia as a cognitive language impairment

Answer 37

- one of most common developmental disorder - fail to attain language skills of reading, writing and spelling despite conventional classroom experience - not related to childs intelligence - Abnormalities in visual AND auditory processing - cant match speech and sound - Subtle speech impairments: • Mislabelling, mispronounciation, word-finding, limited verbal memory - of sequences of words • limited processing speed - takes age to link BBC to a tV channel

Question 38

Outline specific language impairment as a cognitive language impairment

Answer 38

Problems only in language domain - Some kids will progress to a normal capacity = delay - Some will never acquire normal skills for some underlying reason = disorder - 3 forms: 1. Problems with comprehension + Expresion 2. Problems with comprehension only 3. Problems with expression only

Question 39

Outline Selective mutism as a cognitive language impairment

Answer 39

- persistent silence in certain situations - NOT Shyness - psychological - more common if bilingual/ or have other SLI - may talk openly/ freely at home, but freeze in social situations

Question 40

What are some of the causes of selective mutism

Answer 40

- Genetic predispositions for anxiety - Sleep problems - temperemant related? - Not linked to abuse/ trauma

Question 41

Outline Physiological impairment to language impairment

Answer 41

- Deafness - Articulation difficulties - Aphasia (brain damage) - Paralysis

Question 42

Outline deafness as a physiological impairment to language impairment

Answer 42

- Hearing loss impairs acquistion of oral language - Degree of loss of hearing, related to degree of loss of comprehension - Common features: • Syntax and morphology delayed • Intepret sentences based on word order • Omit function words • use mostly nouns with a few verbs (impacts academics)

Question 43

Outline Communication problems as a language impairment

Answer 43

``` When things go wrong in: • muscles • conversation rules • meaning • language - fairly easy to overcome these issues ```