Lecture 5: Language Development Flashcards

Question

Babbling

Answer 1

* Start around 7 months of age (6-10 months of age) * Repetitive **consonant-vowel syllables**, like “papapa” and “babababa” - Speech sounds not necessarily from native language - Infant babbling is very similar across languages * **Manual babbling**: Deaf infants that are exposed to sign language babble with repetitive hand movements made up of pieces of full signs - Deaf children do not verbally babble - Evidence that language exposure is critical for babbling | babling includes consonants and vowels, cooing is just vowels

Answer 2

* **Social function**: Practicing turn-taking in a dialogue - Infant babbling elicits caregiver reactions which in turn elicit more babbling * **Learning function**: Signal that the infant is alert and ready to learn - Infants learn more when an adult labels a new object just after they babble vs. learning the word in the absence of babbling - caregiver tells the new word after the baby has babbled = more likely for them to learn that word than if the caregiver tells them after they have not babbled.

Answer 3

* Infants appear to understand high-frequency words around 6 months of age - they start to understand words before they learn to produce them. - In lab studies, when 6-month-olds are presented with pictures of common items and hear one of the pictures being named, they look to the correct picture more often than chance - But cannot yet name these items themselves * Shows that infants understand more words than they can produce * Shows that infants understand more words than their caregivers realize

Answer 4

* First words are produced around 12 months of age (10-15 months) * First word: Any specific utterance/vocalization consistently used to refer to a particular meaning or thing. * Can be tricky to identify: - Babbling can sound like words (babbling can sound like a first word - they arent actually referring to their mom) - E.g. “mamamama” - Meaning of a first word can differ from its standard meaning - E.g. “woof woof” referring to “dog” - they are not using the word dog but they have come up with some other label to say dog.

Answer 5

* Often mispronounced in predictable ways: * Omit difficult parts of words: - “Banana” --> “nana” * Substitute difficult sounds for easier sounds: - “Rabbit” --> “wabbit” * Re-order sounds to put easy sound first - “Spaghetti” --> “pisketti”

Answer 6

Bold = 10 most common words in these 3 languages

Answer 7

* Usually refer to family members, pets, or important objects (things of interest to the baby) * Meaning of first words are very similar across cultures * Suggests that infants around the world have similar interests and priorities

Answer 8

* Infants express themselves initially with only one-word utterances so cannot clearly communicate what they want to say * **Overextension**: using a word in a broader context than is appropriate - E.g. “dog” refers to any 4 legged animal - Does not mean that they don’t understand what the word refers to * **Underextension:** using a word in a more limited context than appropriate - “cat” only refers to the family’s pet cat

Answer 9

* **18 months of age:** - Knows about 50 words - Vocabulary spurt: Rate of word learning accelerates

Answer 10

* Children’s assumptions about language * Social context: - Caregivers - Peers

Answer 11

* Children have several assumptions when learning a new word: - Mutual exclusivity - Whole-object assumption - Grammatical form - Shape bias - Cross-situational word learning - Pragmatic cues - Adult’s intentionality

Answer 12

* A given object/being will have only one name - A child will turn their attention to the object they don’t have a name for when they hear a new word - Bilingual children will follow this rule less

Answer 13

* When they hear a word, they assume the word will refer to the whole object rather than to a part or action of the object

Answer 14

* Children will apply a noun to a new object of the same shape, even if that object is very different in size, colour, or texture

Answer 15

* Grammatical form of a word influences whether it’s interpreted as a noun, verb, or adjective * toddlers are highly attuned to the gramatical form

Answer 16

* Determining word meanings by tracking the correlations between labels and meanings across contexts * Statistical learning plays a big role in learning language.

Answer 17

* Using the social context (pragmatic cues) to infer the meaning of a word * **Adult gaze:** When an adult says a new word, the child assumes that it refers to the object the adult is looking at, even if the child cannot see it * **Tone of voice:** if an adult is trying to teach a kid a word that conflicts with what the child knows. This word can override what the child believes if it is said with confidence.

Answer 18

* If an adult uses a word that conflicts with child’s word for that object, they will learn the new word if it is said with confidence

Answer 19

* Children’s assumptions about language * Social context - Caregivers - Peers

Answer 20

* Children’s vocabularies are hugely impacted by the vocabularies and speech of their caregivers * Caregiver factors influencing word learning: - Infant directed speech - Quantity of speech - Quality of speech

Answer 21

* Distinctive mode of speech when talking to babies and toddlers (and pets) * Common in majority of cultures around the world, but not all cultures use it Characteristics: - Greater pitch variability - Slower speech - Shorter utterances - Clearer pronunciation of vowels - More word repetitions - More questions - Accompanied by exaggerated facial expressions

Answer 22

* Draws infants’ attention to speech * Infants prefer IDS to regular adult speech * Because infants pay greater attention to IDS, it facilitates their language learning

Answer 23

* Study: - 7-8 month old infants were introduced to new words in IDS or regular adult speech - Recognition of words tested 24 hours later using preferential listening procedure (familiarity) - Infants were better at recognizing (looked longer at) words introduced in IDS than adult speech * Indicates that IDS facilitates word learning

Answer 24

* The number of words children hear used around them predicts children’s vocabulary size - Especially speech directed to child * Children that hear more words have larger vocabularies

Answer 25

* Classic study found that parents’ SES predicts how much speech infant hear (maybe it has to do with vocabulary exposure at home). * Method: Tested parents with their 7 month old children over 2.5 years until the child turned 3 years of age (watch parent interact with child) - High, middle, and low SES - Came to lab for an hour every week - Everything the parent and child said was recorded and analyzed

Answer 26

They had data up until 36 months and then used statistical modelling to predict what a child ability would be as they entered kindergarden * average low SES = 13 million wods * Middle SES = 25 million words * High SES = 45 million Known as the 30 million word gap (about 1/3 of language exposure compared to the high SES group.

Answer 27

* Children from high SES have larger vocabularies than kids from low SES * Differences in language exposure contribute to achievement gap between higher and lower SES children * nothing to do with brain development...all about language exposure. * Study is criticized because families from lower SES are less comfortable in lab conditions so they might not be accurate representation --> but they have done this in more natural conditions and have similar results

Answer 28

* Richness of adult communication with their child predicts children’s language ability (not just about quantity they hear but also about quality...) - Joint engagement - Fluency - Stressing and repeating new words - Playing naming games - Naming an object when a toddler is already looking at it BEtter quality = better vocab and better developed linguisticly

Answer 29

**Grocery Store Intervention** * Focuses on increasing amount of time parents spend talking to child * Signs placed in grocery stores in low SES neighbourhoods encouraging parents to talk to their children about the foods in the store * Parents increased quantity and quality of speech to their child * similar to daycare intervention that we looked at last week!

Answer 30

* Placing preschool children with similarly poor language ability in the same classroom negatively impacts their language growth * Better chance to “catch-up” on language ability if: - placed with children with higher language ability - teacher uses rich communication with students

Answer 31

* Cooing: 2 months of age * Babbling: 7 months of age * First words: - Understand high-frequency words at 6 months of age - Say first words at 12 months of age - Children use a variety of strategies to figure out what words mean - Children’s vocabularies are hugely influenced by social context

Answer 32

basically grammar...

Answer 33

* **2 years of age**: - Telegraphic speech: 2-3 word phrases that leave out non-essential words (chopped up sentence) - E.g. “Mommy cake”, “Hurt knee”, “Key door” - Common in many languages - recipe for frustration + anger, not properly understood so they are upset. Have some language skills but not enough to get their point forward

Answer 34

* **Age 5**: Mastered basics of grammar - Allows children to express and understand more complex ideas * We know that children have learned the grammar of their language when they: - Can apply a grammatical rule to a new word/context - E.g. Adding “s” to makes a word plural - Clear sign that they internalized grammar, not copying someone - Over-regularization errors

Answer 35

* Speech errors in which children treat irregular forms of words as if they were regular * Evidence that they have learned grammatical rules but not the exceptions to the rule * Examples: - “Mans” - “Goed” - “Foots” - “Breaked” - “Branged”

Answer 36

* Listening to parents and other caregivers: - Model grammatically correct speech but generally don’t correct children’s grammatical errors - parents tend to not correct gramatical rules, more likely to correct mistakes about context. * Statistical learning

Answer 37

* **Study:** Can infants pick up on new grammatical patterns? - Preferential listening paradigm - Habituated to a list of 3-“word” sequences in which second “word” is repeated (ABB structure) - E.g. : “le di di”, “wi je je”, “de li li” * **Test:** Presented with new sentences with same structure (ABB) or with a different structure (ABA) - ABB: “ko ga ga” vs. - ABA: “ko ga ko” * **Results:** 8 month olds look longer in direction of sentences with different structure (ABA structure) - Evidence that infants can pick-up on grammatical patterns - Already really sensitive to picking up on rules and patterns in their language

Answer 38

* **1-4 years old:** Children initially struggle to engage in mutual conversation: - Private speech (not meant to communicate with others) - Infants’ speech is often initially directed to themselves to organize actions - Egocentric discussion between children * **5+ years old**: able to stick to the same conversation topic as their conversation partner basically have the basis of language by age 5

Answer 39

* **Age 2**: produce 2-3 word sentences - Length and complexity of sentences gradually increases * **Age 2-5:** Acquiring the basics of grammar - Extend patterns, like “add –s to make plural” - Overgeneralization errors - Children acquire the basics of grammar via modelling and statistical learning * **Age 5**: master grammar and beginning to be able to engage in sustained conversations

Answer 40

* Period from **birth to before puberty-ish** - Due to maturational changes in the brain whereby language brain areas become less plastic * Crucial period in which an individual can acquire a first language if exposed to adequate linguistic stimuli (must have adequate linguistic input ) - Languages are learned relatively easily during this period and full native competence is possible * After this period, languages are learned with great difficulty and native-like competence is rare - this is why its hard to learn language past age of 12...why you have an accent.

Answer 41

* Discovered in LA in 1970 * From 18 months old until she was rescued at age 13, deprived of linguistic input (lock in a prison in parents home..no contact) * Could barely speak - Development also stunted in all other areas * Language ability never fully developed despite intensive training after age 13 - “Father take piece wood. Hit. Cry.” * Evidence of sensitive period of language acquisition - BUT difficulties may be due to inhumane treatment rather than linguistic deprivation per se - cant say for sure its due to lack of linguistic input...may be due to trauma

Answer 42

* Children that sustain brain damage to language areas (brocas and wenickes) usually recover full language capability - Children’s brains are highly plastic; other parts of the developing brain can take over language functions * Teenagers and adults that sustain brain damage to language areas are more likely to suffer permanent language impairment - More mature brain is much less plastic - ie: when you have a stroke, brain is less plastic because you are older so can't fix it

Answer 43

Researchers tested 2 groups of deaf adults: 1. No exposure to language during early childhood 2. Learned spoken language during early childhood * Both groups began learning ASL in school between ages of 9-15 * **Results:** Those with exposure to language in infancy, even though spoken, performed better on language task than those with no language exposure

Answer 44

* Follow-up study tested deaf adults that had exposure to ASL in early childhood * Performance of deaf adults with early exposure to ASL was the same as deaf adults with exposure to spoken language * Shows that exposure to language, regardless of modality, in infancy is critical for full language development * no early exposure = poor language ability

Answer 45

* Performance on an English test by Chinese and Korean immigrants was related to the age at which they first arrived in the USA * Shows that language proficiency is related to first age of exposure to that language - Language performance is highly variable when a language is learned after puberty Sensitive period applies to all languages (not just native language).

Answer 46

* **Birth-before puberty**: sensitive period for language acquisition * Many aspects of language are difficult to learn after this period * Language development is thus governed by both nature (sensitive period) and nurture (language exposure is critical during this period)

Answer 47

* Deaf children should be exposed to sign language as young as possible to develop native-like ability * Second language exposure at school should begin as early as possible to maximize opportunity to achieve native-like ability

Answer 48

* About 50% of people across the world use at least 2 languages on a daily basis * In Canada, - 17% of Canadians are English-French bilingual - 55% of Montrealers are English-French bilingual - 20% of Canadians’ first language is neither English nor French It is rare to be monolingual - most places speak 2 languages.

Answer 49

* **“Monolingual brain” hypothesis**: Belief that infants’ brains are programmed to be monolingual and that they treat input in 2 languages as if it were one language - Bilingualism stretches limited processing capacity of infants * Implications: - If bilingual from birth, children will confuse their languages and could result in language delays - should teach them one language at a time so that they are not confused or lead to developmental delays - THIS IS INCORRECT

Answer 50

* Bilingual learning begins in utero Study: * Tested 2 groups of **newborn** infants - Bilingual English-Tagalog mothers - Monolingual English mothers * Preferential high amplitude sucking procedure - Exposed infants to Tagalog and English sentences - Measures rate of sucking on a pacifier - More intense sucking indicates preference for one language

Answer 51

**Results:** * English monolinguals had a preference for English (kids born to the monolingual moms have a preference for english) * English-Tagalog bilinguals showed no consistent preference for either language * Suggests that bilingual infants start learning about two native languages prebirth (treat both of the languages as native) Possible implication: could be that they are confused and that is why they are not showing a preference.

Answer 52

* Can bilingual infants differentiate between two native languages? **Study**: Tested 2 groups of newborn infants - Bilingual English-Tagalog mothers - Monolingual English mothers * Discrimination high amplitude sucking procedure: - **Habituation**: Both groups habituated to English or Tagalog until sucking declined - **Test**: hearing sentences in new language

Answer 53

**Results:** * Both bilingual babies (newborns) and monolingual babies differentiated between Tagalog and English * Shows that bilingual infants can differentiate between native languages despite showing similar preference for both languages * shows that the newborns can already tell the difference between two languages. The bilingual babies are treating both of these as native because they are showing an equal preference to them.

Answer 54

* Suggests that bilingual infants are developing two separate language systems - Rather than confusing 2 languages * Goes against “monolingual brain” hypothesis

Answer 55

1. The progression of language development in bilingual vs. monolingual children is very similar * E.g., Say their first word roughly at the same time * Have about the same vocabulary size when considering both languages - Smaller vocabulary in each language separately vs. monolinguals (but between the 2 languages, they have same size of vocabulary) 2. Children select language they use based on conversational partner 3. Even if children mix languages, not a sign of confusion * Language mixing in adult bilinguals is normal * 90% of bilingual parents mix their languages in speech

Answer 56

* Bilingual children perform better on measures of executive functioning than monolingual children * Bilingualism seems to delay onset of Alzheimer’s in older adults * Why advantageous? - Bilingual individuals have to quickly switch between languages, which practices their executive functioning skills, especially cognitive flexibility

Answer 57

* Schools should support learning both native and non-native language from a young age

Answer 58

* Contrary to monolingual brain hypothesis, bilingual children simultaneously acquire a linguistic system for each of their languages * Start learning both (or more) languages of the family in utero * Bilingual language development is very similar to monolingual development

Answer 59

* High amplitude sucking paradigm and preferential listening paradigm * Perception of speech sounds: children perceive the same category boundaries as adults BUT they are also able to make more distinctions than adults. * Developmental timeline and mechanisms - Newborns have preference for native lingo - 2 months: cooing; 7 months: babbling; 12 months: first words; 18 months vocabulary spurt; 2 years: telegraphic speech; 5 years old: conversation + basic grammar - Statistical learning is very important for lingo development; word segmentation + grammar learning * Nature and nurture of language development - Social context: - Caregivers' vocabularies: Explains differences in vocabs of kids from high vs low SES (30 million word gap) - IDS: infants learn better when words presented in IDS - Peer vocabularies * Sensitive period: 0-puberty; period of time in which the brain is highly malleable and its possible to learn a language with native like profiency as long ad there is adequate lingo exposure * Bilingualism: monolingual brain hypothesis is wrong; bilingual kids reach lingo milestones at the same time as monolingual kids.

Lecture 5: Language Development Flashcards

(86 cards)