Solution Manual for Language Development: An Introduction, 10th Edition
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Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank For
Language Development: An Introduction Tenth Edition Robert E. Owens, Jr., College of Saint Rose Prepared by Denise Bambinelli, Speech – Language Pathologist St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital & Orange Regional Medical Center Outpatient Rehabilitation
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Table of Contents Instructor’s Manual Chapter 1: The Territory ....................................................................... 8 Introduction ............................................................................................. 8 Speech, Language, and Communication ................................................ 8 Properties of Language......................................................................... 11 Components of Language ..................................................................... 12 Dialects ................................................................................................. 15 Classroom Activities ............................................................................. 17 Print Resources .................................................................................... 18 Audiovisual and Online ......................................................................... 19 Chapter 2: Describing Language ....................................................... 20 Linguistic Theory................................................................................... 20 Learning Theory.................................................................................... 22 Language Research and Analysis ........................................................ 26 Cross‐Language Studies ...................................................................... 28 CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES .................................................................. 29 Print Resources .................................................................................... 29 Audiovisual and Online ......................................................................... 30 Chapter 3: Neurological Bases of Speech and Language ............... 31 Introduction ........................................................................................... 31 Central Nervous System ....................................................................... 31 Language Processing ........................................................................... 34 MODELS OF LINGUISTIC PROCESSING ........................................... 36 CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES .................................................................. 39 Print Resources .................................................................................... 40 Audiovisual and Online ......................................................................... 41 Chapter 4: Cognitive, Perceptual, and Motor Bases of Early Language and Speech ........................................................................ 42 3
Introduction ........................................................................................... 42 Neurological Development .................................................................... 42 Early Cognitive Development ................................................................ 44 Cognition and Communication Development ........................................ 48 CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES .................................................................. 53 Print Resources .................................................................................... 53 Audiovisual and Online ......................................................................... 54 Chapter 5: The Social and Communicative Bases of Early Language and Speech ......................................................................................... 55 Introduction ........................................................................................... 55 Development of Communication: A Chronology.................................... 55 Maternal Communication Behaviors ..................................................... 60 Interactions Between Infant and Caregiver ........................................... 63 CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES .................................................................. 67 Print Resources .................................................................................... 67 Audiovisual and Online ......................................................................... 68 Chapter 6: Language-Learning and Teaching Processes and Young Children ............................................................................................... 70 Comprehension, Production, and Cognitive Growth.............................. 70 Child Learning Strategies...................................................................... 72 Adult Conversational Teaching Techniques .......................................... 77 Importance of Play ................................................................................ 82 Variation on a Theme............................................................................ 84 CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES .................................................................. 86 Print Resources .................................................................................... 86 Audiovisual and Online ......................................................................... 87 Chapter 7: First Words and Word Combinations in Toddler Talk ... 88 Introduction ........................................................................................... 88 Single Word Utterances ........................................................................ 89 Early Multiword Combinations............................................................... 95 4
Phonological Learning .......................................................................... 96 Individual Differences............................................................................ 99 CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES ................................................................ 100 Print Resources .................................................................................. 101 Audiovisual and Online ....................................................................... 102 Chapter 8: Preschool Pragmatic and Semantic Development....... 103 Preschool Development ...................................................................... 103 Semantic Development ....................................................................... 110 Semantic and Pragmatic Influence on Syntactic Development ........... 113 Language Development Differences and Delays ................................ 113 CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES ................................................................ 117 Print Resources .................................................................................. 117 Audiovisual and Online ....................................................................... 118 Chapter 9: Preschool Development of Language Form ................. 119 Syntactic and Morphologic Development ............................................ 119 Bound Morphemes ............................................................................. 120 Phrase Development .......................................................................... 122 Sentence Development....................................................................... 126 Phonemic and Phonologic Development ............................................ 130 CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES ................................................................ 132 Print Resources .................................................................................. 132 Audiovisual and Online ....................................................................... 133 Chapter 10: Early School-Age Language Development ................. 134 Introduction ......................................................................................... 134 The Early School‐Age Child ................................................................ 134 Pragmatic Development...................................................................... 135 Semantic Development ....................................................................... 139 Syntactic and Morphologic Development ............................................ 141 Phonologic Development .................................................................... 144 Metalinguistic Abilities ......................................................................... 144 5
Language Difference .......................................................................... 145 CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES ................................................................ 146 Print Resources .................................................................................. 146 Audiovisual and Online ....................................................................... 147 Chapter 11: School-Age Literacy Development ............................. 148 Introduction ......................................................................................... 148 The Process of Reading ..................................................................... 148 Reading Development ........................................................................ 151 The Process of Writing........................................................................ 153 Writing Development .......................................................................... 154 CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES ................................................................ 156 Print Resources .................................................................................. 156 Audiovisual and Online ....................................................................... 157 Chapter 12: Adolescent and Adult Language ................................. 158 Introduction ......................................................................................... 158 Pragmatics.......................................................................................... 158 Semantics ........................................................................................... 161 Syntax and Morphology ...................................................................... 161 Phonology........................................................................................... 163 Literacy ............................................................................................... 164 Bilingualism ........................................................................................ 164 CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES ................................................................ 164 Print Resources .................................................................................. 165 Audiovisual and Online ....................................................................... 165 TEST BANK Chapter 1: The Territory...................................................................... 167 Chapter 2: Describing Language ........................................................ 174 Chapter 3: Neurological Bases of Speech and Language ................... 181 6
Chapter 4: Cognitive, Perceptual, and Motor Bases of Early Language and Speech ........................................................................................ 189 Chapter 5: The Social and Communicative Bases of Early Language and Speech ............................................................................................... 196 Chapter 6: Language‐Learning and Teaching Processes and Young Children .............................................................................................. 203 Chapter 7: First Words and Word Combinations in Toddler Talk ........ 210 Chapter 8: Preschool Pragmatic and Semantic Development ............. 217 Chapter 9: Preschool Development of Language Form ...................... 224 Chapter 10: Early School-Age Language Development ...................... 231 Chapter 11: School-Age Literacy Development .................................. 238 Chapter 12: Adolescent and Adult Language ...................................... 245 Test Bank Answer Key ..................................................................... 252 Chapter 1 ............................................................................................ 252 Chapter 2 ............................................................................................ 254 Chapter 3 ............................................................................................ 256 Chapter 4 ............................................................................................ 258 Chapter 5 ............................................................................................ 260 Chapter 6 ............................................................................................ 262 Chapter 7 ............................................................................................ 264 Chapter 8 ............................................................................................ 266 Chapter 9 ............................................................................................ 268 Chapter 10 .......................................................................................... 270 Chapter 11 .......................................................................................... 272 Chapter 12 .......................................................................................... 274
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Chapter 1: The Territory When this chapter is completed, students should understand: •
The differences between speech, language, and communication.
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The difference between nonlinguistic, paralinguistic, and metalinguistic aspects of communication.
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The main properties of language.
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The five components of language and their descriptions.
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The definition of a dialect and its relation to its parent language.
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The major factors that determine the development of unique dialects.
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The following terms: antonym, bilingual, bound morpheme, code‐switching, communication, communicative competence, deficit approach, dialect, free morpheme, language, linguistic competence, linguistic performance, morpheme, morphology, nonlinguistic cues, paralinguistic codes, phoneme, phonology, pragmatics, register, selection restrictions, semantic features, semantics, sociolinguistic approach, speech, suprasegmental devices, style shifting, synonym, syntax, vernacular, word knowledge, world knowledge.
Introduction •
Linguists determine the language rules that people use to communicate.
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Children deduce the rules of their native language.
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Psycholinguistics is the study of how people acquire and process language.
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Sociolinguistics is the study of language, cultural, and situational influences.
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Language is the premier achievement of humans.
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Language is incredibly complex, yet 4‐year‐olds can decipher much of American English, and have well‐developed speech, language, and communication skills.
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Language acquisition generally occurs without formal instruction.
Speech, Language, and Communication SPEECH •
Speech is a verbal means of communication; it requires precise neuromuscular coordination.
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Spoken languages have specific sounds, or phonemes, and characteristic sound combinations.
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Other components of speech include voice quality, intonation, and rate.
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Non-speech behaviors (gestures, facial expressions, and body posture) carry up to 60% of the information in face‐to‐face communication.
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Children experiment with the vocal mechanism and sound production in the first year of life.
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The sounds eventually reflect the language of the child’s environment.
LANGUAGE •
Language is a socially shared code or system for representing concepts through the use of arbitrary symbols and rule‐governed combinations of those symbols.
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Dialects are subcategories of the parent language that use similar but not identical rules.
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Interactions between languages naturally occur in bilingual communities.
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Languages evolve, grow, and change, and those that do grow become obsolete.
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When a language is not frequently used or taught to children, it often dies out.
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The increased use of English language is due to the desire to have one universally understood language.
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English is a Germanic variation of a family of Indo‐European languages such as Italian, Greek, Russian, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, and ancient Sanskrit.
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Languages grow as culture changes.
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English has the largest number of words (about 700,000), and adds about six words per day.
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Speech is not essential to language.
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American Sign Language (ASL) does not mirror the English language structure; is has its own rules for the order of symbol combinations.
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Approximately 50 unique sign languages are used worldwide.
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American Speech-Language and Hearing Association’s (ASHA) definition of language is comprehensive (see text).
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Languages exist because users have agreed on the symbols and rules; as demonstrated through language usage.
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Users possess the ability to agree to change the rules and/or borrow words from another language.
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Nearly one billion people speak English as a second language; mostly in Asia.
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These speakers are making English their own, modifying it with the addition of their own words and incorporating their own intonational and structural patterns.
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The “Englishes” of the future may be hybrids or even new languages that may not be mutually understood by users from different cultures.
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The socially shared code of a language allows the listener and speaker/ writer and/or reader of the same language to exchange information.
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Most of the meaning in language is contained in the way symbols are combined.
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The rules for combinations give language an order and allow for prediction as well as creativity.
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COMMUNICATION •
Communication is the process of exchanging information and ideas, needs, and desires between two or more individuals.
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It involves encoding, transmitting, and decoding the intended message.
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It requires a sender and a receiver who are aware of the needs of the other to ensure effective communication.
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The degree to which a speaker is successful in communicating is called communicative competence.
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A competent communicator is able to conceive, formulate, modulate, and issue messages and to perceive the degree to which intended meanings are successfully conveyed.
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Human communication is a complex, systematic, collaborative, context‐bound tool for social action.
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Communication is collaborative because two or more partners actively coordinate construction of the dialogue as they try to understand each other.
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Communication occurs within a specific cultural context that influences the interpretation of linguistic units and speaker behaviors.
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The context is variable in terms of the physical setting, partners, and topics.
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Speech and language are only a portion of communication; other aspects include paralinguistics, nonlinguistic information, and metalinguistics.
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Paralinguistic codes, including intonation, stress or emphasis, speed or rate of delivery, and pause or hesitation, are superimposed on speech to signal attitude or emotion.
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Intonation, the use of pitch, is complex and used to signal mood, whether the utterance is a statement or a question, emphasis, asides, emotions, importance, and status of the speaker.
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Stress is used for emphasis and further conveys the speaker’s attitude.
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Rate varies with the speaker’s excitement, familiarity with content, and perceived comprehension of the listener.
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Pauses may be used to emphasize or replace a message.
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Pitch, rhythm, and pauses may be used to mark divisions between phrases and clauses.
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Pitch combined with duration and loudness is used to give prominence.
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Paralinguistic mechanisms are called suprasegmental devices because they can change the form and meaning of a sentence by acting across segments of a sentence.
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Nonlinguistic cues include gestures, body posture, facial expression, eye contact, head and body movement, and physical distance or proxemics.
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Nonlinguistic cues vary with culture.
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Metalinguistic skills refer to an individual’s skill to talk about language, analyze it, think about it, judge it, and see it as an entity separate from its content.
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Language can be ambiguous, meaning that each partner in a conversation must monitor the other partner’s linguistic cues and the paralinguistic and non-linguistic signals accompanying them.
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Communication likely began in a gestural form and later resulting in vocal communication.
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Chimpanzees (our ancestors) do not have shared intentionality, necessary for cooperative communication.
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The unique vocal tract of humans makes consonant‐like sounds possible.
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In comparison to other primates, humans have more vertical teeth, more intricately muscled lips, a relatively smaller mouth, a greater closure of the oral cavity from the nasal, and a lower larynx.
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Humans possess a highly specialized brain compared to their overall size.
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It is the rules of language that enable humans to communicate precise messages; sounds can be combined, recombined, broken down, and combined another way to convey different meanings.
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Grammar arose to express complex relationships.
Properties of Language LANGUAGE IS A SOCIAL TOOL •
Language is the code for transmission between people.
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Language is a social interactive tool that is both rule-governed and generative, or creative.
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Language reflects the collective thinking of its culture and influences such thinking.
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Communication is the purpose of language.
LANGUAGE IS A RULE‐GOVERNED SYSTEM •
The relationship between meaning and symbols is arbitrary, but their arrangement is not.
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A language user’s underlying knowledge about language rules is called linguistic competence.
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Linguistic knowledge in actual usage is linguistic performance.
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Reasons for the discrepancy between competence and performance include long‐ term (ethnic background, SES, region of the country, intellectual disability, or autism spectrum disorder) or short‐term constraints (physical state changes and situational variations).
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Even though much of what is said is ungrammatical, native speakers have little difficulty decoding messages.
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Comprehension is influenced by intent, context, shared meanings, and linguistic complexity.
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•
Children learn language rules slowly through decoding the language spoken by others and attempting to encode their own thoughts; formal rules are learned later in school.
LANGUAGE IS GENERATIVE •
Language is productive and creative.
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Knowledge of the rules allows speakers to generate meaningful utterances.
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This creativity occurs because words can refer to more than one thing, these things can be called by more than one name, and words can be combined in a variety of ways.
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The possibilities for creating new sentences are virtually endless.
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Children learn rules that govern word combinations rather than learning all combinations.
OTHER PROPERTIES •
Human language is reflexive, meaning we can use language to reflect on language.
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Displacement is the ability to communicate beyond the immediate context.
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The symbols used in a language are arbitrary, a suggested relationship between the sounds and the physical object/action in reference.
Components of Language •
Language can be divided into three major components: form, content, and use.
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Form includes syntax, morphology, and phonology.
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Syntax refers to word order and their relationships.
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Morphology refers to words and word beginnings and/or endings
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Phonology refers to the sound units and sequences.
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Content includes semantics.
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Use includes pragmatics.
SYNTAX •
The form or structure of a sentence is governed by the rules of syntax.
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Syntax specifies word, phrase, and clause order; sentence organization; and the relationships between words, word classes, and other sentence elements.
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It specifies which word combinations are acceptable and which are not.
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Sentences are organized according to their function.
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Each sentence must contain a noun phrase and a verb phrase.
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In a given phrase, word classes may be deleted or added; as long as the noun and verb remain, a sentence is possible.
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It is sometimes difficult to follow prescribed language rules, most often in writing.
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Languages can be divided into those with free word order and those with word‐order rules.
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MORPHOLOGY •
Morphology is concerned with the internal organization of words.
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Words consist of one or more smaller units called morphemes.
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A morpheme is the smallest grammatical unit and is indivisible.
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Most words in English consist of one or two morphemes.
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Free morphemes are independent and can stand alone (e.g., toy, big, happy).
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Bound morphemes are grammatical markers that cannot stand alone (e.g., ‐s, ‐est, ‐ly).
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Derivational morphemes include both prefixes and suffixes; they change whole classes of words.
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Inflectional morphemes are suffixes only; they change the state or increase the precision of the free morpheme.
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Languages differ in their relative dependence on syntactic and morphological components.
PHONOLOGY •
Phonology is concerned with the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables.
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A phoneme is the smallest linguistic unit of sound that can signal a difference in meaning.
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Allophones differ slightly, but not enough to sound like a different phoneme.
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Phonemes are classified by acoustic properties, manner, and place of production.
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English has approximately 43 phonemes.
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Humans can make approximately 600 possible sounds.
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Phonological rules govern the distribution and sequencing of phonemes within a language.
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Distributional rules describe which sounds can be employed in various positions in words.
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Sequencing rules determine which sounds may appear in combination and also address the sound modifications made when two phonemes appear next to each other.
SEMANTICS •
Semantics governs the meaning or content of words and word combinations.
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World knowledge is an individual’s autobiographical and experiential understanding and memory of particular events.
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Word knowledge forms each person’s mental dictionary or thesaurus.
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With more experience, knowledge becomes less dependent on events.
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Generalized concepts form the base for semantic or word knowledge.
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Concepts in world knowledge may eventually be formed without first-hand experience.
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We share definitions with others as we converse.
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Concept development results in increased validity, status, and accessibility.
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Accessibility relates to the ease of retrieval from memory and use of the concept.
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The more one knows about a word and the more it is used to communicate, the easier it is to access.
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Semantic features are aspects of the meaning that characterize the word.
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Selection restrictions are based on features and prohibit certain word combinations.
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Words have an objective denotative meaning and a connotative meaning of subjective features.
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Language users acquire new features, delete old ones, and reorganize.
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Relationships between symbols are more important than definitions.
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Words with almost identical features are synonyms.
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Antonyms differ only in the opposite value of a single important feature.
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Knowledge of semantic features allows a rich vocabulary of alternative words and meanings.
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Sentence meanings are more important than individual word meanings.
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Mature language users generally recall the overall sentence meaning better than the form.
PRAGMATICS •
Pragmatics is the study of language in context and concentrates on language as a communication tool that is used to achieve social ends.
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Pragmatics consists of: communication intentions and recognized ways of carrying them out, conversational rules or principles, and types of discourse and their construction.
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Successful pragmatics requires understanding of the culture and of individuals.
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Speech must involve the appropriate persons and circumstances, be complete and correctly executed by all participants, and contain the appropriate intentions of all participants.
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Not all speech performs an act.
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Pragmatic rules govern sequential organization and coherence of conversations, repair of errors, role, and intentions.
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Conversation is governed by the “cooperation principle.”
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The four maxims of the “cooperation principle are quantity, quality, relation, and manner.
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Quantity refers to the informativeness of each participant’s contribution.
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Quality is governed by truthfulness and based on sufficient evidence.
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Relation states that a contribution should be relevant to the topic of conversation.
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Manner means that each participant should be reasonably direct and avoid vagueness ambiguity, and wordiness.
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Three general categories of pragmatic rules concern selection of the appropriate linguistic form, use of language forms consistent with assumed rules, and use of ritualized forms.
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Speech may be direct or indirect, reflected in the syntactic form.
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Speech may also be literal, nonliteral, or both.
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Roles of the communication partners often influence the choice of vocabulary and language form.
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Predictable forms ease social interactions and individual participation.
RELATIONSHIP OF LANGUAGE COMPONENTS •
Emergentists stress the similarity and causal relationship between meanings and syntax, suggesting that grammar grows out of semantics.
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In the functionalist model, pragmatics is the organizing principle of language.
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Context determines the language user’s communication options; language relies heavily on context.
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The need to communicate exists prior to the selection of content and form.
Dialects •
The U.S. is becoming an increasingly pluralistic society in which cultural and ethno-racial groups contribute to the whole but retain their essential character.
A CHANGING DEMOGRAPHIC •
The population of people of color in the U.S. is projected to increase to 63 million by 2030.
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The white, non‐Latino population will increase at a slower rate.
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In the last 20 years, 80% of legal immigrants have come from Asia and Latin America.
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Approximately 40% of all recent legal immigrants are Asian.
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Asian and Asian Americans represent the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population.
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Approximately 40% of all recent legal immigrants are Latino.
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There are approximately 80,000 legal black immigrants per year.
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The number of illegal immigrants is estimated between 5 and 15 million with a growth of approximately 500,000 per year.
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Internal migration is significant for African Americans and Native Americans.
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Native Americans speak over 200 different languages.
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Birth rates differ across groups and contribute to the changing demographics.
BILINGUALISM •
In many bilingual communities, speakers develop new varieties of communication that incorporate both languages.
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The prevalence of bilingualism reflects cultural mixing within a nation.
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True bilingualism requires equal proficiency in two languages; this is rare.
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It is also possible to be semi-proficient in both.
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Bilingual children who learn both home languages simultaneously are able to become proficient in both languages by preschool age but then may shift dominance; sometimes losing the ability to be bilingual by teen/adult years.
DIALECTAL DIFFERENCES •
Dialects are not monolithic; variations and exceptions do exist.
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A dialect is a language‐rule system used by a group of people that varies from an ideal language standard.
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Although people may live in the same region, they may not “sound” exactly the same; these are examples of dialectal differences
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Each dialect shares a common set of grammatical rules with the “standard language,” and dialects of a language are theoretically mutually intelligible to all speakers of that language.
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No dialect is better than any other, nor should a dialect be considered deviant or inferior.
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Society places relative values on each dialect.
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In the deficit approach to dialects, each dialect has a different relative status, with those closer to the idealized standard considered to be better.
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In the sociolinguistic approach, each dialect is an equally valid rule system; each is related to the others and to the ideal standard.
RELATED FACTORS •
Several factors are related to dialectal differences: geography, SES, race and ethnicity, situation or context, peer‐group influence, and first‐ or second‐hand learning.
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As a child matures, he or she learns the dialect of the region.
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Some regions of the U.S. are more prone to word invention or novel use than others.
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In general, people from lower socio‐economic groups use more restricted linguistic systems.
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Racial and ethnic minorities can become isolated and a particular dialectal variation may evolve.
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Situationally influenced language variations are called registers.
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A causal, informal, or intimate register is called a vernacular.
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The variation from formal to informal styles or the reverse is called style shifting.
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Peer groups have their own lexicons and idioms not understood by society as a whole.
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Speakers can code switch from one language to another.
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AMERICAN ENGLISH DIALECTS •
Standard American English (SAE) is an idealized version of American English.
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There are at least 10 regional dialects in the U.S.
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Each geographic region has a dialect marked by distinct sound patterns, words and idioms, and syntactic and prosodic systems.
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Major racial and ethnic dialects in the U.S. are African American English, Spanish‐ influenced or Latino English, and Asian English.
African American English •
AAE is the linguistic system used by working‐class African Americans within.
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It shares many characteristics of Southern and working‐class dialects.
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White speakers who live or work with speakers of AAE may use some of its features.
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There are variations of AAE that its speakers use for certain situations.
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Individual differences are related to age, location, income, occupation, and education.
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Linguistic differences between AAE and SAE are minimal.
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The dialect is mostly marked by intonational patterns, speaking rate, and distinctive lexicon.
Latino English •
Some Hispanics speak Spanish, and others are bilingual, speaking both Spanish and English.
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Various Hispanic groups have different dialectal differences.
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The dialect of American English spoken in the surrounding community also has an effect.
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These dialects are collectively called Latino English (LE).
Asian English •
Asian English (AE) enables us to discuss various dialects of Asian Americans as a group.
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Mandarin Chinese has had the most influence on the evolution of other Asian languages.
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Each language has various dialects and features.
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The English of Asian language speakers has certain characteristics in common, such as the omission of final consonants.
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Most Asian languages, except for Korean, have open or vowel‐final syllables.
Classroom Activities 1. Allow students to arrange themselves into groups of four. Ask them to have a conversation about any topic they wish, but they cannot use typical prosody (will richard@qwconsultancy.com
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sound robot‐like, with equal emphasis and no frequency variation), gesture, or facial expression. Ask students to share their reflections. 2. Have students write a sentence that they have never written or said before. Nonsense sentences are best. Collect the sentences and read them aloud to the class as a demonstration of the generative quality of language. 3. Have student volunteers “act out” objects/actions (similar to charades) within some predetermined category while their peers try to guess what they are – students may not use spoken word. Sounds, gestures, and body language may be used in order to demonstrate the importance of the nonlinguistic aspects of communication. 4. Have students enact skits in which people do not communicate effectively. Discuss the breakdown, why it occurred, what speech, language, or communication was used to cause the confusion. How could it be corrected to enable better understanding for the communication partners?
Print Resources Abley, M. (2005). Spoken here: Travels among threatened languages. Boston: Mariner Books. American Speech‐Language‐Hearing Association. (2003). American English Dialects [Technical Report]. Available from www.asha.org/policy.
Axtell, R.E. (1997). Gestures: The do’s and taboos of body language around the world. Baltimore, MD: Wiley and Sons.
Backus, A. (1999). Mixed native language: A challenge to the monolithic view of language. Topics in Language Disorders, 19(4), 11‐22.
Emmorey, K. (1993). Processing a dynamic visual‐spatial language: Psycholinguistic studies of American Sign Language. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 22, 153‐187.
Tomasello, M. (2008). Origins of human communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Audiovisual and Online •
A Light History of the English Language – Expanded Version (2009). Media Consultants, Inc.
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The Difference Between Language and Speech. Retrieved from: https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/language_speech.htm
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Metalinguistics and the School‐Age Child. Retrieved from:
http://www.speechlanguage-resources.com/metalinguistics.html
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Language: A Crash Coarse Psychology. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9shPouRWCs
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International Dialects of English Archive. Retrieved from: http://web.ku.edu/~idea/
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Mapping How Americans Talk Soda vs. Pop vs. Coke. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HLYe31MBrg
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American Speech-Language and Hearing Association: Bilingualism. Retrieved from:
https://www.asha.org/practice/multicultural/issues/bll.htm
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American Dialect Homepage. Retrieved from: http://www.evolpub.com/Americandialects/AmDialhome.html
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Chapter 2:
Describing Language
When students have completed this chapter, students should understand: •
The relationship of Generative or Nativist theories and Constructionist theories.
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The differences between the 3 main learning theories.
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The goals and issues of language research and analysis.
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The value of cross‐language studies.
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The following terms: accommodation, adaptation, assimilation, child‐directed speech (CDS), constructionist approach, generative approach, emergentism, generative approach, menal map, nativist approach, scheme.
Linguistic Theory •
Interest in language development represents a part of a larger concern for human development.
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Studying language development can help us understand our own behavior.
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Language‐development studies examine the relationship between language and thought.
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Individuals who study language include linguists, psycholinguists, sociolinguists, behavioral psychologists, and speech-language pathologists.
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Linguists describe language symbols and state the rules that structure language.
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Psycholinguists are interested in the psychological processes and constructs underlying language.
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Sociolinguists study language rules and use as a function of role, SES, and context.
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Behavioral psychologists emphasize the behavioral context of language.
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Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) concentrate on disordered communication; the cause, extent, and remediation.
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Four theoretical approaches regarding language and communication include behavioral, syntactic, semantic‐cognitive, and sociolinguistic.
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A new approach, Emergentism, answers some concerns expressed about the initial four.
NATURE VERSUS NURTURE •
The debate focuses on whether some aspect of development of language occurs because it is an inherent human quality or whether language develops from exposure and learning from the environment.
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The two primary approaches related to nature and nurture are generative/nativist and constructionist/empiricist.
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GENERATIVE APPROACH •
The Generative or Nativist approach assumes that children acquire language because they are born with innate rules or principles related to structures of human languages.
•
Generativists assume it is impossible for children to gain linguistic knowledge from the environment because input is limited, full of errors, and incomplete information.
•
Beginning in the late 1950s, Noam Chomsky and other theorists attempted to identify universal syntactic rules.
•
The language acquisition device (LAD) is the theoretical home of the language rules.
•
Nativists believe that language develops as a result of two systems: universal and language specific.
•
In 1973, Roger Brown determined that none of the models successfully explained language development in children; there was no evidence that children used, or even needed, adult‐like linguistic categories and rules to acquire language.
•
Linguists concluded that no formal grammar adequately accounted for the acquisition process for all languages.
•
Theorists then suggested a semantic‐cognitive basis for language development.
•
The Semantic Revolution stated that the semantic‐syntactic relations apparent in children’s early language correspond closely to categories of infant and toddler sensory‐motor cognition.
•
However, this failed to explain those that fit none or several categories.
•
Theorists found it difficult to explain how children moved from semantic‐based rules to syntactic rules.
•
Some theorists began to advocate to return towards concepts revolving around adult syntactic models.
•
Theorists reasserted that all human beings possess the same basic linguistic competence, in the form of universal grammatical rules all throughout their lives.
•
Theorists believe that acquisition of language includes two components; acquiring all the words, idioms, and constructions of a language and linking the core structures of the particular language being learned to the universal language.
•
Theoretical downfalls of the Generative Approach include, overlooking the impact language a child hears on a regular basis on language development, does not account for the routine, multi word expressions, and idioms are not a part of core grammar.
INTERACTIONALIST APPROACH •
The interactionalist approach emphasizes the influence of a combination of biological and environmental processes on language learning.
•
The two Interactionalist approaches, Constructionist or Empiricist both suggest that children learn linguistic knowledge from their environment.
•
To learn language, children rely on general cognitive mechanisms.
•
An assumption is that linguistic constructions are learned from the input.
•
Children are considered contributing members in the learning process.
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•
A parent’s adapted way of speaking to a child is termed child-directed speech (CDS).
•
Emergentism views language as a structure arising from existing interacting patterns in the human brain, and that “something” did not necessarily evolve for language and language alone.
•
In 1957, Behaviorist, B.F. Skinner published Verbal Behavior, in which he assumed that learning language was similar to learning any other behavior.
•
Sociolinguists argued that language acquisition follows a model of child‐caregiver give‐and‐take in which the child learns to understand the rules of dialogue, not syntax or semantics.
•
The Constructionist approach is a usage‐based approach that views language as composed of constructions or symbol units that combine form and meaning through the use of morphemes, words, idioms, and sentence frames.
•
The most conclusive theory revolves around the concepts that language structure emerges from language use.
•
When children are exposed to similar constructions and forms, they begin to see regularities in the input and begin to use some word‐specific constructions.
•
Children construct abstractions through two general cognitive processes: intention reading and pattern finding.
•
Intention‐reading refers to a child’s attempts to understand the communicative significance of an utterance.
•
Pattern‐finding refers to the strategy by which they create the more abstract dimensions.
•
Theoretical weakness: if typical learning is based on the individual input a child receives, how does one account for the similarities of language learning and use across children?
Learning Theory •
Neither generative or interactionalist theoretical approaches clearly explains the mechanics of learning language.
•
Learning theories are conceptual models that attempt to describe how knowledge is acquired, processed, and retained when we “learn.”
•
Disagreements occur because many factors ‒ cognitive, emotional, and environmental ‒ play a role in how we understand the world and how that understanding changes as a result of learning.
•
The three major learning theories include: Behavioral, Cognitivist, and Social Constructivist.
BEHAVIORAL LEARNING THEORY •
Behaviorism stems from the work of psychologist B.F. Skinner.
•
Behaviorism focuses on observable behaviors, such as combining two words, doggie and bark to produce “Doggie bark.”
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•
Behaviorists believe that learning occurs when new behaviors arise or there are changes in current behaviors due to the association of stimuli and responses; in other words, a behavior is influenced by what comes both before and after that behavior.
•
Consequences that follow the behavior and increase it in some way, reinforce the behavior (i.e., responses that are reinforcing, entice the child to be more likely to say “Doggie” again when she sees her next dog.
•
In his 1957 book, Verbal Behavior, Skinner proposed that parents model language for a child who, in turn, imitates the model, and is then reinforced by the parents for correct imitations.
•
Complex syntax is learned, Skinner theorized, by the child learning to string words together in a manner such that each word elicits the next. In other words, each word serves as a stimulus for the next.
•
Theoretical weakness: Most criticism of Skinner’s ideas about language learning came from Noam Chomsky, who found it to be too simplistic. Chomsky argued that parents do not provide good models, children do not just imitate, and parents do not regularly reinforce the child’s behavior.
COGNITIVIST LEARNING THEORY •
Cognitivist theory is concerned with the thought process behind the behaviors of language and changes in behavior are indicative of that thought process.
•
Learning occurs through internal processing of incoming information
•
Cognitive processing is governed by an internal process rather than by external circumstances.
•
Psychologist Jean Piaget, suggested that cognitivism assumes that the learner plays an active role in trying to understand and process information
•
Cognitivists make two assumptions;
•
memory is an active and organized processor and,
•
prior knowledge plays an important role in learning.
•
Similarities and patterns of syntax begin to form in the child’s brain based on the frequency with which they occur.
•
Through learning, a child attains new insights or changes old ones and reorganizes experiences stored in the brain.
•
Cognitive Constructivism focuses on learners constructing knowledge by themselves; this relates to Piaget’s notion of internal schemes or concepts and the ways in which learners modify or replace those schemes based on new information.
•
Learning occurs as the learner adjusts his or her mental model to accommodate new experiences.
•
Change results from the interaction of both old and new information.
•
Information Processing Theory attempts to explain how the brain deals with information, uses that information to enhance future learning, and calls upon the information for recall.
•
Information Processing is believed to be a four-step operation overseen by the brain’s executive system that includes: richard@qwconsultancy.com
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(1) attending to stimuli (2) discriminating new information (3) organization and storage (4) memory
Jean Piaget and Adaptation •
Jean Piaget was a Swiss biologist turned psychologist who spent a lifetime studying children and child development in the early to mid-20th century.
•
According to Piaget, adaptation explains individual learning.
•
Adaptation occurs as a result of two related processes: assimilation and accommodation.
•
Cognitive change is observed as the result of adaptation and organization, two complementary processes, adaptation and organization.
•
Adaptation is the function or tendency of all organisms to change in response to the environment.
•
Organization is the tendency to systematize or organize processes into systems.
•
Schemes are organized patterns of reaction to stimuli that are used for processing incoming sensory information.
•
An event is perceived in a certain way and organized or categorized according to common characteristics; this is an active process involving interpretation and classification.
•
A scheme or concept is a mental representation that underlies the ability to categorize, or “chunk,” information for storage and retrieval.
•
An individual’s response to a given stimulus is based on his or her schemes and ability to respond.
•
As an organism develops, its conceptual system changes.
•
Stimulation is coming from both the stimulus and the representation. These representations provide an infant with an expectation of the properties of objects, events, and people in the environment.
•
Cognitive development is a qualitative change in the process of thought, therefore, individuals
•
organize and store material in qualitatively different ways.
•
Change occurs through a child’s active involvement with the environment as mediated by a mature language user who interprets and facilitates interaction for a child.
•
Assimilation is the use of existing schemes to incorporate external stimuli.
•
An attempt to deal with stimuli in terms of present cognitive structures, assimilation is the way an organism continually integrates new perceptual matter into existing patterns.
•
Not all stimuli fit into available schemes, however, and mental structures must be adapted to accommodate these stimuli.
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•
Accommodation is a transformational process in response to external stimuli that do not fit into any available scheme and, therefore, cannot be assimilated.
•
Once an organism has accommodated its schemes to the external stimulus, the new information is assimilated, or incorporated, into the new or modified scheme.
•
Equilibrium is a state of cognitive balance, or harmony, between incoming stimuli and the organism’s cognitive schemes.
•
According to Piaget, reaching equilibrium is the driving force behind cognitive and other biological changes.
•
Readjusting categories is a form of learning based on environmental input.
•
Theoretical weakness: Piagetian and Cognitivist notions of learning don’t necessarily negate anything said in the Generative Linguistic theoretical approach, the cognitivist approach is not a strong fit for the Interactionalist approach, and cognitivist theories do not offer an explanation for the role of social learning of the social tool called language.
SOCIAL COGNITIVIST LEARNING THEORY •
Social constructivism is a theory in which knowledge is constructed within social contexts through interactions with a knowledge individual(s).
•
People construct their individual understanding and knowledge, through experience and reflection on those experiences.
•
The social aspect of communication is essential for the exposure to language that children need.
•
The cognitivist learning theory is comprised of two concepts: (1) Experiences are used by the learner to create a model of the social world and the way that it functions. (2) Language is the most essential system with which to construct that reality (Leeds-Hurwitz, 2009).
•
Social constructivism is strongly Lev Vygotsky, Soviet era Russian psychologist.
•
According to Vygotsky’s work (1978), in the process of sharing individual perspectives, learners construct meaning or understanding together.
Lev Vygotky and Social Learning Theory •
In contrast to Jean Piaget, Vygotsky theorized that social learning precedes development.
•
It is believed that parents and caregivers use speech and language in context to interact with the child; in return, the adult’s language provides a model.
•
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) suggests that the easiest things for a child to learn are those closest or proximal to what he already knows.
•
Through the assistance of a more capable individual, such as a parent, that a child learns skills beyond his or her actual developmental or maturational level.
•
Vygotsky suggested individual and cultural learning although they are not the same nor are their processes of discovery similar.
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Language Research and Analysis •
Four goals of child language research include: confirming general linguistic principles, discovering language development principles, clarifying the relationship of language to developments in other areas, such as cognition, and providing a theoretical description of language development.
•
The purpose and theoretical perspectives of the research influence the data‐ collection procedure.
•
The researcher’s theories influence the language features studied and the overall study design.
•
Considerations that influence data collection: method, population and language sample size and variability, naturalness and representativeness, data collection, and data analysis.
Issues in the Study of Child Language
METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION •
Speech perception studies are interested in speech discrimination of children, especially infants, and the ways these abilities aid language learning.
•
Advances in technology aid researchers in isolating, reproducing, and combining sounds.
•
Online or real‐time research pairs responses with brain‐imaging techniques.
•
Subjects respond to stimuli by looking, pointing, acting out, or following directions in response to a spoken or written stimulus.
•
Expressive language studies can be structured and experimental or open‐ended and observational.
•
Expressive language‐development data are collected in two ways: spontaneous conversational sampling/natural observation and structured testing/experimental manipulation.
•
Formal elicitation tasks demonstrate more advanced child language than conversational sampling.
•
Experimental factors can have unexpected consequences.
•
Testing and experimental tasks do not necessarily reflect a child’s natural performance.
•
Noncompliance with testing may not mean lack of comprehension or lack of knowledge.
•
Language processing is not a single unitary operation.
•
Offline tasks measure only the endpoints of several linguistic processes.
•
Offline tasks may tell us what children know, but not how children process or access language.
•
Online tasks attempt to measure operations at various points during processing and describe individual and integrative components.
•
Testing and experimental data may be accurate but limited.
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•
Naturalistic studies, such as language samples, may yield very unique data.
•
Certain linguistic elements may not be exhibited even when they are in a child’s repertoire.
•
A single conversational sample is inadequate to demonstrate a child’s communication abilities.
•
Sampling techniques can be unstructured, open‐ended situations or more structured, restrictive ones in which the researcher controls or manipulate variables.
•
It is best practice to use a combination of collection procedures.
SAMPLE SIZE AND VARIABILITY •
The researcher must consider the sample of children from whom data are collected and the sample of language data, size of sample, and variability.
•
The sample should be large enough to allow for individual differences and enable group conclusions to be drawn.
•
When a researcher follows a few children for a n extended period of time, it is called a longitudinal study, but it is deemed inappropriate to administer a one‐time‐only test to the same limited number of children.
•
Other considerations, such as subject attrition, influence the number of children studied.
•
The sample should accurately reflect the diversity of the population.
•
Other important variables include size of family, birth order, presence of one or both parents in the home, presence of natural parents in the home, and amount of schooling.
•
Some variables, such as SES, may be difficult to determine, although parental education and employment seem to be important contributing factors.
•
Language development research has primarily focused on middle‐class preschoolers learning English.
•
Grouping children by age and matching them in studies may be inappropriate.
•
Reliable age‐independent measures, such as level of cognitive development, may be a better gauge of real developmental differences and may allow more appropriate comparisons.
NATURALNESS AND REPRESENTATIVENESS OF THE DATA •
Conversational samples are most natural if participants are free to move about and if sample collection does not interfere.
•
A representative sample should include as many of the child’s everyday experiences as possible.
•
One issue is observer paradox the concept that the absence of an observer may result in
•
uninterpretable data, but the presence of an observer may influence the language obtained. A second problem is a child’s physical and emotional state at the time of collection.
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•
A third problem relates to the context in which the sample is collected.
•
The most representative sample should be elicited in the home for preschoolers and in the home or classroom for older children, with a parent, sibling, or teacher as the partner.
•
Language samples should be representative in two ways: the population sample from which the language is collected should be representative of the total population and each child’s language sample should be representative of his or her typical language performance.
COLLECTION PROCEDURES •
Examples include diary accounts, checklists, and parental reports, and observation.
•
Video recording is better than audio alone because the researcher can observe nonlinguistics.
•
Written transcription is the least desirable method for microanalysis.
•
Language samples should be transcribed soon after collection, and caregivers familiar with the
• •
child’s language should be asked if the sample is typical of the child’s performance. Studies should ensure intratranscriber reliability. The use of more than one transcriber reduces the possibility of errors if the transcribers compare their transcriptions and resolve their differences in a consistent manner.
ANALYSIS PROCEDURES •
In general, quantitative measures are inadequate for describing language development in detail.
•
Qualitative research methods occur within natural contexts to describe and interpret communication.
•
It is difficult to determine when children actually know or have mastered a language feature.
•
Usually, mastery can be based on children using a feature in 90% of the obligatory locations or on 90% of the children using the feature consistently.
•
Measures are complicated by the complexity of language and the time needed for mastery.
Cross‐Language Studies •
Cross‐language studies are usually designed to investigate universality, linguistic specificity,
relative difficulty, or acquisitional principles. • Studies of universality attempt to determine which aspects of language appear in all languages. •
Studies of linguistic specificity attempt to determine whether development is the result of
universal cognitive development or unique linguistic knowledge. richard@qwconsultancy.com
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•
Relative difficulty studies look for language development differences that may be explained by the ease or difficulty of learning structures and forms in different languages.
•
Acquisitional principles studies attempt to find underlying language‐learning strategies.
•
Methods of collecting cross‐linguistic data include gathering a range of studies completed in
different languages or using a similar design across subjects from different language groups. • The second method yields more definitive data but takes much more time and effort.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 1. Host a discussion regarding the difference between nature and nurture. Divide students into 2 larger groups and host a debate to support “nature” or “nurture.”Develop an example of a poorly designed child language study. Divide students into groups and ask them to generate a list of problems with the study’s design and how they can be improved. 2. Pretend to organize a study of child language. Play devil’s advocate as students propose sampling procedures. 3. Have students provide examples of utterances made by young children and analyze them. Try to have other students provide alternative interpretations for the same utterance based on different contexts. 4. Discuss the reasons for communicating. Give students direct reinforcement by commenting on their speech, language, or communication while they provide responses to the prior question. Help them see that conversation is inherently reinforcing.
Print Resources Bohannon, J.N., & Bonvillian, J.D. (1997). Theoretical approaches to language acquisition. In Gleason, J.B. (Ed.), The development of language. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Elman, J.L. (1999). Origins of language: A conspiracy theory. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), The emergence of language. Hillsdale, N: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Fouts, R. (1998). Next of kin: My conversations with chimpanzees. New York: Harper Paperbacks.
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MacWhinney, B. (1998). Models of the emergence of language. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 1999‐ 227.
Sabbagh, M., & Gelman, S. (2000). Buzzsaws and blueprints: What children need (or don’t need) to learn language. Journal of Child Language, 27, 715‐726.
Shapiro, L.P. (1997). Tutorial: An introduction to syntax. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 40, 254‐272.
Audiovisual and Online •
The sociolinguistics of language (1987). Insight Media.
•
Social Learning Theory. (2013). Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLp2Aqvk3XU&feature=youtu.be
•
Nature vs. Nurture. (2013). Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ombuczp_L4w
•
Statistics Tutorial: Data Collection Methods. Retrieved from:
http://stattrek.com/AP‐Statistics‐2/Data‐Collection‐ Methods.aspx?Tutorial=Stat
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Chapter 3: Neurological Bases of Speech and Language When they have completed this chapter, students should understand: •
The basic structures and functions of the brain relative to language.
•
Explain the processes of language comprehension and production.
•
Describe models of language processing and how we think humans process information.
•
The following terms: angular gyrus, arcuate fasciculus, Broca’s area, central nervous system (CNS), cerebellum, cerebrum, corpus callosum, cortex, executive function, fissures, Heschl’s area, information processing, motor cortex, neurolinguistics, neuron, neuroscience, peripheral nervous system (PNS), prefrontal cortex, reticular formation, sulci, supramarginal gyrus, synapse, thalamus, Wernicke’s area, working memory.
Introduction •
Neuroscience is the study of neuroanatomy: where structures are located and neurophysiology.
•
Neurophysiology refers to how the brain functions.
•
Neurolinguistics is the study of the neuroanatomy, physiology, and biochemistry of language.
Central Nervous System NEURONS •
The neuron, or nerve cell, is the basic unit of the nervous system.
•
A nerve is a collection of neurons.
•
Each neuron consists of a cell body, an axon that transmits impulses away from the cell body, and several dendrites that receive impulses from other cells and transmit them to the cell body.
•
Neurons are close enough to enable chemical‐electrical impulses to “jump” in the miniscule space, or synapse, between the axon of one neuron and the dendrites of the next.
•
The human nervous system consists of a brain, spinal cord, and associated nerves and sense organs.
COMPONENTS •
The brain and spinal cord make up the central nervous system (CNS).
•
Any neural tissue outside the CNS is part of the peripheral nervous system (PNS)
•
The PNS conducts impulses either toward or away from the CNS.
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•
Nerves that conduct messages toward the brain are afferent and those that conduct information away are efferent.
•
The nervous system monitors the body’s state by exchanging information from the senses/organs to other organs and muscles.
•
The PNS consists of 12 cranial and 31 spinal nerves that interact with the CNS.
•
The cranial nerves are especially important for speech, language, and hearing and course between the brainstem and the face and neck.
•
The CNS is encased in bone and three membranous layers called meninges.
•
At the top of the spinal cord is the brainstem, which consists of the medulla, pons, and midbrain.
•
These structures regulate involuntary functions, such as breathing and heart rate.
•
The reticular formation integrates sensory inputs and inhibits or facilitates sensory transmission.
•
The thalamus relays incoming sensory information (except for smell) to the brain and prepares the brain to receive input.
•
The cerebellum (“little brain”) is located at the posterior base of the brain.
•
The cerebellum is responsible for control of fine, complex motor skills, maintains muscle tone, participates in muscle learning, and a considerable influence on language processing of higher level cognitive and emotional functions.
•
Executive function refers the ability to manage several cognitive tasks to reach a particular objective.
•
Working memory is critical for storage and manipulation of information during processing.
•
Divided attention refers to attention to more than one stimulus or to a stimulus presented in more than one modality (i.e., visual or auditory.
•
The cerebrum is divided into left and right hemispheres and located atop of the brainstem and cerebellum.
•
Most motor and sensory functions are contralateral, meaning that each hemisphere is concerned with the opposite side of the body, with the exception of vision and hearing.
•
The cerebral hemispheres are roughly symmetrical, except for specialized functions such as language.
•
Each hemisphere consists of white fibrous connective tracts covered by cortex, made primarily of nerve cell bodies.
•
Association fibers run between different areas within each hemisphere; projection fibers connect the cortex to the brainstem and below; and transverse fibers connect the two hemispheres.
•
The largest transverse tract is the corpus collosum.
•
The cortex has a wrinkled appearance caused by hills called gyri and valleys called fissures or sulci.
•
Each hemisphere of the brain is divided into four lobes labeled frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal.
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•
The central sulcus separates the frontal lobe from the parietal lobe.
•
The most anterior portion of the frontal lobe is the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for executive function, control, organization, and synthesis of sensory and motor information.
•
Executive function tones/readies the brain and allocates resources.
•
Immediately in front of the central sulcus is the motor cortex.
•
Behind and parallel to the motor cortex and in the parietal lobes is the sensory cortex.
•
The occipital lobe deals with vision.
•
The temporal lobe processes auditory information.
•
The higher or more complex the brain function, the more areas of the brain involved.
BRAIN FUNCTIONS •
Three basic functions are regulation, processing, and formulation.
•
The regulation function is responsible for the energy level and the overall tone of the cortex.
•
The processing function controls information analysis, coding, and storage.
•
The formulation process is responsible for the formation of intentions and programs for behavior.
HEMISPHERIC ASYMMETRY •
Lateralization of function is not uniquely human, but the human brain is the most asymmetrical.
•
The right hemisphere (RH) is specialized for holistic processing and visuospatial processing.
•
The RH is capable of recognizing printed words but has difficulty decoding.
•
Other RH language‐related skills include comprehension and production of speech prosody and affect; metaphorical language and semantics; and comprehension of complex linguistic and ideational material and of environmental sounds.
•
The left hemisphere is dominant for control of speech and non-speech‐related oral movements as well as math and language processing.
•
The RH may play a role in pragmatics, including the perception and expression of emotion in language, the ability to understand jokes, irony, and figurative language, and the ability to produce and comprehend coherent discourse.
•
The LH is specialized for language in all modalities, linear order perception, arithmetic calculations, and logical reasoning.
•
The LH is adept at perceiving rapidly changing sequential information, such as acoustic characteristics of phonemes in speech.
•
Almost all right‐handers and 60% of left‐handers are left‐hemisphere dominant for language.
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BRAIN MATURATION •
Language development is highly correlated with brain maturation and specialization.
•
Two important aspects of brain maturation are weight and organization.
•
Brain weight triples during the first two years of life.
•
Chemical changes occur and internal pathways become organized.
•
By age 12, the brain has usually reached its full weight.
•
Disease, malnutrition, or sensory deprivation result in less density and decreased functioning.
•
Most of the increase in functioning is the result of myelination.
•
Myelination is controlled, in part, by sex‐related hormones, especially estrogen.
•
Sensory and motor tracts undergo myelination before higher functioning areas.
•
Use of neural pathways strengthens them, making subsequent use more efficient.
Language Processing •
Language is a complex process performed by many different interconnected areas of the brain.
•
Neuroimaging techniques have found greater activation in the LH during perception and production.
•
Positron emission tomography (PET), a brain-imaging technique has identified several regions of the brain that are active during speech-sound processing.
•
There is no evidence suggesting a single processing area within the brain.
•
In general, the frontal and temporal lobes are more active than other regions.
•
The left insula is most active in speech production; important for motor feedback from articulators.
•
Areas of the brain important for speech production are not speech‐specific.
•
In the 1960s and 1970s, linguists assumed that language comprehension and production were linear.
•
Research demonstrates that context is important at the earliest stages of word identification in comprehension and speech sounds can affect sentence formation in production.
•
Linguistic processing depends on one’s lexicon and stored linguistic rules.
•
The systems for comprehension and production partially overlap.
•
Although there is not one unitary area for processing language, some areas of the brain play a larger role in language processing.
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION •
Comprehension consists of auditory processing and language decoding.
•
Comprehension involves many areas of the brain.
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•
Auditory processing is concerned with the nature of the incoming auditory signal.
•
Decoding considers the representational meaning and underlying concepts.
•
Auditory signals received in the brainstem are relayed to Heschl’s area or gyrus.
•
Heschl’s gyrus and the surrounding auditory areas separate incoming information, differentiate significant linguistic information from nonsignificant noise.
•
Linguistic input is sent to the left frontal lobe for processing.
•
Paralinguistic input is directed to the right temporal lobe.
•
Initial phonological analysis begins in Heschl’s area and continues further along in the process.
•
Long units (i.e., sentences) require memory in which the incoming information is held while analysis is accomplished (auditory working memory, located in/near Broca’s area).
•
Broca’s area may also be responsible for attending to syntax, processing discrete units, and further analysis of phonological information passed along by Heschl’s gyrus.
•
Incoming information undergoes linguistic analysis in Wernicke’s area (found in the left temporal lobe).
•
Well‐rehearsed, automatic speech may be processed and stored in the RH as whole units.
•
The angular gyrus and the supramarginal gyrus assist in linguistic processing and integrating visual, auditory, and tactile information.
•
Written input is received in the visual cortex and transferred to the angular gyrus, where it may be integrated with auditory input, and later transmitted to Wernicke’s area for analysis.
•
Semantic analysis of the decoded message is distributed across the brain.
•
The frontal lobe directs the process and evaluates the information coming from Wernicke’s area where the semantic processing actually occurs.
•
The RH is involved in figurative and abstract language processing in areas roughly corresponding to Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas.
•
Figurative language is non-literal, as in, My dad.
•
Abstract language is figurative, as in, “beauty” or “love.”
•
In addition to paralinguistic processing, limited word-recognition and semantic decoding occur in the RH.
•
Analysis for comprehension depends on memory storage of both words and concepts.
•
The storage of word meanings is diffusely located, centered primarily in the temporal lobe.
•
Prior to storage, incoming information is transmitted to the hippocampus in the left temporal lobe for consolidation.
•
Pragmatic analysis involves the frontal lobe and integration of paralinguistics (social awareness and intent) from the RH.
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•
The speed of linguistic analysis varies with complexity and the speed of incoming information.
LANGUAGE PRODUCTION •
The conceptual basis of a message forms in one of the many memory areas of the cortex.
•
The message structure is organized in Wernicke’s area, then the message is transmitted through the arcuate fasciculus, a white matter tract underlying the angular gyrus, to Broca’s area.
•
Broca’s area is responsible for detailing and coordinating speech programming.
•
Signals are passed to regions of the motor cortex that activate the muscles responsible for respiration, phonation, resonation, and articulation.
•
Writing follows a similar pathway, passing from Wernicke’s area to the angular and supramarginal gyri, then to Exner’s area for activation of the muscles used for writing.
•
Damage to these areas results in disruption of linguistic production, with different effects.
MODELS OF LINGUISTIC PROCESSING •
Structures are the fixed anatomical and physiological features of the CNS.
•
How these structures organize, analyze, and synthesize incoming linguistic information varies per the individual and the specific task.
•
How incoming information is processed represents the voluntary problem‐solving strategies of each person, is called information processing.
Information Processing •
There is a relationship between intelligence and the speed of information processing.
•
Qualitative differences may reflect operational or processing differences.
•
Automatic processes are those that are unintentional or that have become routinized.
•
Effortful processing requires concentration and attention.
•
Thought and language are both processed by the brain’s information processing system.
•
This system includes cognitive processes involved in attention, perception, organization, memory, concept formation, problem‐solving, transfer, and executive function.
Attention •
Attention includes awareness of a learning situation and active cognitive processing.
•
Orientation is the ability to sustain attention over time.
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•
Reaction is the amount of time required for an individual to respond to a stimulus.
•
Less mature individuals are less efficient at allocating attention and possess a more limited attentional capacity.
Discrimination •
Discrimination is the ability to identify different stimuli.
•
It requires working memory (WM), which holds the message during processing.
•
WM controls attention and allows limited information to be held in a temporarily accessible state being processed.
•
While held in WM, a message is scanned for words in lexical storage, syntactic structure, and meaning.
•
Linguistic experience aids memory.
•
WM consists of several related systems for language processing under the control of a central executive.
•
Other memory systems include phonologic, semantic, and syntactic buffers.
•
Phonological short-term memory (PSTM) is an important word-learning and comprehension device that involves matching sound to meaning.
•
It is assumed that the ability to hold novel speech material in the PSTM permits children to establish a stable, long-term phonological representation of a new word in long-term memory.
•
Verbal working memory capacity may play a key role in language development.
•
The relationship between WM and language, however, varies across different ages and developmental levels.
•
As processing speed improves, its efficiency is increased, resulting in longer working memory spans.
•
As young children learn language, they rely on WM to hold sentences during analysis to discover the linguistic properties.
•
Among more mature language users, verbal working memory allows synthesis and analysis with increasingly longer, more complex sentences.
Organization •
The organization of incoming sensory information is important for later retrieval.
•
Memory capacity is likely fixed and better memory results from better organization.
•
In mediational strategies, a symbol forms a link to some information.
•
In associative strategies, one symbol is commonly linked with another.
Memory •
Memory is the ability to recall information previously learned and stored.
•
Information is moved to more permanent storage via short‐term memory.
•
Linguistic information is then coded for both storage and retrieval.
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•
Aspects of memory include working memory (WM), short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM).
•
Short‐term memory is very limited.
•
Incoming information is either discarded or held in short‐term memory and rehearsed for more durable long‐term memory.
•
Memory is best when linguistic information is deep processed, which includes semantic interpretation/elaboration and relating to prior experience/knowledge.
•
Information is retained in long-term memory by rehearsal or repetition and by organization.
•
LTM divides it into two types, explicit or declarative memory and implicit or procedural memory.
•
Explicit memory is memory of fact and events, including meaning and concepts.
•
Implicit memory consists of knowing how to do something, such as put words together or ask for something.
•
Word retrieval from memory seems to proceed from semantic (concept of word) to phonological (sound structure).
Problem‐Solving and Transfer •
Transfer or generalization is the ability to apply previously learned material to similar but novel problems.
•
When the two are very similar, generalization is called near transfer.
•
When very dissimilar, generalization is called far transfer.
Other Processing •
More specific processing needed for language may require different levels of processing within this overall model.
•
Types of linguistic processing include: top-down/bottom-up, passive/active, and serial/parallel processes.
Top‐Down/Bottom‐Up Processing •
The bottom level is a shallow analysis of perception that is not demanding on the brain.
•
Top‐down processing is conceptually‐driven, or affected by expectations about incoming information.
•
Bottom‐up processing is data driven; analysis occurs at the levels of sound/syllable discrimination and proceeds upward to recognition and comprehension.
•
Depending on the context, one or both strategies may be used simultaneously or one strategies it to be relied upon more than the other.
Passive/Active Processing. •
Passive and active processing are based on recognizing patterns of information.
•
In passive processing, incoming data are analyzed in fragments until enough information can be combined to be recognized as a pattern.
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•
Active processing involves using a comparator strategy that matches input with a previously stored or a generated pattern/mental model.
•
Both processes probably occur simultaneously.
Serial/Parallel Processing. •
Processing varies with the speed and volume of information flow.
•
Located in the left frontal and temporal lobes, serial processes analyze information at one level and then pass it on to the next level.
•
Parallel processing accesses multiple levels of analysis at the same time.
•
Located in the occipital and parietal association areas and possibly the RH, parallel processing deals with underlying meaning and relationships simultaneously.
•
In practice, the two processes occur together, with comprehension dependent on the one that most efficiently processes incoming information or outgoing signals.
•
Successive processing is more precise, but it requires more of the brain’s processing potential and is relatively slow.
THE ROLE OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTION • The ability to process information is not limitless. • Language processing may be limited by the amount of incoming and stored language data, the demands of the task, and your available cognitive resources. • As in any system, overloads decrease efficiency. • Overseeing the processing system is your brain’s central executive or executive function that allocates and coordinates mental resources. • Executive function determines cognitive strategies and activities needed for a task and monitors feedback and outcomes in order to reallocate resources if necessary. • Metacognition, or your knowledge of your own cognitive and memory processes, can facilitate encoding and retrieval and the use of problem-solving strategies.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 1. Have students discuss case studies in which certain parts of the brain important for language have been damaged. They should include information regarding the effect of the damage the client may experience in regard to communication. If possible, show corresponding videos. 2. Have students illustrate/draw all of the valuable components of a neuron. Elaborate and have the student draw another neuron attempting to “communicate” with a neighboring neuron. Host a discuss regarding the process of information transfer between multiple neurons. To make this activity interactive, have students send “synapses” between each other to play a game of “telephone” as each student describes how to exchange the word/phrase to the next “neuron.” richard@qwconsultancy.com
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3. Separate groups of students and ask the following: How can working memory be disrupted? What are some distractors that can negatively impact working memory? What are some ways to present/limit distractions that impact working memory? 4. Use the “A.D.A.M” computer teaching program to explore the components of the brain. 5. Contrast the two storage methods of “filing” and “piling.” Help students understand the ease of retrieval with the first and the difficulty with the second. This can be graphically illustrated by having two students try to find information in an organized file drawer and in a disorganized file box. 6. Discuss processing strategies utilized to support storage within memory. For example, I remember names by either repeating them several times or relating them to someone I already know with the same name. Discuss efficiencies or inefficiencies of these processes.
Print Resources Baddely, A.D. (2000). Short‐term and working memory. In E. Tulving & F.I.M. Craik (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of memory (pp. 77‐92). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Goodglass, H., & Wingfield, A. (1998). The changing relationship between anatomic and cognitive explanation in the neuropsychology of language. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 27, 147‐165.
Miller, C.A. (2006). Developmental relationships between language and theory of mind. American Journal of Speech‐Language Pathology, 15, 142‐154.
Nolte, J. (2008). The human brain: An introduction to its functional anatomy (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Mosby.
Singer, B.D., & Bashir, A.S. (1999). What are executive functions and self‐regulation and what do they have to do with language‐learning disorders? Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools, 30, 265‐273.
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Audiovisual and Online • The Brain (2014). Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMKc8nfPATI • Science Bulletins: Language in the Brain (2009). Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK29RAKDzf8 • Language and the Human Brain: https://www.news-medical.net/health/Language-and-the-Human-Brain.aspx • The Human Brain Atlas: https://msu.edu/~brains/brains/human/index.html
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Chapter 4: Cognitive, Perceptual, and Motor Bases of Early Language and Speech When they have completed this chapter, students should understand: •
The relationship of cognition to language.
•
The developmental characteristics of sensory, perceptual, motor, and cognitive development.
•
The sources of speech production.
•
The major reflexes of the newborn relative to oral movement.
•
The characteristics of babbling, reduplicated, and variegated babbling.
•
The aspects of the cognitive development that contribute to the ability to symbolize and represent.
•
The contribution of memory and attention to early learning.
•
The following terms: babbling, echolalia, equilibrium, fully resonant nuclei (FRN), habituation, integrative rehearsal, jargon, mental maps, myelination, neonate, organization, phonetically consistent forms (PCFs), phonotactic probability, phonotactic regularities, quasi‐resonant nuclei (QRN), reduplicated babbling, reflexes, rehearsal, schemes, sensitive period, symbol, synaptogenesis, variegated babbling.
Introduction •
An infant is actively engaged in the environment, organizing experiences into classes and concepts.
•
This representational ability is valuable.
Neurological Development •
Linguists agree that there is a biological basis for human language, but biology alone is insufficient.
•
Physiological changes within the brain in infants are incredibly important for language development.
•
Brain development begins within 18 days of conception.
•
Gross development concerns the main neurological structures.
•
Micro development is the organization of these neurological structures.
NEURON GROWTH •
All neurons are developed by the end of the second trimester, but organization in respect to networks, has yet to begin.
•
Half or more of the brain’s neurons are pruned back because they have not formed into networks.
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•
Neurons migrate to form specialized areas of function beginning around four months gestation.
•
After birth, neurons experience myelination and synaptogenesis (cell communication).
ANATOMICAL SPECIALIZATION IN YOUR CORTEX •
Cell differentiation within the brain begins during the 16th week of gestation
•
During prenatal existence, growth occurs rapidly in the brain stem, primary motor, and sensory areas.
•
After birth there is rapid growth in the cerebellum and cerebral hemispheres.
•
It is unknown when lateralization or specialization by hemisphere occurs.
TURNING ON AND GETTING ORGANIZED •
Fetal development can be altered by environmental factors, such as maternal use of alcohol, nutrition, tobacco, and legal and illegal drugs; and disease, radiation, and toxins.
•
Cell differentiation within the brain begins during the sixteenth week of gestation.
•
Association tracts devoted to speech and language are relatively mature by late preschool, but some higher linguistic functioning areas are not fully mature until adulthood.
•
There are developmental and age limits on the brain’s ability to create itself.
•
Genes determine where functions will be located, but fine details are determined by experience.
•
The sequence of brain activation is genetically programmed.
•
An infant’s experiences and interactions help organize the framework of the brain.
•
A baby actively contributes to his or her own cognitive growth by observing, exploring, experimenting, and seeking information.
•
Some circuits or pathways are clearly defined at birth via genetics while others are waiting to establish their purpose through activation.
•
Activation of the brain refers to neurons communicating with other neurons by firing across their synapses, otherwise called, synaptogenesis.
•
Early experiences are crucial for neural activation and for organization and networking to begin.
•
A correlation exists between neurological areas becoming active and the cognitive functions known to reside in those areas. ▪
Below is the order in which the brain of an infant activates:
▪
First, the lower brain, tasked with basic bodily functioning, such as breathing, activates.
▪
Next the cerebellum and basal ganglia, which control movements, activate.
▪
Around 2 months of age, the motor cortex in the frontal lobe becomes more active; the child gains more control of volitional or voluntary motor behaviors, as many reflexive patterns disappear.
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▪
Around 3 months of age, the visual cortex becomes more active in which a child gains a full-range focus, enabling her/him to focus on things close in or far distant. Activation of the limbic system, seat of emotion and memory, follows. The cerebral cortex where higher thinking resides is last.
▪
Genes roughly determine where functions—such as hearing processing— will be located, but the fine details are determined by a baby’s experiences.
•
The experiences and interactions of an infant help him or her to organize the framework of the brain.
•
Organization reflects experience.
•
Humans actively contribute to his/her own cognitive growth by observing, exploring, experimenting, and seeking information.
Early Cognitive Development SENSATION •
Sensation is the ability to register sensory information.
•
Touch is the first sense to develop in utero; sensation spreads to the entire body by week 14.
•
Pain receptors are formed by the week 26.
•
A fetus is sensitive to sounds and will startle to sounds and movement at 8 weeks.
•
The inner ear is formed by 20 weeks; the fetus’ hearing is functional at this time.
•
Fetuses can sense sweet and noxious tastes in the amniotic fluid.
•
Sense of smell is activated in utero.
•
It is unknown when vision becomes active.
•
Newborns or neonates have difficulty controlling attention or concentrating mental activity.
•
With moderate stimulation, an infant’s attention is maintained longer and more frequently.
•
An infant is most receptive to external stimulation when alert but not overly active.
•
By 2 months, an infant exhibits selective attention and can remain unresponsive to some background stimuli.
•
Becoming used to a stimulus, called habituation, is the result of experiencing repeated stimuli.
•
Habituation allows attention to new stimuli without competition from older, less novel stimuli.
PERCEPTION •
Perception is using sensory information and prior knowledge to make sense of incoming stimuli.
•
The ability to discriminate differences in incoming information is a separate process related to perception.
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•
Visually, infants are able to perceive blurry human faces at birth and learn to direct their attention at faces quickly.
•
Within a few days, infants can discriminate between different facial expressions.
•
By 2 months, infants prefer a “typical” face.
•
By 3 months, infants can perceive facial differences.
•
Between 4 and 6 months, children respond more positively to a smile.
•
Between 5 and 8 months, infants begin to perceive their own face.
•
Within a few days of birth, infants can recognize their mother’s face.
•
Increased memory allows evocation of familiar faces, objects, and sounds.
MOTOR CONTROL •
Motor control is muscle movement and the sensory feedback that informs the brain of the extent of that movement.
•
Discernible movement begins at seven weeks postconception.
•
Hand to face contact and body rotation are seen at 10 weeks.
•
Newborn movements consist of twitches, jerks, and random movements, most of which involve automatic, involuntary motor patterns called reflexes.
•
Some reflexes disappear or are modified by 6 months, related to brain growth and myelination.
•
The rhythmic suck‐swallow pattern is first established at 6 months postconception, or 3 months before birth.
•
By two months of age, an infant has developed oral muscle control to stop and start movement, though tactile stimulation is still needed.
Motor Development •
By 4 months of age, neuromuscular control moves forward from the back of the oral cavity.
•
With greater control of the tongue, an infant exhibits tongue cupping and strong tongue projection.
•
At the same time, chewing changes from vertical to a more rotary pattern, reflecting changes in tongue control.
•
Motor behavior reflects cognitive development and can, in turn, influence cognition.
•
Repeated hand movement, such as banging a toy, offers multisensory feedback that, in turn, facilitates an infant’s growing awareness of the relationship between movements and the resultant sound patterns.
•
An infant engaged in rhythmic banging can feel and see the movement and hear the sound, all occurring in synchrony.
•
Infants are highly sensitive to this type of synchrony, redundant cues, and results/responses.
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COGNITION •
Cognition consists of mental activities involved in comprehension, including acquisition, organization and storage, memory, and use of knowledge (i.e., thought, learning, and problem solving).
•
Cognition can be observed in several ways (i.e., neuroimaging and behavior changes).
•
Both biology and experience contribute to determining development and enabling language.
•
No defined connections exist between our genome and language.
•
Genetic contributions set the brain up for development but require environmental input.
Brain Structure •
Cognitive structure can be specified at the neuron, local, and global levels.
•
Individual neurons possess specific properties relative to firing threshold and characteristics, type of transmission produced or inhibited, and nature of change.
•
Local structure or architecture describes differences in the number of layers of the cortex, density of cells, types of neurons, and the degree and nature of interconnectivity.
•
Global architecture refers to the way various areas of the brain are connected.
•
Different functional areas emerge during the first and second trimesters.
•
Gene expression can be disrupted by mutations and prenatal environmental influences, resulting in long‐term disturbance of neuron differentiation and behavioral development.
•
Experiences is essential for the normally occurring regulation of synapse formation.
•
There is an extended period of synapse formation, adjustment, and pruning or trimming back that typically lasts from the third trimester through puberty.
•
The structure of functional areas, growth of dendritic “trees,” and peak formation of synapses take a long time, extending through the second and third years of life.
•
The cortex is “plastic,” meaning that it is capable of reorganizing itself.
Developmental Timing •
Timing refers to when the brain is receptive to certain input and to changes in the brain as the result of learning.
•
The onset and sequencing of development represents genetic and environmental effects.
•
The crebral cortex is organized to receive information from the environment by integrating information within and across different distinct functional areas and sending this information to other brain centers that generate a response.
Experience •
The foundations of brain architecture are established early in life by the interaction of genetics and the environment.
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•
The ability to perceive a range of sound frequencies requires exposure to frequency variation, which later leads to language processing proficiency.
•
Each sensory and cognitive system has a unique sensitive period.
•
During the sensitive period, portions of the brain become perceptually biased.
•
The sensitive period for language is around 16 to 18 months.
•
When a child hears speech sounds over and over, neurons in the auditory system stimulate “connections” in the child’s auditory cortex in the temporal lobe.
•
A child constructs auditory mental maps from phonemes heard in the environment.
•
Changes in experience have a greater impact on younger brains than on older brains.
•
Early learning lays a foundation for later learning.
•
Later development is not able to overcome detrimental effects of early deprivation or poor neural development, but there can be some improvements with the support of early intervention.
LEARNING •
Learning begins very early.
•
A child experiences the world through adults and older, more mature children.
•
Language used by these “teachers” is crucial to cognitive change.
•
A child develops skills and learns to think in a manner consistent with their culture.
•
The ability to learn new tasks and retain learning increases with age.
•
The learning context is extremely important for retention, especially for very young infants.
•
Learning can be enhanced or reduced by subsequent learning.
The Role of Organization and Memory •
there are four steps in information processing: attention, discrimination, organization, and memory
•
The first step in the long-term memory process involves what occurs previously, organizing and storing perceived information.
•
Organization is an attempt to bring systematic order to information.
•
Through experience, input becomes better organized, leaving more capacity for other information.
•
Some of the synaptic connections in the areas of the cortex responsible for longterm memory are not fully developed until middle childhood or even later
•
Information is placed in long-term storage and maintained by repetition; a process called rehearsal.
•
Transfer to long-term memory requires a special type of rehearsal, called integrative rehearsal, in which new material is integrated into the structure of information already stored in long-term memory.
•
Cognitive development represents an increase in information processing capacity as a result of use of more efficient processing strategies.
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Cognition and Communication Development •
The organization and integration of certain areas of the brain depend on stimulation from the environment.
•
Incoming information is compared to stored information and processed for storage and memory.
•
The same general processes that are at work in cognitive development are also important for development of speech, language, and communication.
•
Communication requires two participants and is better explained along with social development.
SPEECH •
Speech and the motor control to produce speech are important factors in typical communication development, despite the idea that neither is absolutely necessary.
•
When they begin to babble, they are well prepared to recognize the related auditory feedback from their own sound production.
•
Feedback allows them to monitor and adjust the vocal tract as they vary their sound production.
•
Newborns are capable of many types of auditory discrimination (i.e., different sound durations and loudness levels and different consonants in short syllables).
•
Neonates respond to the human voice more often and with more vigor than to other environmental sounds.
•
By 2 months, an infant is also able to discriminate frequency changes, such as high to low.
•
By 7 months, infants are able to discriminate intonational patterns and different words.
•
When a child hears speech sounds over and over, neurons in the auditory system stimulate connections in the child’s temporal lobe.
•
Newborns can detect virtually every phoneme contrast used in human languages.
•
Over their first year, children lose their ability to perceive contrasts not used in the speech around them.
•
The ability to detect patterns and make generalizations is extremely important for later symbol and language rule learning.
•
Significant correlations exist between speech perception at 6 months of age and later word understanding, word production, and phrase understanding.
•
By 5 months, most children respond to their own name, and within another month, respond to mommy or daddy.
•
By 8 months, children begin to store sound patterns for words.
•
Between birth and 6 months, infants show a preference for vowels in their native language.
•
Brain developments that occur around 8 to 10 months is related to synaptogenesis or a burst in synaptic growth, changes in activity levels in the frontal lobes, and an increase in frontal control over other brain functions.
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•
Babies learn the prosodic patterns, syllable structure, and phonotactic organization of their native language.
•
By 5 months, infants discriminate their own language from others with the same prosodic patterns.
•
Phonotactic organization consists of syllable structure and sound combinations.
•
Phonotactic regularities and prosodic or flow patterns help mark word boundaries.
•
Young language learners are sensitive to frequently occurring patterns.
•
Phonotactic probabilities are the likelihood that certain sounds, sound sequences, and syllable types will occur.
•
Children with smaller vocabularies have less robust phonological representations, making it more difficult for them to parse or divide words into their sounds and sound sequences.
MOTOR DEVELOPMENT AND SOUND MAKING •
Speech is an extremely complex behavior.
•
Speech production includes, respiration of air, vibration at the larynx by the exiting air stream, resonation or a modification of the vibratory pattern through changes in the size and configuration of the vocal tract (oral cavity or mouth and the pharynx or throat), and articulation of specific phonemes alone or in sequence using the jaw, tongue, teeth, and lips.
•
Newborns produce predominantly reflexive sounds, such as fussing and crying, and vegetative sounds, such as burping and swallowing.
•
Vegetative sounds are produced on inhalation and exhalation, are both consonantand vowel-like, and are of brief duration. Production of both types decreases with maturation.
•
Because speech sounds originate at the level of the larynx, where the vocal folds are housed, this early stimulation via respiration is important.
•
These non-crying vowel-like sounds with brief consonantal elements have been characterized as quasi-resonant nuclei (QRN).
•
Your vocal tract as a neonate resembled that of a nonhuman primate and differed considerably from that of a human adult. In Figure 4.1, note the relative height of the infant larynx and the close proximity of the larynx and the vocal tract. During
•
By 2 months, the infant’s sound making is characterized by non-distress sounds called “gooing” or “cooing.”
•
Gooing consists of QRNs with closure or near closure at the back of the mouth.
•
By 3 months of age, an infant vocalizes in response to the speech of others and is most responsive if his or her caregivers respond.
•
By 5 months, consonant–vowel (CV) syllable vocalizations, and to a lesser degree VC syllables, replace single phoneme, primarily vowel, vocalizations.
•
The sound units an infant produces at this age are called babbling.
•
Babbling has a social element and an infant will vary the volume, pitch, and rate of babbling with attention by others.
•
Production is characterized by:
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▪
High and low pitches and glides between the two
▪
Growling and guttural sounds
▪
Some friction sounds—produced by passing air through a narrow constriction— nasal /m/ and /n/
▪
A greater variety of vowels
▪
Fully resonant nuclei (FRN) are vowel-like sounds similar to /a/.
▪
Hearing loss does, however, affect the number and variety of consonants in the vocalizations of infants.
•
In general, infants with deafness have a smaller repertoire than hearing infants, and a greater proportion of labial or lip sounds and prolonged consonants that are variation of nasals (/m, n/), approximants (/w/), and some fricatives (/h/).
•
During the babbling period, an infant experiments with sound production.
•
The frequency of consonant appearance in babbling seems to be reflected in the order of later speech-sound acquisition in speech.
•
Social and vocal reinforcement does affect the overall amount of babbling. That said, many sounds produced during babbling will differ from those in the native language.
•
Even though he or she still produces single CV syllables, an infant enters a brief stage of reduplicated babbling and begins to experiment with strings of CV-CV repetitions.
•
At first a child’s repertoire of consonants is restricted to plosives such as /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /g/, and /k/; nasals; and the approximant /j/.
•
Hearing ability appears to be particularly important in this imitative sound play, for at this point the vocalizations of a child with deafness begin to decrease as does the range of consonants within babbling, especially after 8 months.
•
At around 8 months, other changes occurred in your sound patterns. These include echolalia and variegated babbling.
•
Echolalic speech, or echolalia, it is an immediate imitation of another speaker.
•
In variegated babbling adjacent and successive syllables are not identical. Sound sequences may also include VCV and CVC structures.
•
There is limited evidence of any direct relationship between early babbling and the language spoken in the environment of an infant prior to 9 months
•
Jargon is a pattern consists of long strings of unintelligible sounds with adultlike prosody and intonation.
•
Infants 7 to 10 months of age are sensitive to prosodic or rhythmic cues that help them segment speech into smaller perceptual units.
•
A child’s babbling gradually comes to resemble the prosodic pattern of the language
•
The resultant jargon may sound like questions, commands, and statements.
•
Speech recognition and production pose numerous problems for an infant that complicate the process: ▪
The child is exposed to a variety of speakers and contexts.
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▪
The relationship of spoken words to their meanings is essentially arbitrary and lacks any systematic relationship between the sounds in a word and the word’s meaning.
▪
An infant does not receive any direct instruction is producing comprehensible speech.
▪
The infant must coordinate the processes of learning to comprehend and to produce speech.
•
Comprehension involves placing input onto meaning, production involves generating output from a phonological representation in order to convey meaning.
•
Phonological representations of words form a stable pattern or template against which both input and output can be compared.
•
Phonetically consistent forms (PCFs) are consistent prosodic and speech-sound patterns,
•
Representations are our way of describing concepts stored in the brain.
LANGUAGE
Attention •
Attention includes the ability to engage, maintain, disengage, and shift focus.
•
Infants with better attention, acquire language more quickly.
•
Infants are better able to follow gaze, engage in joint or shared attention, and track referents.
•
During the first year, duration of looking, which may reflect more rapid encoding and/or greater facility at disengaging attention, and shift rate, which may reflect more active comparison of targets, change dramatically.
•
The ability of an infant to focus on something while his mother discusses or manipulates it is important for learning and may be a precursor of focusing on a conversational topic.
Processing Speed •
Faster processing speed enables operations to be performed more rapidly, thus increasing working memory capacity.
•
With maturation and repeated exposure to the environment, working memory expands and information processing becomes more automatic.
Memory •
Infants with better memory are better at encoding, storing, consolidating, and retrieving representations of objects and events, skills fundamental to language development.
•
Infants with better recognition and recall are better able to link words with referents.
•
Infants with better working memory are able to hold more information while they segment the auditory stream into meaningful units.
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•
Better visual recognition memory is related to better comprehension and gestural communication in toddlers and better receptive and expressive language in preschoolers.
•
Better recall memory at 9 months is related to better gestural production at 14 months.
•
Better recognition and recall at 12 months predict better language skills at 36 months.
•
Organizing incoming information is essential because a child is constantly exchanging information with the environment and could easily overload the cognitive system.
•
Patterns become better organized over time, leaving more capacity for other information.
•
Information is placed in long‐term storage and maintained by repetition or rehearsal.
•
Transfer to long‐term memory requires integrative rehearsal, where new material is integrated with information in long‐term memory.
•
Children use different techniques to control information flow between parts of the system.
•
As memory becomes less context‐bound, a toddler can experiment and use objects and symbols in novel ways.
Representational Competence •
Representation competence is the ability to extract commonalities from experiences and represent them abstractly or symbolically.
•
This requires an infant to represent things and locations not immediately available.
•
Symbolic play and object permanence are associated with language development.
•
The basic unit of cognitive organization is a scheme or concept that underlies the ability to categorize or “chunk” information for storage and retrieval.
•
Concepts are linked to related stored information in complex webs called mental maps.
•
Readjusting categories is a form of learning based on environmental input.
•
The use of concepts frees cognitive resources to support higher order functioning.
•
In general, the more words a child hears, the faster she or he will learn language.
•
At about 7 months, an infant begins to “understand” one or two single words.
•
At 9 to 13 months, children “understand” words based on a combination of sound, nonlinguistic and paralinguistic cues, and context.
•
As a result of continued exposure to recurring sound patterns in context, a child learns these patterns in these situations.
•
Acoustic information likely activates a semantic representation of the entire word.
ROLE OF THE CAREGIVER •
The caregiver provides the opportunity for learning without direct instruction.
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•
The caregiver maintains an interactional dialogue with the infant by modifying their own behavior.
•
There are six techniques that mothers use to create opportunities for their children to participate: phasing, adaptive, facilitative, elaborative, initiating, and control.
•
Mutual dialogues reach their greatest frequency at around 3 or 4 months of age.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 1. Have students generate lists of possible phonetically consistent forms and what adult words those PCFs might represent. 2. Give students a small set of words and ask them to draw conceptual maps (a web). Give an example, say for the word bird. Explain how those concepts are organized within the brain and the importance for retrieval of information. 3. Discuss the ability to symbolize in terms of being able to represent reality. For example, a picture is not the real object, but rather a re-presentation or representation of that object. A word can also be used to represent reality through an arbitrary symbol that takes the place of that reality. 4. Ask students to give examples of stereotypes and how they have either been confirmed or disconfirmed in their experience. Relate this to newborn behaviors and how behaviors such as sucking modify quickly into nutritive and non‐nutritive sucking in response to different stimuli.
Print Resources Marcus, G.F. (2001). The algebraic mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Pruden, S.M., Hirsh‐Pasek, K., Michnick Golinkoff, R., & Hennon, E.A. (2006). The birth of words: Ten‐ month‐olds learn words through perceptual salience. Child Development, 77, 266‐280.
Rovee‐Collier, C.K. (1999). The development of infant memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 80‐85.
Tsao, F., Liu, H., & Kuhl, P.K. (2004). Speech perception in infancy predicts language development in the second year of life: A longitudinal study. Child Development, 75, 1067‐1084.
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Audiovisual and Online •
Birth to One Year. Retrieved from: https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/01/
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Primary Reflexes (2007). Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyVLD0hl0XY
•
Newborn – Reflexes. Retrieved from: http://www.lpch.org/DiseaseHealthInfo/HealthLibrary/newborn/behrefx.html
•
Speech and Language Developmental Milestones. Retrieved from: https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/speech-and-language
•
Stages of Brain Development in Infants. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FM7FtV3a6g
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Infant and Toddler Health. Available from: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/infant‐development/FL00099
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Chapter 5: The Social and Communicative Bases of Early Language and Speech When they have completed this chapter, students should understand: •
The communicative and social development through the first year.
•
The importance of gaze coupling, ritualized behavior, and game playing.
•
The development of gestures.
•
The effects of baby talk, gaze, facial expression, facial presentation, and head movement, and proxemics on the child’s development.
•
The importance of joint reference, joint action, and turn‐taking on the development of communication.
•
The following terms: bracketing, clustering, communication intention, joint action, mutual gaze, protoconversation, referencing, script, social smile.
Introduction •
The social context in which language occurs helps an infant understand language.
•
Context is employed heavily by the mother or other caregivers to augment verbal communication.
•
A child’s knowledge of give‐and‐take exchanges and nonlinguistic signaling equip him or her to interpret language.
•
The caregiver assumes that the child is attempting to communicate meaningfully.
•
Language learning varies by culture.
•
Although the content and intonation of caregiver‐infant dialogues has been characterized as “baby talk,” the dialogue pattern is adult.
•
Early dialogues occur in specific situation or are situation‐dependent.
Development of Communication: A Chronology THE NEWBORN •
Perceptual and cognitive abilities suggest that a neonate is “prewired” for communication.
•
The newborn’s visual preference is for the human face.
•
A caregiver interprets eye contact as a sign of interest or attention.
•
Parents of children with congenital blindness or children who avoid eye contact, such as those with autism spectrum disorder, may have difficulty relating to their children.
•
A neonate’s optimal hearing is within the frequency range of speech.
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•
When adults make discrete and continuous synchronous movements at the phoneme, syllable, phrase, and sentence levels is called entrainment.
•
Infants show a bias for listening to speech from birth.
•
Selective attention of both the mother and infant and the ease of interacting predict later communication between the two.
•
Newborns make facial expressions resembling displeasure, fear, sorrow, anger, joy, and disgust.
•
Infant head movements have high signal value for a caregiver.
•
Newborns have individual personalities that affect the patterns of interaction.
•
The best interaction is one in which there is a “good fit” between demands and the child’s temperament.
•
Infant wakefulness influences adults’ behaviors, which in turn influences the infant’s state.
SOCIALIZATION AND EARLY COMMUNICATION: AGE BIRTH TO 6 MONTHS •
Shortly after birth, an infant becomes actively involved in the interactive process with adults.
•
By 1 month of age, an infant engages in interactional sequences.
•
As early as 6 weeks of age, infants coordinate the amount of time spent gazing and change their gaze patterns based on their partners’ gaze.
•
Within the first week of life, infants demonstrate gross hand gestures, tongue protrusions, and mouth opening in response to similar behaviors.
•
By 1 month, an infant makes/imitates pitch and speech sound durations similar to the caregiver.
•
By as early as 2 weeks, an infant is able to distinguish its mother from a stranger.
•
At about 3 weeks, a social smile develops in which the infant demonstrates recognition.
•
At 3 to 6 weeks, infants smile in response to the human face and eye gaze, voice, as well as, tickling.
•
By 3 months, an infant can discriminate different people visually and respond accordingly.
•
Cooing increases and is stimulated by attention, speech, and toys moved in front of the baby.
•
Caregivers must determine the appropriate amount of stimulation based on an infant’s rhythms.
•
Maternal sensitivity to her infant is multifaceted and varies by situation.
•
Mothers who are over‐ or under‐responsive undermine attachment.
•
Child temperament characteristics that aid social interaction are related to better narrative ability later in life.
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•
High emotionality in children is related to poorer receptive vocabulary skills and shorter, less descriptive and less informative narratives.
•
Negative child temperament factors include short attention span, easily aroused emotions, and high activity level.
•
Positive factors such as orienting toward a parent, easy soothability, frequent smiling, and laughter at 6 to 12 months of age are related to better receptive vocabulary at 21 months.
•
High parenting stress is related to poorer receptive and expressive vocabulary skills and adverse cognitive and behavioral outcomes in children.
•
A 12‐week‐old infant is twice as likely to vocalize again if the caregiver responds verbally to the child’s initial vocalization.
•
Infant‐caregiver vocalization patterns shift from simultaneous to sequential around 12 weeks.
•
Mothers imitate their infant’s coughing at 2 months, and by 4 months, an infant initiates the exchange with a smile or a cough.
•
By 6 weeks, an infant can fix visually on its mother’s eyes and hold the fixation; they are more likely to begin and continue looking if the caregiver is looking.
•
Mutual gaze may signal intensified attention and may be modified into gaze coupling at 3 months, which consists of a turn‐taking interaction of making and breaking eye contact.
•
Mutual gaze is important for the formation of attachment or bonding.
•
Infant‐caregiver bonding is determined by the quality of interactions.
•
Factors that influence bonding and security include maternal playfulness, sensitivity, encouragement, and pacing.
•
During the first three months, a caregiver’s responding teaches a child the signal value of specific behaviors; the infant learns the stimulus‐response sequence.
•
The degree of parental responsiveness varies with culture, as does the amount of infant crying.
•
Mothers can reliably rate their 3‐ to 4‐month‐old’s types of cries.
•
By 3 to 4 months, rituals and game‐playing emerge.
•
Rituals, such as feeding, provide the child with predictable patterns of behavior and speech.
•
Between 3 and 6 months, a child mirrors his/her mother’s expression, and she imitates the infant.
•
Interest in toys and objects increases around 6 months.
DEVELOPMENT OF INTENTIONALITY: AGE 7 TO 12 MONTHS •
After 6 months of age, toddlers begin to assert more control by communicating intentions more clearly and effectively.
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•
By 7 months, an infant responds differentially to the interactional partner, staying close to the caregiver, following her movements, and becoming distressed if he/she leaves.
•
The caregiver makes increasing reference to objects, events, and people.
•
The infant demonstrates selective listening and compliance with simple requests.
•
Infants imitate simple motor behaviors by 8 to 10 months, responding to requests for a wave.
•
Requests for action are answered 1 ½ times as frequently as requests for vocalization.
•
9‐month‐olds can follow maternal pointing and glancing.
•
Parents of 8‐ to 12‐month‐olds can consistently recognize infant intonational patterns that convey request, frustration, greeting, and pleasant surprise.
•
An infant’s gaze is more likely to be initiated and maintained when its mother is vocalizing and/or gazing back, and, the mother is more likely to initiate and maintain vocalization when her infant is looking at her.
•
At around 1 year of age, children who have learned to coordinate gaze and vocalization look at their partners at the beginning of a vocal turn.
•
Six months later, they look at their partners at the end of a turn to signal a turn shift.
Communication Intentions •
At about 8 to 9 months, an infant develops intentionality, or goal directedness and the ability to share goals with others.
•
Intentionality is exhibited when a child begins to encode a message for someone else.
•
Initially, communication intentions are expressed primarily through gestures (i.e., requesting, interacting, and attracting attention).
•
Between 6 and 12 months, infants develop the vocal repertoire to regulate interactions.
Preintentional Stage. •
The preintentional stage begins at birth and continues to the second year of life.
•
Communication is limited to behaviors that sustain an interaction, such as cries, coos, and use of the face and body nonspecifically.
•
Initially, an infant attends to stimuli and responds undifferentiated behaviors,
•
Caregivers interpret the infant’s behavior and respond accordingly.
•
Interactions become more predictable.
•
Affective signals, such as crying, will become more conventional and more directed toward and responsive to the communication context.
•
Toward the end of this initial period of intentional development, infants become more interested in manipulating objects and begin to use gestures that demonstrate an understanding of object purpose or use.
•
These gestures constitute a primitive form of “naming” or differentiating objects.
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•
An infant calls attention to the environment by scanning and searching; the mother follows the gaze and provides a label or comment.
•
Infants become more interested in manipulating objects and begin to use gestures that demonstrate understanding of object purpose or use.
•
The infant reaches for desired objects and for objects that are out of reach, which later becomes a pointing gesture.
Gestural Intentions. •
The second stage of development of intent begins at 8 to 9 months.
•
Infants use conventional gestures, vocalizations, or both to communicate intentions.
•
If not understood, a child may repeat or modify for the communication partner.
•
A child considers the message and the partner’s reception of it, exhibiting intention.
•
In the second stage, an infant extends objects towards others in order to show/ bring attention to them, but does not release them.
•
In later stages, an infant displays a full range of gestures, including conventional means of showing, giving, pointing, and requesting.
•
Each infant develops functional gestures or gestures that relate with a specific meaning.
•
Pointing may include the whole hand or single finger with the arm extended.
•
By 12 months, infant pointing to share with others, both attention to a referent and specific attitude about that referent, is a full communicative act.
•
Requesting comes in the form of a whole hand grasping reach toward a desired object or giving gesture (release) accompanied by a call for assistance.
•
Initial gestures are used to signal protoimperatives and protodeclaratives.
•
Protoimperitives, or requests, generally request objects, participation, or actions.
•
Protodeclaratives, such as pointing or showing, maintain joint or shared attention.
•
Initially, gestures appear without vocalizations, but the two are gradually paired.
•
Consistent vocal patterns, phonetically consistent forms (PCFs), accompany gesture.
•
The appearance of intentional gestures requires a certain level of cognitive and social functioning.
First Words. •
The first meaningful word appears.
•
Intent becomes encoded in words with or without gestures to accomplish the functions previously filled by gestures alone.
•
Gesture gradually becomes the context for more symbolic forms of communication.
•
At 8 months, some infants comprehend as many as 20 words.
•
Words have phonotactic characteristics consisting of phonemes, phoneme combinations, and syllable structure.
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•
It is believed that children possess the ability to recognize patterns of words that are familiar and regularly utilized in their environment.
•
Each language allows only certain syllable and phoneme sequencing structures, so predictability is high within words.
•
Predictable, familiar words and phrases become associated with familiar contexts, helping early meanings to form.
•
When the infant begins to use meaningful speech, it is within this context of gestures and vocalizations.
Summary •
During the first six months of life, an infant learns the rituals and processes of communication through interaction with his or her caregiver.
•
The caregiver treats the infant as a full conversational partner and acts as if the infant communicates meaningfully.
•
At first, the infant’s communication is general and unspecified.
•
During the second six months, the infant develops intentional communication, first gesturally, then vocally.
Maternal Communication Behaviors •
The mother provides the framework and adjusts behaviors to the processing limits of the infant.
•
The mother maintains the infant’s attention at a high level by her behavior.
•
In response, the infant coos, smiles, and gazes alertly.
•
By slightly exceeding the infant’s abilities, the mother forces the infant to adjust to new stimuli.
•
The foundation for exchanges results from modifications made by an adult to accommodate a child.
•
The caregiver monitors the infant to determine the right time to begin an exchange, and then obtains the child’s attention to optimize the interaction.
•
Within the exchange, mothers make infant‐like modifications such as exaggerated facial expressions, body movements, positioning, timing, touching, prolonged gaze, and baby talk.
•
Three factors are important in influencing initial interactions between newborn and mother: medication used in delivery, number of pregnancies, and mother’s SES and cultural background.
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INFANT‐ELICITED SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
• Caregiver responses can be characterized as “infant‐elicited social behaviors.” •
These behaviors have exaggerated physical movement, usually slow or elongated in rate, and form a select, limited repertoire used frequently.
•
The purpose is to enhance recognition and discrimination by a child.
•
Infant‐elicited social behavior also consists of maternal adaptations in speech and language, gaze, facial expression, facial presentation and head movement, and proxemics.
Infant‐Directed Speech (IDS) •
Speech and language directed to infants is systematically modified and is called infant‐directed speech (IDS) or motherese.
•
Maternal input is very important for an infant’s communication development.
•
Children who are deaf and exposed to maternal signing from birth achieve all linguistic milestones at or before hearing children.
•
IDS may facilitate infant learning of phonological regularities.
•
IDS is characterized by short utterance length, simple syntax, and use of core vocabulary.
•
Mothers paraphrase and repeat themselves.
•
Choice of content, information conveyed, and syntax are heavily influenced by context.
•
Mothers use paralinguistic variations beyond that found in adult‐to‐adult speech.
•
Maternal speech prior to 6 months contains less than 3 morphemes per utterance, increases at 6 months, and decreases again around one year in anticipation of an infant’s own speech.
•
Mothers who use shorter sentences when their children are 9 months of age often demonstrate better receptive language abilities at 18 months.
•
Mothers use a considerable number of questions and greetings and respond to their infants’ behaviors as a meaningful reply.
•
Appropriate and consistent adult responsivity is important in the emergence of early communication although the amount and type of responsivity varies greatly.
•
Gradually, a child learns that his behavior results in consistent, predictable effects.
•
An infant is least likely to vocalize when being changed, fed, or rocked, or when its mother watches TV or talks to another person.
•
Some maternal non-vocal behaviors increase the likelihood of infant vocalizations.
•
Maternal utterances often occur in strings, referring to the same object, action, or event.
•
Mothers repeat one out of every six utterances immediately and exactly.
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•
Self‐repetitions decrease as a child assumes an increased level of responsibility in the conversation.
•
One of the most common sequences is that of joint, or shared, reference.
•
Referencing is noting a single object, action, or event and signaled by a mother following her infant’s glance and commenting on the object of its focus, shaking an object, and/or exaggerating an action to attract her infant’s attention.
•
Overall, pitch is higher, content words and syllables are emphasized, vowel duration is longer, and there are longer pauses between utterances.
•
Signing mothers of children who are deaf maintain similar rhythms with their hands.
•
Simplified speech helps children learn the language.
•
Modifications made by adults may help children respond at an optimal level.
•
Adult modification maintains a conversation in order to provide a context for teaching language use.
•
IDS fills three functions: a) gain and hold the infant’s attention, b) establish emotional bonds, and c) enable communication to occur at the earliest opportunity.
Gaze •
Mothers modify their typical gaze pattern when she interacts with her infant.
•
A mother may remain in eye contact with her infant for more than thirty seconds; adults maintain eye contact for no more than a few seconds.
•
During play, maternal gazing occurs up to 70% of the time simultaneous with vocalization.
•
A mother monitors her infant’s gaze, adjusting conversational topic accordingly.
Facial Expression •
Mothers use facial expression to complement their speech.
•
Mock surprise is used to initiate, invite, or signal readiness.
•
An exchange can be maintained or modulated by a smile or an expression of concern.
•
Termination is signaled by a frown, head aversion, and gaze breaking.
•
Avoidance can be signaled by turning away with a neutral or expressionless face.
•
Mothers use expressions to maintain infants’ attention and aid comprehension.
Facial Presentation and Head Movement •
Mothers use a large repertoire of head movements to help transmit messages.
•
Many games are accomplished by full‐face presentation.
Proxemics •
A mother communicates with her infant from a very close distance.
•
As an infant gets older, American mothers communicate from a greater distance, which results in decreased touching and more eye contact.
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CULTURAL, SOCIOECONOMIC, AND GENDER DIFFERENCES •
Maternal responsiveness is determined by the maturational level of the infant and culture‐specific interactional patterns.
•
Mothers in the U.S. are more information oriented than mothers in Japan.
•
U.S. mothers are more “chatty” and utilize more questions and grammatically correct utterances.
•
Japanese mothers are more emotion oriented and utilize nonsense, onomatopoetic, and environmental sounds, more baby talk, and more babies’ names.
•
Japanese mothers vocalize less but offer more physical contact.
•
U.S. mothers are more likely to respond to positive cooing and comfort sounds, whereas Japanese mothers are more likely to respond to discomfort or fussing sounds.
•
Mothers make use of pitch, but variations depend on the pitch contours of the language.
•
In North American culture, race, education, and SES influence maternal behaviors.
•
Middle‐class African American infants often initiate verbal play more frequently and produce twice as many vocalizations as lower‐class infants.
•
Middle‐class North American mothers often ask more questions, but mothers from lower SES often use more imperatives or directives.
•
Better educated mothers are more verbal.
•
Siblings and peers are more important in the infant socialization process within the homes of minority and lower SES families.
•
In some groups, children may be expected to learn language through observation.
•
Mothers maintain closer proximity to daughters than to sons, at least until 4 years of age.
•
At 2 years old, female infants receive more questions, whereas males receive more directives.
•
Longer maternal utterances are often addressed to daughters.
Interactions Between Infant and Caregiver JOINT REFERENCE •
Joint reference presupposes that two or more individuals share a common focus.
•
Identification of Autism Spectrum Disorder is partly based on lack of joint reference.
•
Indicating can take a gestural, postural, or vocal form.
•
Deixis is the use of spatial, temporal, and interpersonal features to aid joint reference.
•
In terms of naming, infants associate names with referents prior to producing names meaningfully.
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Joint Attention •
Mastery of joint attention is the first phase of applying the skills, which lasts for the first six months of life.
•
The number of conversational partners influences joint attention.
•
The second phase is the beginning of intentional communication.
•
In the next phase, an infant begins to point and vocalize.
•
In the last phase, an infant masters naming and topicalizing.
•
Exchanges increasingly involve objects.
Gestures and Vocalizations •
In the next phase, an infant begins to point and to vocalize.
•
Gradually, the full-hand reaching grasp becomes a finger point.
•
The pointing behavior becomes separated from the intention to obtain an object.
•
Mothers’ comments based on the child’s action or interest at 9 months seem related to better language comprehension by children later on in life.
Names and Topics •
Finally, in the last phase an infant masters naming and topicalizing.
•
Mother demonstrate an increase of noun usage at this age.
•
Exchanges more frequently involve objects.
•
As the child assumes more control of the dialog, the mother’s questioning decreases.
Summary •
The reference function is the vehicle for developing naming and establishing a topic.
•
Joint reference provides early opportunities for the infant to engage in sharing information.
JOINT ACTION •
Joint action refers to shared behaviors in familiar contexts, providing a structure in which language can be analyzed (i.e., a routine).
•
These interactions are among the most crucial infant learning and participating experiences.
•
Early examples of dialogues include anticipatory body games, such as “peek‐a‐ boo.”
•
Within exchange games, infants shift roles, take turns, and coordinate signaling/acting.
•
Over time, a reciprocal mode of interaction replaces the exchange mode.
•
In the reciprocal mode, activities revolve around a joint task format.
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Game Playing •
Each mother and infant develop a unique set of interpersonal games, which become ritualized exchanges.
•
Approximately one‐third to two‐thirds of maternal behavior directed toward an infant occurs in runs, or strings of behavior related to a single topic.
•
An infant as young as 6 weeks old can initiate games by modifying his/her internal state of alertness.
•
By 13 weeks an infant adopts a true role in social games through signals of readiness (body movements and facial expressions) to begin play.
•
Independent exploration play develops by 23 weeks.
•
Infant vocalizations accompanying game playing change and reflect language development.
•
Mothers adjust to developmental changes and to changes in their infant’s internal state.
•
Maternal imitation is not an exact imitation, however, the mother pulls the child in the direction of their agenda.
•
Social play is usually spontaneous and occurs frequently during routines.
•
During the second six months of life, object play increases.
•
Infants in all cultures enjoy shared anticipation and predictable sequence they control.
•
Throughout the first year, play demonstrates many of the characteristics of later conversation.
Sequence of Social Play •
In social play, the “game” begins with a greeting when partners catch each other’s glance, followed by a moment of mutual gaze.
•
This is usually followed by maternal mock surprise, and the infant responds with wide eyes, an open mouth, a smile, and head reorientation.
•
Two episodes that may occur several times per minute are engagement and time out.
•
Engagement episodes, sequences of social behaviors separated by pauses, vary in length.
•
Tempo can be used to soothe or arouse the infant.
•
Each episode has a purpose (i.e, establish attention, maintain attention, or enter into play).
•
Maternal behaviors often occur in repetitive runs within each episode.
•
Episodes of time out consist of rests used to readjust the interaction.
Routines •
Routines offer conventionalized, predictable contexts in which caregivers provide order.
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•
Routines provide scripts that have “slots” for the infant’s behavior and aid meaningful interpretation of the event.
•
Scripts reduce the cognitive energy required to participate and make sense.
•
Infants’ event knowledge is gained within familiar daily routines and events.
•
Later, this knowledge is translated into semantic categories of early speech.
Summary •
Similarities between infant‐caregiver interactions include shared communication, mutual topic‐comment, routines, and learning to anticipate behavior change.
•
Play usually occurs in a highly restricted and well‐understood semantic domain.
•
Play has a well‐defined task structure.
•
Play possesses rolls for participants that are similar to conversation; these rolls may be called player and audience.
TURN‐TAKING •
Turn‐taking occurs in early feeding sessions.
•
Most early turns last for less than one second.
•
Even body games contain pauses for infant responses; pauses lengthen as an infant gains the ability to respond more fully.
•
Lack of maternal pauses can result in overstimulation and a less responsive infant.
•
Reciprocal and alternating patterns of vocalizations develop, called protoconversations.
•
Gestures and words will develop to fill an infant’s turn as true conversations develop.
•
At 3 to 6 months of age, the infant responds or attends quietly.
•
Gaze, facial expression, body movement, or vocalization can all fill a turn. A lack of maternal pauses can result in overstimulation and a less responsive infant.
•
A 12-week-old infant is twice as likely to re-vocalize if his or her caregiver responds verbally to its initial vocalization rather than responding with a touch, look, or smile.
•
Both interactive partners make extensive use of smiles, head movements, and gestures.
•
Mothers begin to imitate their infants’ coughing at 2 months of age. Initially, this behavior is performed to attract attention, but eventually, an exchange emerges.
•
By 4 months, an infant will initiate the exchange with a smile or a cough.
•
Eye gaze is also important in these early dialogs.
•
Two types of gaze patterns have been identified.
•
Mutual gaze, or looking at each other, may signal intensified attention.
•
Gaze coupling, a turn-taking interaction of making and breaking eye contact.
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PROTOCONVERSATIONS •
Mothers and their 3‐month‐old infants exhibit initiation, mutual orientation, greeting, a play dialogue, and disengagement.
•
These protoconversations contain the initial elements of emerging conversation.
•
A 5‐month‐old also vocalizes to accompany different attitudes and will vocalize to other people and a mirror image, as well as to toys and objects.
SITUATIONAL VARIATIONS •
Mothers use a variety of situations to facilitate language and communication development.
•
Eight interactional situations account for almost all activities of a 3‐month‐old infant: mother’s lap, crib/bed, infant seat, table/tub, couch/sofa, playpen, floor, and jumper/swing.
•
Within each situation, certain infant‐mother behaviors occur regularly.
•
Regularity is the basis for development of meaning, which emerges from nonrandom action sequences, especially vocalization sequences associated with different “situational” locations.
•
Nonrandom behaviors of a parent form an early meaning base.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 1. Discuss the features of infant‐directed speech and when caregivers use features of IDS other than when talking to infants (talking to their beloved pet), sometimes inappropriately (talking to an older child or elderly adult) and how that might be perceived. 2. Have students suggest and demonstrate games we frequently play with infants. Discuss the similarity between the skills applied during these games and those utilized in conversation. 3. Show videotapes of mothers interacting with their infants and solicit student opinion on the modifications observed. This can be compared to interactions of daycare providers and other professionals.
Print Resources D’Odorico, L., Cassibba, R., & Salerni, N. (1997). Temporal relationships between gaze and vocal behavior in prelinguistic and linguistic communication. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 539‐ 556.
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Hammer, C.S., & Weiss, A.L. (1999). Guiding language development: How African American mothers and their infants structure play interactions. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 42, 1219‐1233.
Hane, A.A., Feldstein, S., & Dernetz, V.H. (2003). The relation between coordinated interpersonal timing and maternal sensitivity in four‐month‐olds. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 32, 525‐539.
Rollins, P.R. (2003). Caregivers’ contingent comments to 9‐month‐old infants: Relationships with later language. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 221‐234.
Vouloumanos, A., Hauser, M.D., Werker, J.F., & Martin, A. (2010). The tuning of human neonates’ preference for speech. Child Development, 81, 517‐527.
Audiovisual and Online •
A Baby’s Language Development: Turn-Taking. Retrieved from: https://georgiapathway.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/a-babys-language-development-turn-
taking/
•
Audiopedia. What is Joint Attention? Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1WhSLB7-9I
•
Early socialization: From birth to age two (1999). Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
•
Communication and Your Newborn: http://kidshealth.org/parent/growth/communication/cnewborn.html
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Motherese. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0pPSgi3KW4
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Playtime. Retrieved from: http://www.whattoexpect.com/playroom/infant‐activities/landing.aspx
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Chapter 6: Language-Learning and Teaching Processes and Young Children When they have completed this chapter, students should understand: •
The relationship between comprehension, production, and cognition.
•
The role of selective imitation and formulas.
•
Universal language‐learning principles.
•
The characteristics of child-directed speech (CDS).
•
The types of parental prompting.
•
The effects of parental expansion, extension, and imitation.
•
The use of parental turnabouts.
•
The importance of play.
•
The effects of cultural variation on the language‐learning process.
•
The following terms: analogy, bootstrapping, child-directed speech (CDS), contingent query, entrenchment, expansion, extension, formula, functionally based distributional analysis, intention‐reading, interrogative utterances, pattern‐ finding, preemption, reformulation, request for clarification, schematization, selective imitation, statistical learning, turnabout.
Comprehension, Production, and Cognitive Growth COGNITION AND LANGUAGE •
Cognitive skills and language abilities develop in a parallel fashion.
•
Increased cognition enables a child to function differently but does not cause language change.
•
Cognitive development in infants and toddlers is strongly related to increased memory and the ability to acquire symbols in many areas, including language and gesture.
•
A significant difference in cognitive levels of play exists between children who use no words and those who use single words.
•
Children who do not produce words are more likely to play with toys such as blocks, while children who produce single words are more likely to play with “animate” objects.
•
Many of the principles of cognitive learning can be applied to language learning, such as selectively attending to perceptually important stimuli, discriminating along different dimensions, remembering, and classifying stimuli according to the results of the discriminations.
•
Children form hypotheses based on patterns in the incoming language stream.
•
Data are tested and incorporated into the system or used to reorganize the system.
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•
Organization of longer utterances requires better short‐term memory and knowledge of syntactic patterns and word classes.
•
Development of grammatical constructions also reflects cognitive development.
•
Reversibility, or the ability to trace a process backward, is strongly related to acquisition of before and after, because, and why.
•
To respond to a why question, a child must be able to use because and reverse the order.
•
Event‐based knowledge and taxonomic knowledge are assumed to guide word acquisition.
•
Event‐based knowledge consists of sequences of events or routines that are temporal or causal and organized toward a goal.
•
A child uses knowledge to form scripts or sets of expectations, that aid memory, enhance comprehension, and enable the child to interpret events.
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Taxonomic knowledge consists of categories and classes of words.
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Early words are first comprehended and produced in the context of everyday events.
•
From repeated use, words themselves become cues for the event.
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Preschoolers rely on event‐based knowledge, while kindergarteners use more categorical script‐ related groupings such as things I eat.
•
By age 7 to 10, children use taxonomic categories, such as food.
Comprehension and Production •
The exact developmental relationship between comprehension and production is unclear.
•
Children may employ a distributional strategy for production of certain language forms before they comprehend these forms.
•
The relationship between comprehension and production changes because of different rates of development and different linguistic demands.
•
Infant perception of speech‐sound differences greatly precedes expression.
•
Initially, recognition and comprehension are holistic, such as discriminating dog from cookie.
•
An infant quickly acquires the detailed perceptual skill needed for more subtle distinctions.
•
A child does not fully comprehend first words before he or she produces them.
Single Words. •
Up through age 2, comprehension is highly context‐dependent.
•
The mother monitors the child’s input to check the accuracy of fit and provide feedback.
•
The child’s comprehension and production are fine‐tuned essentially at the same time.
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Within the first 50 words, comprehension seems to precede production.
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•
Children respond best to verbal commands slightly above their production level.
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Toddlers rely on basic semantic relations, use of objects, and routines for comprehension.
•
Two strategies may be used with objects: do‐what‐you‐usually‐do and act‐on‐the‐ object‐in‐ the‐way‐mentioned.
•
By late preschool, children learning English use word order consistently for comprehension.
•
By age 5 or 6 children rely consistently on syntactic and morphologic interpretation.
•
By age 7 to 9, children use language to acquire more language and are more sensitive to phrases, subordinate clauses, and connectors, such as before, after, during, and while.
LESS IS MORE •
Limited working memory and attention may be an advantage for learning language.
•
Short, simple sentences are easier to process and provide a starting point for discovering words, categories of words, and grammatical patterns.
•
Learning language may be best solved by starting small; this is the “less is more” hypothesis.
Summary •
During the preschool years, the relationship between comprehension, production, and cognition changes as the child matures.
•
In general, linguistic developments parallel the cognitive growth of the preschool child, although this is not a one‐to‐one relationship.
•
A young child’s brain seems to be uniquely suited for the task of unraveling language and reconstructing it in his or her own form.
Child Learning Strategies TODDLER LANGUAGE‐LEARNING STRATEGIES •
A child must sort out relevant and irrelevant information in adult and sibling conversations.
•
A child must decide which utterances are good examples of the language for accomplishing communication goals and must hypothesize about underlying meanings and structures.
Receptive Strategies: When is a Word a Word? •
Toddlers become adept at acquiring new words under less than ideal conditions.
•
Children must gain a sense of how sounds go together to form syllables.
•
By 11 months, infants are sensitive to word boundaries and phonological characteristics.
•
Linguists can infer from the language behavior of toddlers that certain lexical principles or assumptions are being used, such as:
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•
People use words to infer entities
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Words are extendable
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A given word refers to the whole entity, not it’s parts.
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The reference principle assumes that people refer; words stand for entities to which they refer.
•
Using the extendibility principle, an infant assumes that there is some similarity, such as shared perceptual attributes, that enables use of one symbol for more than one referent.
•
The whole‐object principle assumes that a label refers to a whole entity.
•
The categorical assumption is used to extend a label to related entities.
•
The novel name‐nameless assumption enables a child to quickly link a symbol and referent.
•
The conventionality assumption leads a child to expect others to use consistent forms.
Expressive Strategies •
Young children use at least four expressive strategies to increase linguistic knowledge.
•
Evocative utterances are statements that a child makes naming entities.
•
The child either maintains or modifies his or her meaning.
•
There is a positive relationship between the amount of verbal input from adults at 20 months, vocabulary size, and average utterance length of the child at 24 months.
•
Hypothesis testing and interrogative utterances are more direct methods of acquiring linguistic knowledge.
•
At 24 months there is a positive correlation between number of interrogative utterances and vocabulary size.
•
Imitation is selective; ends of utterances have particular perceptual importance for children.
Role of Selective Imitation. •
Selective imitation is used in the acquisition of words, morphology, and syntactic‐semantic structures.
•
Imitation is a whole or partial repetition of an utterance of another speaker within no more than three successive child utterances.
•
Imitation does not occur with every word or expression.
•
Word selective implies that the child decides what to imitate.
•
At the single-word level, selective imitation seems particularly important for vocabulary growth.
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Imitation is less useful for language learning as language becomes more complex.
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•
Imitation may serve a conversational role, enabling a child to relate his or her utterances to those of more mature language users.
•
In a substitution operation, the child repeats part of the utterance, replacing words.
•
Imitation may provide a modeling and stabilizing process for new structures.
•
It is assumed that a language-learning child must store enough adult examples and express enough similar utterances to allow him or her to see patterns form which to abstract the linguistic relationship involved and to form a hypothesis.
Role of Formulas. •
A verbal routine or unanalyzed chunk of language often used in everyday conversation is a formula.
•
None of the words are used separately in other expressions.
•
Use of formulas may represent a whole‐to‐parts learning strategy for some children.
•
Segmentation coincides with the vocabulary spurt at approximately 20 months.
•
Some children use formulas with little analysis of the individual parts, which is a nonproductive learning strategy.
Summary •
Selective imitations and formulas function like routines, provide a known “scaffolding” for a child and reducing the language‐processing load.
•
Other strategies, such as the use of evocative, interrogative, and hypothesis‐ testing utterances, enable a child to participate in conversation, explore, and test new words and structures.
PRESCHOOL LANGUAGE‐LEARNING STRATEGIES •
Children use what they know about language to help them decipher what they don’t know.
•
Bootstrapping is when children use semantics to decode syntax (semantic bootstrapping), or syntax and context to figure out word meanings (syntactic bootstrapping).
•
Children in the initial stage of language development talk about the same, general types of things.
•
We assume that children begin by learning the basic sentence type, subject‐verb‐ object.
•
Young children likely determine syntactic rules by using cues provided by adult utterances.
•
A child also learns the classes to which words belong, such as nouns and verbs.
•
Grammatical errors do not necessarily reflect a lack of knowledge or development.
•
Development of syntactic and morphological features progress through three phases.
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First, use of the language feature is context‐based and dependent on extralinguistic cues.
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•
Second, a child relates meanings to forms, such as word order.
•
Third, a child acquires mature use of the language feature based on internalized rules.
Universal Language‐Learning Principles •
There are patterns of development that suggest underlying universal syntax learning strategies and operational principles.
Pay Attention to the Ends of Words. •
In general, children acquire linguistic markers that occur at the ends of words first.
•
English verb endings, such as –ing, are acquired before auxiliary or helping verbs.
•
A child is more likely to learn sweeter before more sweet.
•
Many new or expanded grammatical structures initially occur at the end of sentences, suggesting that the final position in longer structures is also important.
Phonological Forms Can Be Systematically Modified. •
Through experimentation, the child learns to vary pronunciation.
•
The child recognizes that various sound changes can reflect changes in meaning.
Pay Attention to the Order of Words and Morphemes. •
The standard order of morphemes in adult utterances is preserved in child speech.
•
In English, general word order (SVO) is maintained by preschoolers.
•
In early development, sentences that do not have standard word order will be interpreted using standard word order.
Avoid Interruption and Rearrangement of Linguistic Units. •
Interruption and rearrangement of SVO form place a strain on a child’s processing.
•
Structures requiring rearrangement of elements first appear in nonrearranged form.
•
Discontinuous morphemes are reduced to, or replaced by, continuous morphemes.
•
The greater the separation between related parts of a sentence, the more difficult it is for the child to process.
•
To produce complicated sentences, a preschooler must take risks.
Underlying Semantic Relations Should be Marked Overtly and Clearly. •
A child marks a semantic notion earlier if morphological structure is obvious.
•
There is a preference for marking even unmarked members of a semantic category.
•
Overextension is when a language feature is used where it is not required.
Avoid Exceptions. •
Children tend to overgeneralize linguistic rules and avoid exceptions.
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•
The stages of linguistic marking are: a) no marking (walk), b) appropriate marking in a small number of cases (walked), c) overgeneralization of marking although limited and with a small number of examples (eated), and d) adult‐like system (walked, ate).
•
Rules for larger classes are learned before rules for subdivisions, and general rules are learned before exceptions.
•
Initial rote learning continues until the number is large enough for a child to synthesize a general rule.
•
Overextension begins at this point.
Grammatical Markers Should Make Syntactic Sense. •
Overextension of rules is usually limited to the appropriate semantic category.
•
The choice of the functor is always within the given functor class and subcategory.
•
When selecting an appropriate marker from among a group performing the same semantic function, the child tends to rely on a single form.
Summary. •
These principles are theories that attempt to explain the order of morpheme and word acquisition.
•
A child scans the language code to discover the means of comprehension and production.
CHILDREN’S PROCESSES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION •
Intention‐reading is a social cognitive skill for understanding language behavior of others.
•
Pattern‐finding enables us to find common threads in disparate information.
Intention Reading •
In human linguistic communication, the fundamental unit of intent is the utterance.
•
As a child attempts to comprehend the intention of an utterance, he may also attempt to comprehend the functional roles being played by its various components of the utterance.
•
In this way, a child learns the communicative function of words, phrases, and utterance units that enhance pattern‐finding.
Pattern‐Finding •
Schematization and Analogy account for how children create abstract syntactic constructions from concrete pieces of language.
•
Entrenchment and Preemption account for how children confine these abstractions to those of their linguistic community.
•
Functionally‐Based Distributional Analysis accounts for how children form linguistic categories, such as nouns and verbs.
Schematization and Analogy. •
Young children hear and use the same utterances over and over, but with systematic variation.
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•
If a child understands the relationship across schemes, then a child can see analogous roles.
•
Word order and morphological markers may aid this process.
Entrenchment and Preemption. •
Entrenchment refers to when one does something successfully several times.
•
Preemption is the notion that if someone communicates using one form rather than another, there was a reason related to the specific communicative intention.
•
A child inspects possible forms expressing different communicative intentions.
Functionally Based Distribution Analysis. •
Over time, concrete linguistic items such words or phrases serve the same communicative function are grouped together into a category.
•
These categories are based on usage in that nouns are defined by what nouns do.
Statistical Learning Production •
A child’s language production consists of constructing utterances out of various already learned pieces of language in a way appropriate to the communication context.
•
In preschoolers, as little as one‐third of utterances are novel and of these, three‐ quarters consist of repetitions of some previously used utterance within the last week or so.
•
A child cobbles together a situationally‐appropriate utterance from pieces of language rather than gluing together words and morphemes using countless abstract language rules.
Adult Conversational Teaching Techniques •
Adults engage in very little direct language teaching, but they do facilitate language acquisition.
•
Many caregiving and experiential activities relate to language acquisition.
•
The level of maternal education seems to be most highly correlated to language acquisition.
ADULT SPEECH TO TODDLERS •
The effect of a parent’s behavior on his/her child’s language acquisition varies with the child’s age.
•
Around one year of age, nonverbal adult behavior influences an infant’s vocabulary growth.
•
Maternal verbal behavior is important for a child’s vocabulary growth during the 13‐ to 17‐ month ages, especially verbal responses and supportive directions.
•
Meaning is derived from the communication process.
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•
Parents aid acquisition by engaging in modeling, cueing, prompting, and responding.
Modeling: Child-Directed Speech • A mother unconsciously modifies her behaviors to require more child participation. •
Mothers are effective at following their child’s line of regard and labeling the object.
•
The more time allotted to joint attending, the larger a child’s vocabulary as a toddler.
•
Initially, mothers provide object names, but soon begin to request names from children.
•
By the middle of the second year, mothers label and request at approximately equal rates.
•
The mother shapes the child’s speech by distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable responses.
•
Within the dialogue, the mother provides consistency that aids her toddler’s learning, including the repetition rate, the rate of confirmation, and the probability of reciprocating.
•
Infants and young children use knowledge of stress to aid word learning.
•
Mothers make speech modifications that are called child-directed speech (CDS).
•
CDS exhibits: a) greater pitch range; b) lexical simplification characterized by the diminutive and syllable reduplication; c) shorter, less complex utterances; d) less dysfluency; e) more paraphrasing and repetition; f) limited, concrete vocabulary and a restricted set of semantic relations; g) more contextual support; and h) more directives and questions.
•
CDS positively affects toddlers’ expressive vocabulary, more likely strengthens his/her language-processing efficiency.
•
Mothers fine‐tune their language input based primarily on the comprehension level.
•
Other factors are the conversational situation, the content, and the mother’s intent.
•
Conversational input provides data for children to create early meanings for non‐ object terms, such as color, number, and time.
•
Toys that encourage role play elicit more language of a greater variety from parents.
•
A lack of child response informs a parent there has been a breakdown in communication that necessitates linguistic changes by that parent.
•
Children can participate effectively due to their mothers’ ability to maintain conversation.
Fathers and Other Caregivers •
Fathers use more simplified adult speech, but fewer common words.
•
Fathers use more requests for clarification, and requests are more nonspecific.
•
Fathers acknowledge their children’s utterances less often, resulting in children persisting less in conversation.
•
Fathers are a bridge between communication with the mother and other adults.
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•
In general, peer speech to toddlers is less complex,shorter, and contains more repetition than adult‐to‐toddler speech, although peers elicit fewer language responses than parents.
•
Children enrolled in daycare and preschools encounter a variety of child-directed speech that varies with the size of the group and the age of the children.
•
There are language‐learning advantages for children attending preschool when the curriculum emphasizes language and literacy.
•
Older siblings may influence the language a younger child hears and produces.
Deaf Culture • The “Deaf culture” includes individuals who have deafness and/or are users of American Sign Language. •
CDS is conveyed by sign and facial expression.
•
A mother’s nonvocal facial expression takes on added importance as a conveyer of her intentions and as a device to hold a child’s interest.
Summary • Parents who use more conversational style with less direct instruction are likely to have children who learn language more quickly. •
The modifications made by mothers may aid language acquisition by bringing maternal utterances into the “processing range” of the child.
Prompting •
Prompting includes any parental behaviors that require a toddler’s response.
•
Three common types are fill‐ins, elicited imitations, and questions.
•
Unanswered or incorrectly answered questions are usually reformulated by the adult.
•
Approximately 20 to 50% of mothers’ utterances to young children are questions.
•
These utterances have a shorter average length.
•
Prompting and cueing are effective, even in those with language disorders.
Responding Behaviors •
Parents do not directly reinforce the syntactic correctness of toddler’s utterances.
•
Imitation, topic changes, acknowledgments, or no response are frequent following grammatically correct child utterances.
•
Reformulations, expansions, and requests for clarification are likely following ungrammatical utterances.
•
With preschoolers, adults reformulate more frequently than imitating error‐free utterances.
•
Children either repeat the reformulation, acknowledge the correction and continue the conversation, or reject the reformulation because the adult has misunderstood.
•
An expansion is a more mature version of a child’s utterance; word order is preserved.
•
Children perceive expansions as a cue to imitate.
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•
Extension, a comment or reply to a child’s utterance, provides more semantic information.
•
Its value lies in its conversational nature and in its semantic and pragmatic contingency.
•
A semantically contingent utterance retains the focus or topic of the previous utterance.
•
A pragmatically contingent utterance concurs with the intent of the previous utterance; i.e., topics invite comments, questions invite answers, requests invite responses, and so on.
•
Maternal extending correlates significantly with changes in the child’s length of utterance.
•
Parents do not consciously devise teaching strategies.
ADULT CONVERSATIONS WITH PRESCHOOLERS •
Mothers provide opportunities for their children to make verbal contributions, draw them into conversation and provide a well‐cued framework for the exchange, show their children when to speak, and develop cohesiveness between the speaker and listener.
•
Mothers ask children to comment on objects and events within their experience.
•
They expand information by talking about the same object or event in different ways or by adding new ideas and elaborating on them.
•
Maternal modifications appear to be correlated with advances in the child’s language abilities.
What Children Hear •
English‐speaking 2‐ to 3‐year‐old children hear 5,000 to 7,000 utterances each day, between a quarter and a third of these being questions and approximately a quarter are imperatives.
•
Almost 80% of mother utterances are full adult sentences.
•
About a quarter of the mothers’ utterances use the copula or verb be as the main verb.
•
Only about 15% of the mother’s utterances have SVO sentence form.
•
The majority of the utterances a child hears are highly repetitive word‐based frames that they experience sometimes hundreds of times every day.
•
Mothers begin twice as many utterances with the words well and now as their children do.
•
These signals that a response is coming, plus varied intonation, help a child understand.
•
A mother frequently acknowledges with “good” or “that’s it.”
•
Mothers are not as facilitative with turn‐taking as they are with other pragmatic skills.
•
Mothers interrupt their children much more than their children interrupt them.
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•
Mothers continue to facilitate the structure and cohesiveness of conversations by maintaining and reintroducing the topic.
•
Questions contribute to the development of auxiliary or helping verbs and the verb to be, because these words are prominently placed at the beginning of the sentence.
•
Mothers use yes/no questions to reformulate their children’s utterances.
•
Mothers invite child utterances, often followed by self‐responses.
•
Shared knowledge of events or routines is important and provides scaffolding.
•
Scripts that emerge from shared events concentrate a child’s attention, provide models, create formats, and limit a child’s linguistic options, thus decreasing the amount of cognitive processing and supporting the topic of conversation.
Keeping the Conversation Going •
Mothers facilitate the structure and cohesiveness of conversations by maintaining and reintroducing the topic.
•
Maternal speech to 30-month-olds benefits syntactic learning by providing language-advancing data and by eliciting conversation
•
Conversation keeps a child’s attention on language input and motivates the child to participate.
•
Elicitation and feedback on the quality of a child’s language productions does little to contribute to development beyond keeping her child involved.
•
Scripts that emerge from shared events, such as going to the park or riding in the car, concentrate a child’s attention, provide models, create formats, and limit a child’s linguistic options, thus decreasing the amount of child cognitive processing and supporting the topic of conversation.
Turnabouts •
A turnabout is a response to the previous utterance, with a response required.
•
A turnabout fills a mother’s turn and then requires a turn by her child.
•
A mother creates a series of successful turns that resemble conversational dialogue.
•
Repeatedly hearing a caregiver’s questions can have a beneficial effect on a preschooler’s development of more adult‐like questions.
•
Corrective feedback facilitates development of some syntactic structures.
•
Request for clarification or contingent query is used by adults and children to gain information that initially was not clearly transmitted or received.
•
Children aged 3 to 5 ½ produce and respond effectively to contingent queries from both adults and peers, although younger children are more effective in their use with adults.
•
With 2‐ to 3‐year‐olds, mothers employ yes/no questions in turnabouts most frequently.
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Importance of Play •
Play is ideal for language acquisition because: play is fun, topics are shared, games have structure and variation in the order of elements like grammar does, and games contain turn‐taking.
•
Play and language develop interdependently and demonstrate underlying cognitive developments.
DEVELOPMENT OF PLAY AND LANGUAGE •
Initially, both play and language are very concrete.
•
At about the time that children begin to combine symbols, they begin to play symbolically.
•
Children often attempt to involve their parents in pretend play.
•
As playmates, parents can show how to play by example.
•
The number of sequences in children’s play is related to the syntactic complexity of their language.
•
Thematic role playing and accompanying linguistic style changes begin at around age 3.
•
By age 4 a child is able to role‐play a baby, using a higher pitch, phonetic substitutions, shorter and simpler utterances, and more references to self.
•
At about this time, a child begins to role‐play mom and dad differently.
•
Prosodic and rhythmic devices are used first, followed by content and syntactic regularities.
•
In social play, language is used explicitly to convey meaning because of the different realistic and imaginary meanings of props and roles.
•
Language is used to clarify and negotiate.
•
As children mature and participate in more frequent imaginative play, they use more ambiguous props that can represent other entities.
•
Although a preschooler is too young for team games, he or she does enjoy group activities.
•
Language learning is enhanced by songs, rhymes, and finger plays common in daycare or preschool.
Solitary Play • Initially, both play and language are very concrete. •
Newborns’ brains are relatively unorganized.
•
Development of sensorimotor and visual cortex areas of the brain is reflected in play.
•
Through sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, babies learn about the world.
•
Through development, gestures become a means for attaining a communication goal.
•
Objects will often be used for their intended purpose.
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•
infants seem to prefer solitary play, but new play with objects can be learned through modelling by older children or by parents.
•
Social play and first words emerge at about the same time.
•
Just as words symbolize the objects or event to which they refer, objects in play can also symbolize other objects.
•
With cognitive maturity play and language become less tangible/concrete.
Parallel Play • Parallel play refers to interactions in which toddlers may enjoy playing near other children but may not interact. •
Cooperative play when it occurs is fleeting (i.e., social routines, such as “talking” on the phone or hugging the “baby” in the form of a doll).
•
Input from other children or adults encourages a child’s imagination and creativity.
•
Play incorporates familiar social routines and becomes more complex.
•
Objects may be used in creative ways or be absent.
•
Parents contribute running narratives of the play as it progresses and provide children with the basic problem–resolution narrative or story model.
•
In general, the number of sequences in children’s play is related to the syntactic complexity of their speech.
•
Children are add 3 or 4 words daily.
•
Memory aids play and is used to follow and construct simple stories.
Associative Play •
During the third year, play/interaction with others and imagination increases.
•
Role playing and accompanying linguistic style changes begin at around age 3.
•
By this age, children possess generalized sequential scripts of many familiar situations and can play or tell these.
•
At first, a child’s play role represents himself or herself; later roles are projected on other persons and dolls.
•
Unstructured toys, such as play telephones, kitchen sets, tools, medical kits, and dress-up clothes are favorites and encourage imaginative dramatic play.
•
Language is also evident in children’s increasing interest in books and smart devices, such as tablets.
Cooperative Play • After age 4, children increasingly come together with others in cooperative play. •
A child can role-play a baby, mommy or daddy by changing her style of talking.
•
In social play with others, language is used explicitly to convey meaning because of the different realistic and imaginary meanings of props and roles.
•
Language is used to clarify and negotiate.
•
Initially, pre-schoolers prefer functionally explicit props, such as a phone, car, or cup; as children mature and participate in more frequent imaginative play, they use more ambiguous props, such as blocks or stones, that can represent other entities. ?
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•
Language learning is enhanced by the songs, rhymes, and finger plays common among children in day-care or preschool.
Variation on a Theme INDIVIDUAL CHILD DIFFERENCES •
Preschoolers who are typically developing may exhibit as much as two years’ variation in language development, related to differences in intellect, personality, and learning style; ethnicity and the language of the home; SES; family structure; and birth order.
•
Single children have a greater opportunity to communicate with adults than do children with several siblings and thus develop language more quickly.
•
Twins who talk to each other a lot may have multiple phonological errors.
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An active, outgoing child will likely learn language more rapidly than a placid, retiring child.
•
Some toddlers attend to symbols while others prefer paralinguistic and nonlinguistic elements.
•
Maternal behaviors may be in response to these differences rather than a cause of them.
CULTURAL AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCES •
In middle‐class American English‐speaking families, parental behaviors differ based on the number and gender of the children and perceived differences in the children’s abilities, and in two‐ or single‐parent households.
•
Mothers of premature children may use linguistic strategies appropriate for younger children even when their children are age 4.
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Mothers of late‐talking toddlers use the same conversational cues as mothers of toddlers developing typically, although highly controlling mothers and their late‐ talking children appear to have less conversational synchrony.
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Parenting style affects a toddler’s pragmatics and to a lesser degree, grammar.
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Mothers who use negative control often have children with poorer language than mothers who use high levels of guidance or control alone but without the negativity.
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When studies control for SES, preschoolers from single‐parent homes have better receptive and expressive language and fewer communication problems, especially when compared to children from households with married, working parents.
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Among lower class families, lack of resources may restrict opportunities and parental work schedules may limit parent‐child interactions.
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Children living in poverty face heightened risks to their cognitive development.
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Children from low SES families may be at risk for language development problems.
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•
Both children and mothers in homeless shelters exhibit deficits or delays in auditory comprehension, verbal expression, reading, and/or writing.
•
In the Deaf culture, among parents and children who are both deaf and for whom ASL is the primary means of communication, CDS is conveyed by sign and facial expression.
•
Prior to a child’s second birthday, mothers of children who are deaf use facial expression primarily for emotion, then shift to more grammatical uses.
Cultural Differences •
Cultural differences may reflect three related factors: a) the role or status of children, b) the social organization of caregiving, and c) folk beliefs about how children learn language.
•
In the middle‐class American family, the child is held in relatively high regard.
•
The relatively lower standing of children in western Samoa some African American communities in rural Louisiana results in an expectation that children are to speak only when invited to do so.
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Middle‐class American mothers talk with their babies, not at them.
•
Chinese mothers use less expansion and prompting and more direct teaching of language.
•
Kaluli parents and Samoan parents rarely follow their children’s conversational leads.
•
Language acquisition does not seem to be slowed or delayed in any way based on cultural differences.
•
The expectation of a quiet child does not necessarily reflect children’s low status.
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Nonverbal behavior is more important in Japan than in the U.S., and Japanese parents anticipate their children’s needs more often, so children have fewer reasons to communicate.
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The social organization of caregiving reflects economic organization and kinship groupings.
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Folk “wisdom” on language acquisition affects the language addressed to a child.
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With toddlers, Japanese mothers use more vocalizations similar to the American English uh‐huh.
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The intentions of American mothers are providing information and directing.
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Japanese mothers prefer to use nonsense words, sound play, and emphatic routines.
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Japanese mothers are less likely to talk about objects; when they do, it is often without the use of the object’s name, used more frequently in the U.S.
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Both American and Japanese mothers use linguistically simple forms, repeat frequently, and use intonation to engage the infant.
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Early book reading is important for language and cognition in the preschool years.
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Mothers read more to firstborn and female toddlers, and mothers with higher verbal ability and education read more than other mothers.
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•
Among low‐income mothers, white non‐Latina mothers read more than African American and Latina mothers.
Effects of Media •
Children can also learn language by indirect means, such as conversational exchanges between other individuals.
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Children can learn language from speech that is not addressed to them.
•
Unlike conversations, television is passive and does not require a response.
•
Given the importance of CDS for language learning, background TV or other media can have a negative effect.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 1. Present the class with samples of toddler speech and ask students to use expansion and extension to build upon the toddler’s utterances. 2. Brainstorm as to why twins who spend a great deal of time together might have more phonological errors than other children. 3. Before discussing child-directed speech (CDS), have students role‐play “parents interacting with their toddlers.” Have students identify modifications made in their own speech to accommodate these situations. Write the modifications down and compare them to the characteristics of CDS. 4. Have students demonstrate turnabouts so they get a feel for this type of behavior.
5. Show a video of two preschoolers playing and then discuss the language behaviors observed.
Print Resources Hollich, G., Hirsh‐Pasek, K., & Michnick Golinkoff, R.M. (2000). Breaking the language barrier: An emergentist coalition model for the origins of word learning. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 65(3), Serial No. 262.
Masur, E.F., Flynn, V., & Eichorst, D.L. (2005). Maternal correlates of growth in toddler vocabulary production in low‐income families. Child Development, 76, 763‐782.
Striano, T., Rochat, P., & Legerstee, M. (2003). The role of modeling and request type on richard@qwconsultancy.com
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symbolic comprehension of objects and gestures in young children. Journal of Child Language, 30, 27‐45.
Audiovisual and Online •
Language Development (2004). Insight Media.
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How Infant‐Directed Speech Helps Your Baby Learn to Talk. Retrieved from: http://www.parentingscience.com/baby‐talk.html
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Toddlers: Learning by Playing. Retrieved from: http://kidshealth.org/parent/growth/learning/toddler_play.html
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Language Play and Language Development. Retrieved from: http://www.education.com/reference/article/language‐play‐development/
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Chapter 7: First Words and Word Combinations in Toddler Talk When they have completed this chapter, students should understand: •
The uses and meaning of first words.
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The intentions of early vocalizations/verbalizations.
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The bases for early concept development.
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The bases for extensions and overextensions.
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The two‐word combination patterns and characteristics of multi-word utterances.
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The common phonological rules of toddlers.
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The following terms: associative complex hypothesis, consonant/cluster reduction, fast mapping, functional‐core hypothesis, holophrase, initial mapping, item‐based construction, language socialization, lexicon, neighborhood density, open syllable, otitis media, overextension, phonotactic probability, pivot schema, presupposition, prototypic complex, hypothesis, reduplication, semantic‐feature hypothesis, underextension, word combination.
Introduction •
Much of the second year is spent perfecting and varying walking skills.
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Bodily and brain growth slows.
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A 2‐year‐old can walk on tiptoes, stand on one foot with assistance, jump with both feet, and bend at the waist to retrieve an object.
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New mobility and increasing control over fine motor abilities give a toddler freedom to explore.
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Increased fine motor skills and longer attention span enable a toddler to look at books.
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By 18 months, a child recognizes pictures of common objects.
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Six months later, children pretend to read books and can turn pages one at a time.
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A toddler can hold a crayon and scribble.
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By 18 months, a toddler plays appropriately with toy phones, dishes, and tools and enjoys “dress‐up.”
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Toddlers repeat daily routines with toys and demonstrate short sequences of role playing at age 2.
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• Toddlers will play near but not usually with other children; exploration are most frequently solitary and nonsocial.
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Increasing self‐awareness and the ability to influence others are reflected in noncompliance.
•
To be considered a true word, a) the child’s utterance must have a phonetic relationship to an adult word, b) the child must use it consistently, and c) the word
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must occur in the presence of a referent, implying an underlying concept or meaning. •
Language development in the second year consists of vocabulary growth and word combinations.
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Each toddler has a lexicon, or personal mental dictionary, that partly reflects the child’s environment.
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Early word combinations follow predictable patterns.
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At age 2 the toddler has an expressive vocabulary of about 150 to 300 words.
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Better gesture and object use at 12 months predicts better vocabulary at 24 months.
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Use of conventional gestures at 14 months is positively related to receptive language and vocabulary size more than two years later.
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Acts for joint attention at 14 months and the number of different consonants at 19 months are positively related to expressive language at 3 years.
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A child’s first words are requests for information, for objects or aid, or as comments.
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There is carryover of pragmatic functions from presymbolic to symbolic communication.
Single Word Utterances •
A toddler’s first meaningful speech consists of single‐word utterances or single‐ word approximations of frequently used adult phrases.
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A child’s word often signifies a referent but is not the meaning of the word.
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Meaning is found in the language user’s concepts or mental images, not in individual’s referents.
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A child gradually modifies the definition until it is close to the generally accepted meaning.
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A child begins speaking by attempting to learn whole adult utterances.
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Holophrases convey a holistic communicative intention.
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Longer utterances are learned to further clarify intention.
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Early words are used to accomplish several tasks: •
Request or indicate the existence of an object by naming it with a requesting or neutral intonation.
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Request or describe the recurrence of objects or events, using words such as more, ’gain, and ’nother.
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Request or describe changing events involving objects by up, down, on, off, in, out, open, and close.
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Request or describe the actions of others with words such as eat, kick, ride, and fall.
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Comment on the location of objects and people with words such as bed, car, and outside.
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•
Ask some basic questions such as What?, What that?, and Where mommy?
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Attribute a property to an object such as big, hot, and dirty.
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Use utterances to mark specific social events and situations or perform some act, as with hi, bye, and no (Tomasello, 2006).
PRAGMATICS •
There is a strong relationship between first words and the frequency of maternal use/ daily repetition.
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The intentions of a child’s early utterances are also important; early words develop to fulfill the intentions originally conveyed by gestures.
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Many words are used in the same context in which the mother used them previously.
Development of Intent •
Initially, intentions are signaled by gestures only.
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Many early words can be interpreted only with the accompanying gesture.
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A child learns to express intentions through words and grammar, although gestures remain important.
Gestures. •
The primary intentions expressed are declarations and requests for objects, with requests for information or questions developing later in development.
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During the second year, gestures and words become more coordinated.
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Symbolic gestures appear at the same time as first words and develop in parallel.
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Young toddlers may rely on caregiver gestures for comprehension.
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The lengths of “utterances” in both words and gestures are similar.
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From age 12 to 18 months, a child increasingly gestures and verbalizes while looking at the communication partner.
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Gestures may be an efficient means of communicating knowledge or they may facilitate word retrieval.
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Infants in the one‐word stage communicate with deictic and iconic gestures.
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Iconic gestures convey meaning through form, action, or position of the body.
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In general, toddlers use deictic gestures more than iconic.
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A toddler’s gesture‐speech combinations are reinforcing or supplemental.
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Supplemental combinations are positively correlated with expressive language skills.
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When language is activated, motor areas for speech and gesture are readied.
Gestures and Joint Attending. •
It is unknown whether infants attempt to influence the intentional/mental states of others by causing them to know something or whether they are aiming to achieve behavioral effects in others by causing them to do something.
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•
Early verbal communication and gestures share a social‐cognitive, social‐ motivational basis of shared intentionality.
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Infants possess the basic social‐cognitive and social‐motivational skills for engaging in cooperative communication by around 12 to 14 months of age.
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They possess an understanding about, a) the choices people make in their intentions and attention, b) why people make these choices, c) what knowledge they do and do not share with others, and d) the basic cooperative motives.
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Infants realize that one’s social intention is met mainly by making others aware.
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The social‐cognitive basis for cooperative verbal communication is mainly joint attention, as well as the communicative intention that derives from joint attention, that we know something together.
Sound and Word Making. •
Initially, different verbal forms develop to express each intention.
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As words increase and intentions diversify, utterances become more flexible.
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Six pragmatic categories describe the general purposes of language: control, representational, expressive, social, tutorial, and procedural.
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First, children develop a flat or level contour for naming or labeling.
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Between 13 and 15 months, children develop a rising contour to express requesting, attention getting, and curiosity and a high falling contour to signal surprise, recognition, insistence, or greeting.
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Around 18 months, children use a falling‐rising and a rising‐falling contour for warnings and playfulness, respectively.
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With two‐word speech, content is communicated more completely without as much dependence on nonlinguistics.
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Around age 2, a child combines multiple intentions within a single utterance.
Conversational Abilities •
Presupposition is the assumption that the listener knows or does not know certain information that a child, as speaker, must include or delete from the conversation.
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Toddlers follow certain rules to demonstrate presupposition skills.
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With the onset of two‐word utterances, a child learns word‐order rules that may override informational structure.
INITIAL LEXICONS •
Over half of first words consist of a single CV syllable with the remainder being single vowels and two CV syllables (CVCV).
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Most words and non‐words contained three or fewer sounds each.
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There are very few CVC words, and many of these will be modified.
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Front and back consonants predominate, but no consonant clusters appear.
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The first words of Spanish‐speaking children demonstrate similar characteristics. richard@qwconsultancy.com
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•
A child’s first 10 words generally name animals, foods, and toys.
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First words usually apply to a midlevel of generality.
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Initial lexical growth is slow, and a child may appear to plateau for short periods.
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Some words are lost as a child’s interests change and production improves.
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18‐month‐old infants can learn new word‐referent associations with as few as three exposures.
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Girls seem to acquire words earlier and demonstrate a faster initial trajectory.
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By 18 months, the toddler possesses a lexicon of about 50 words, with nouns predominating.
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Between 18 and 24 months, most children experience a “vocabulary spurt.”
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Tremendous vocabulary expansion occurs around age 2 ½.
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Actual timing of the vocabulary spurt may depend on the rate of cognitive development.
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2‐year‐olds with larger vocabularies are also grammatically precocious.
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Several characteristics of a word may influence which words children learn: ▪
Grammatical class
▪
Frequency of input from adults.
▪
Lexical category.
▪
Phonology of the word.
Nouns Predominate •
There is an initial increase in nouns until a child acquires approximately 100 words.
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Verbs begin a slow proportional rise with a decrease in nouns.
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Other word classes, such as prepositions, do not increase proportionally until after approximately 400 words.
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Children, regardless of specific language, have a predisposition to learn nouns.
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In Korean, there is a maternal tendency to use single‐word verbs and to activity‐ oriented utterances; Korean has SOV organization.
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There are several possible explanations for the early predominance of nouns: a) a child may already have a concept of objects from time spent in social interaction around objects and in object exploration, b) nouns are perceptually/conceptually distinct, c) the linguistic predictability of nouns makes them easier to use and accounts for their early predominance, and d) the frequency of adult use, adult word order, the limited morphological adaptations of nouns, and adult teaching patterns seem to affect children’s production.
Effects of Child-Directed Speech •
CDS and 1-to-1 interactions around age 11-14 months are positively correlated with the child’s current language production and language production at 24 months.
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The influence of adult speech can be seen across different languages.
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Although word order varies across languages, nouns still form a substantial part of most children’s initial lexicons.
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•
When a word is in the object position preceded by a verb, as in Push the X or Let’s ride the Y, a child learns that X is “pushable” and Y is “rideable” which gives the child an early meaning for the noun;
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Compared to CDS, the frequency of nouns in adult-to-adult English speech is low.
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Nouns occur more frequently in adult‐to‐child speech, receive more stress, are often in the final position, and have few morphological markers.
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Verbs are more frequent in non‐toy or social play and in conversations.
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Vocabulary development may fine-tune the lexical or vocabulary system in order to increase storage and accessibility to information.
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Among 8- to 30-month-old children, the frequency of parental input correlates significantly only with the age of acquisition of common nouns.
Child Learning Style •
Individual children exist along a continuum from a referential style in which they use many nouns to an expressive style in which they prefer interactional and functional words.
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Children with a referential style have more adult contacts, use more single words, and use an analytic, or bottom‐up, strategy in which they build utterances from individual words.
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Children with an expressive style have more peer contacts, attempt to produce longer units, and employ a holistic, or top‐down, strategy in which utterances are broken into their parts.
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Most children begin language acquisition by learning some adult expressions holistically.
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Children who have overdependence on this strategy, characterized as “swallowing language whole” or using memorized formulas, may be at a disadvantage in learning language.
Here Come the Verbs. •
Modifiers and verb‐like words, such as down, appear soon after the first word.
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True verbs occur later in development.
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To correctly establish a verb’s meaning, a child needs to find the underlying concept.
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Some nouns can be verbs, while others cannot.
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Before children can learn verb meaning, they must decide which words are verbs.
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13.5‐month‐olds can segment verbs from fluent speech.
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As many as 60% of verbs in maternal speech refer to future action.
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The order of word followed by action facilitates comprehension and production for 15‐ to 21‐month‐olds.
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The reverse process, action followed by verb, facilitates production only.
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•
With vocabulary growth and the emergence of grammar, the proportion of verbs increases substantially.
MEANING OF SINGLE‐WORD UTTERANCES •
A toddler initially uses language to discuss objects, events, and relations that are present.
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Some symbols may be context‐bound and utilized only within that specific context.
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Other words may be used to designate entities, actions, and relationships in several contexts.
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The communication partner interprets the child’s utterance with reference to the activity and the child’s nonlinguistic behavior.
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Adults often paraphrase the child’s utterance as a full sentence.
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Word knowledge may be derived from multisensory experiences.
Where Do Meanings Come From? •
By the second half of the first year, infants reliably pair arbitrary sounds with meanings, called mapping sounds onto meanings.
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Word learning is unlike most other kinds of learning.
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Much of human and animal learning is associative, whereas word learning seems to be more than just associations formed between repeated pairings of an object with a name.
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Even early word learning reflects sensitivity to the social intentions of the speaker.
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Social sensitivity is important for word learning as children begin to produce words.
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Children become word‐learning experts by 24 months.
Concept Formation •
The semantic feature hypothesis proposes that a child establishes meaning by combining features that are present and perceivable in the environment.
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The functional core hypothesis focuses on motion features.
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The associative and prototypic complexes hypotheses say either (1) that each successive use of a word shares some feature or is associated with a core concept, or (2) that the child’s underlying concept includes a central reference or prototype respectively.
Extension: Under, Over, and Otherwise •
Formation of a link between a referent and a new name is called fast or initial mapping, and it is typically quick, sketchy, and tentative.
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The word is freed from aspects of the initial context that may be irrelevant to the meaning.
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Children form hypotheses about underlying concepts and extend current meanings to include new examples.
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Overly restricted meanings are underextensions.
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•
Overextensions are meanings that are too broad.
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A child receives both implicit and explicit feedback about extensions of both types.
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Implicit feedback can be found in the naming practices of others, to which a child attends.
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Explicit feedback includes direct correction or confirmation of a child’s extensions.
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Words develop a “confirmed core” and a peripheral area of potential generalization.
•
Underextensions are common in all languages, including ASL.
•
There are three general types of overextensions: ▪
Categorical overinclusions occur when a child uses a word to label a referent in a category.
▪
Analogical overextensions include the use of a word to label a referent based on inferred perceptual, functional, or affective similarity.
▪
Predicate statements occur when a child notes the relationship between an object and some absent person, object, property, or state.
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When we examine extensions of the first 75 words, perceptual similarity seems to account for nearly 60% of both, and most perceptual similarities are visual.
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As a child begins to use the acceptable adult meaning, adults become unwilling to accept the child’s over-inclusiveness, thus over extending decreases.
Early Multiword Combinations •
When children begin to use longer utterances at 18 months, they use predictable universal patterns.
•
Children’s language production is similar to adults, meaning that it is an interaction of syntactic knowledge, limited cognitive resources, communicative goals, and the structure of the conversation.
TRANSITION: EARLY WORD COMBINATIONS •
Prior to the appearance of two‐word utterances, the child produces sequences of words, sounds, and gestures in seeming combination and in a variety of forms.
•
The types of gesture‐speech combinations change with the child’s cognitive and language skills.
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A second transitional form consists of a CV syllable preceding or following a word.
•
Another variation is a word plus a sound where the word varies and the vocalization is stable.
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A third transitional form consists of reduplications of a single‐word utterance.
MULTI‐WORD UTTERANCES •
At about 18 months, many children combine words or holophrases.
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•
Word combinations consist of equivalent words that divide an experience into multiple units.
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Pivot schemas show a more systematic pattern; often one word or phrase seems to structure the utterance by determining the intent of the utterance, such as a demand.
•
Item‐based constructions do seem to follow word‐order rules with specific words.
•
In general, words such as verbs and their place in word‐ordered constructions seem to be learned one verb at a time until children begin to generalize language rules after age 3.
•
Item‐based constructions contain morphological markers, prepositions, and word order to indicate syntactic classes of words that are treated in certain ways.
Social Cognitive Skills and Multi‐Word Utterances •
Children construct multi‐word utterances from the language they hear.
•
This ability rests on a child’s underlying social‐cognitive skills.
•
Planning and creating a multi‐step path to accomplish a goal is seen in the problem‐ solving of 14‐to 18‐month‐old toddlers.
•
A toddler forms “mental combinations” of the required steps.
•
Toddlers’ ability to form abstractions across items is seen in their play.
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Children engage in nonlinguistic activities involving clear and general roles, such as using objects in specific ways or building with blocks that may lead to item‐based constructions.
•
There is nothing in nonlinguistic activities that corresponds to second‐order symbols such as syntactic and morphological markers.
Phonological Learning •
Phonological development has a strong influence on first words.
•
A child generally avoids words that he or she cannot pronounce.
•
Lexical or vocabulary development has a strong influence on sounds produced.
•
In the second year, a child matches articulation to audition.
•
Learning articulatory sequences involves rehearsal and memory.
•
Three representations/maps are involved in word learning: auditory, conceptual, and articulatory.
AUDITORY MAPS •
Word learning is an association between the way a word sounds and its meaning.
•
The human phonological system is a paired system of incoming and outgoing lexicons.
•
On the incoming side is the child’s knowledge of stored information about words.
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•
Outgoing signals are stored in a parallel branch of the system.
•
Speech perception is based on the use of these learned phonological codes to help hold incoming information in working memory while it’s analyzed.
•
Words are recognized and placed in long‐term memory using these same codes.
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In imitation, a child is stimulated by the incoming speech model.
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In more spontaneous speech, a child relies on the stored lexical items on the outgoing side.
•
Lexical characteristics that influence linguistic processing are frequency of use, neighborhood density, and phonotactic probability.
•
Frequently used words are recognized more quickly and accurately and produced more rapidly.
•
High density or lots of neighbors can result in confusion and slower, less accurate recognition and production.
•
Neighborhood density is the number of possible words that differ by one phoneme.
•
All things being equal, words in less dense neighborhoods are easier to learn.
•
Phonotactic probability is the likelihood of a sound pattern occurring.
•
A component of phonological development is a transition from holistic to segmental storage of phonological information, which begins at about the time when toddlers combine words.
•
Phonotactic probability emerges at about 9 months as the child learns the likelihood of sound patterns occurring in the speech of others in the environment.
•
Words are learned and produced as whole‐sound‐patterned units.
ARTICULATORY MAPS •
Language learning may be both implicit and explicit, reflecting receptive and expressive phonological systems.
•
Implicit learning is incidental and unintentional, including exposure to language.
•
Through exposure, an infant gains an expectation for the frequency of occurrence of different phonological patterns.
•
In explicit learning, a child attempts to replicate an adult word heard previously.
•
An infant becomes familiar with the rhythmic patterns of language by 4 months and with recurring sound distribution patterns by 7 to 8 months.
•
This occurs at about the same time as a child’s production of reduplicated babbling.
•
This is the first link between perception and execution portions of the phonological system.
•
Different word shape patterns, such as CV, VC, CVCV, and CVC, evolve from motor practice and the perceived speech of others.
•
Words match adult forms but sounds or patterns that do not fit the child’s templates or are difficult to produce, are omitted.
•
Sound substitutions are rare.
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•
A child’s repertoire of individual speech sounds is more important in first word production.
•
The greater the number of consonants at 9 months, the larger the lexicon at 16 months.
•
Certain language‐based phonetic tendencies are seen in most children, including a preference for monosyllables over longer strings, and stops over other consonants.
•
Phonological experimentation may exist along a continuum from those children who are very cautious or systematic to those who are more adventurous.
Conclusion •
A child learning language auditorily must map or form both the auditory features and the semantics or concept of a word in parallel.
•
After the onset of meaningful speech, there is much individual variation in the pattern and rate of speech sound growth and in the syllable structure of words.
SINGLE WORD UTTERANCE PATTERNS •
Nearly all initial words are monosyllabic CV or CVCV constructions.
•
Labials and alveolars, mostly plosives, predominate, with occasional fricatives and nasals.
•
Vowel production varies widely but the basic triangle of /a/, /i/, and /u/ is established early.
•
Vowels initially vary more than consonants within words.
•
The order of appearance of the first sounds ‐ /m/, /w/, /b/, and /p/ ‐ cannot be explained by the frequency of their appearance in English.
•
Although not the most frequent English sounds, /m/, /w/, and /p/ are the simplest to produce.
•
/b/ is more complex, although relatively easy to perceive.
PHONOLOGICAL PROCESSES •
Phonological processes are procedures used by children to make words pronounceable.
•
Phonological processes are a way of getting from an auditory model to speech production.
•
Early phonological processes are word‐specific.
•
Children’s phonological processes exhibit tremendous individual variation.
•
First, the entire system of each child is constantly changing.
•
Second, some words are produced consistently, while others vary greatly.
•
Third, phonological variation may be the result of toddlers’ use of differing phonological production processes.
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•
Reduplication occurs when a child attempts a polysyllabic word but is unable to produce one syllable correctly; the child compensates by repeating the other syllable.
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Multisyllabic words or words with final consonants are produced in CV multisyllable form.
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Open syllables predominate.
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Consonant cluster reduction results in single‐consonant production.
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A child produces those parts of words that are perceptually most salient or noticeable.
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Auditory salience is related to relatively low pitch, loudness, and long duration.
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Children often delete weak syllables.
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Fourth, variation may reflect multiple processes within the same word.
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Finally, individual phonological variation may reflect each child’s phonological preferences.
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The most frequent phonological process found in children less than 30 months of age is consonant cluster reduction, although there is a dramatic drop in its use after 26 months.
•
Syllabic phonological processes decrease rapidly just prior to the second birthday.
LEARNING UNITS AND EXTENSION •
Most likely, individual speech sounds are not the units of development; the whole word functions as a phonetic unit.
•
A child’s earliest words are very limited in the number and type of syllables and phonemes.
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While constructing the phonological system, a child extends rule hypotheses to other words.
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Language development is governed by phonological rules in addition to pragmatics, semantics, and syntax.
•
The child invents and applies a succession of phonological rules reflecting increasing phonological organization via a problem‐solving, hypothesis‐forming process.
Individual Differences •
Individual variation occurs within and across components of early language.
•
Among toddlers, grammatical complexity reflects vocabulary growth more than age does.
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Lexical bootstrapping suggests that vocabulary is the foundation for grammar.
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Syntactic bootstrapping posits that children use syntactic knowledge to figure out word meaning.
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•
Longitudinal twin studies provide evidence of both types of bootstrapping operating in 3‐year‐olds.
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Phonological bootstrapping uses prosody, phoneme, and syllable information.
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It is possible that phonological working memory facilitates both vocabulary acquisition and syntactic processing by serving a similar function for larger linguistic units.
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Several additional factors may influence early language acquisition, including overall health, cognitive functioning, environment, middle ear infections or otitis media (middle ear infection), motor speech problems, SES, exposure to TV, and international adoption and second language learning.
•
Toddlers with language delays exhibit more social withdrawal.
•
Otitis media can negatively affect early language development but appear to be resolved by age 7.
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Early, chronic exposure to TV may have a negative impact.
Conclusion •
Language acquisition offers an informative look into the organizational world of the young child.
•
We don’t know a child’s true meanings or purposes; we cannot assume that the salient features of an event that we might encode also have meaning for a child.
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A child’s utterances are the result of a complex process that begins with the referents involved.
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In single-word utterances, a child’s selection of lexical items seems to be strongly influenced by the pragmatic aspects of the communication context and by the concepts she or he can encode.
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Longer utterances follow simple ordering rules.
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During the second year of life, a child becomes more efficient in regulating social interactions through language; communication becomes more easily interpretable.
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By 24 months, a child can truly engage in conversations, initiating and maintaining topics, requesting information, and predicting and describing states and qualities. He or she is more independent, secure, and autonomous and takes greater responsibility for communication interactions.
•
Although a child’s language is different from an adult’s, it is nonetheless a valid symbolic system for that child.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 1. Allow students to divide themselves into pairs. In each pair, direct one student to converse normally (the “adult”), and the other student (the “toddler”) to speak in only one‐word utterances, mostly nouns. Discuss effectiveness of communication and how the “adult” partner was able to elicit information from the “toddler.” richard@qwconsultancy.com
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2. Give students examples of words produced in which phonological processes caused deviations from the adult form. Practice determining which phonological processes are used by the child. Conversely, given a phonological process, ask students to give an example of a word that would follow that process. 3. Before students read the chapter, make a list of words that the students believe would be in a first lexicon. Write each word in its adult spelling and transcribed in phonetic symbols as produced by children. As you teach, go through the list to demonstrate the word categories, semantic categories, syllabic structure, phonemes, and possible uses. 4. Have each student construct a definition for a predefined word, such as furniture, to demonstrate how complex it is to develop definitions for even common things. Emphasize the point that there is rarely a best exemplar of a category.
Print Resources McEachem, D., & Haynes, W.O. (2004). Gesture‐speech combinations as a transition to multiword utterances. American Journal of Speech‐Language Pathology, 13, 227‐235.
McGregor, K.K., Sheng, L. & Smith, B. (2005). The precocious two‐year‐old: Status of the lexicon and links to the grammar. Journal of Child Language, 32, 563‐585.
Nittrouer, S. (2002). From ear to cortex: A perspective on what clinicians need to understand about speech perception and language processing. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools, 33, 237‐252.
Storkel, H.L. & Morrisette, M.L. (2002). The lexicon and phonology: Interactions in language acquisition. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools, 33, 24‐37.
Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., & Liszkowski, U. (2007). A new look at infant pointing. Child Development, 78, 705‐722.
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Audiovisual and Online •
Apple Overextension (2010). Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgY7nkbYFaw
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Ear Infections in Children. National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders. (2017). Retrieved from: https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/ear-infections-children
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Helping Toddlers Explain Language Skills. Child Mind Institute. Retrieved from: https://childmind.org/article/helping-toddlers-expand-their-language-skills/
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Otitis Media. Metropolitan NeuroEar Group of Maryland. (2011). Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89RDJHxcJXE
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Phonological Processes: What are they? Speech and Language Kids. https://www.speechandlanguagekids.com/phonological-processes/
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Chapter 8: Preschool Pragmatic and Semantic Development When they have completed this chapter, students should understand: • Conversational abilities of the preschool child. • Narrative development. • Lexical growth. • Development of relational terms. • Impact of development of Theory of Mind (ToM). • Interrelatedness of language development. • The following terms: agent, anaphoric reference, archiform, centering, chaining, deixis, ellipsis, event structure, free alternation, interlanguage, narrative, narrative level, patient, semantic case, Theory of Mind (ToM), topic.
Preschool Development •
By age 3, a child can run well, climbs stairs, and balances on one foot.
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Fine motor abilities continue to develop slowly.
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Although scribbling is more representational, a single “drawing” represents very different things.
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A child of 3 is likely to play in groups, share toys, and take turns.
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A 3‐year‐old has an expressive vocabulary of 900 to 1,000 words and uses 12,000 words per day.
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Hand preference is more pronounced by age four, and children copy simple block letters.
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Increased memory helps a preschooler recount the past and remember short stories.
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Many 4‐year‐olds can name primary colors and label some coins.
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Although a child can count to 5 or higher by rote, he or she has a notion of quantity only through 3.
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Socially, most 4‐year‐olds play well in groups and cooperate well with others.
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The child can tell simple stories and form more complex sentences.
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Vocabulary increases to 1,500 to 1,600 words, with approximately 15,000 words used each day.
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Four‐year‐olds are social beings who have the linguistic skills and the short‐term memory to be limited conversationalists.
Pragmatic Development •
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Their language reflects the need for increased communicative clarity and perspective.
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Much of a child’s conversation concerns the immediate context.
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Conversations are short and the number of turns is very limited.
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The mother is still very much in control, creating and maintaining dialogue.
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Conversational formats and routines provide scaffolding, which frees cognitive processing for more linguistic exploration and experimentation.
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The presleep monologues of many children are rich with songs, sounds, nonsense words, bits of chitchat, verbal fantasies, and expressions of feelings.
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Some children engage in presleep self‐dialogue in which they take both parts.
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Throughout the preschool years, audible monologues decline, but inaudible self‐talk increases.
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Self‐talk decreases after age 10 but doesn’t disappear.
THE CONVERSATIONAL CONTEXT •
A 2‐year‐old can respond to conversational partners and engage in short dialogues.
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The child can introduce or change the topic although topic options are limited.
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Mother and child each engage in roughly 30% initiating and 60% responding behaviors.
Child Conversational Skills • When initiating conversations with peers, preschool children mention a person – most often the listener – over 70% of the time with a particular interest in mental states. Contingent speech is influenced by and dependent on the preceding utterance of the partner, as when one speaker replies to another. •
Fewer than 20% of responses may be relevant.
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By age 3, a child can engage in longer dialogues beyond a few turns, although spontaneous speech is still easier than contingent or connected speech.
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Nearly 50% of 5‐year‐olds can sustain certain topics through about a dozen turns.
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There is an increase in overall talkativeness at around 36 months of age.
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A 2‐year‐old uses pronouns but without previously identifying the entity to which they refer.
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Between ages 3 and 4, children gain a better awareness of social aspects of conversation.
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Utterances are clear, well formed, and well adapted for the listener.
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By age 4, a child demonstrates a form of child-directed speech when addressing very young children.
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A 3‐ to 4‐year‐old child uses more elliptical responses that omit shared information.
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A 2‐year‐old’s language is used in imaginative ways and in expression of feeling.
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There is also a related shift in verb usage with less use of go and do.
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By age 2, simultaneous talking decreases significantly and a more mature alternating pattern found in conversations is predominant.
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•
As a 3‐year‐old becomes more aware of the social aspects of discourse, he or she acknowledges the partner’s turn with fillers, such as yeah and uh‐huh.
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Preschool boys are more likely to use the word no to correct or prohibit a peer’s behavior.
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Girls use no to reject or deny a playmate’s proposition or suggestion.
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By age 4 information exchange most important, accounting for 40% of exchanges.
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Other exchanges serve functions such as establishing and maintaining social relations, teaching, managing and correcting communication, expressing feelings, and talking to self.
Register •
Roles require different styles of speaking called registers.
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Competence with different registers varies with age and experience.
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Younger children prefer familiar roles.
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Pitch and loudness levels are the first variations used to denote differing roles.
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Later variations include mean length of the utterances and choice of topics/words.
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Girls assume more roles, speak more, and modify their register more to fit the roles.
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One aspect of register is politeness (i.e., please, thank you, may I…).
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Two‐ to five‐year‐olds more often use commands with other preschoolers and permission requests with older children and adults.
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It is not until age 5 that children recognize that indirect requests are more polite.
Conversational Repair. • Young children use questions and contingent queries to initiate or continue. •
Nonverbal methods decrease as the primary means of communicating confusion.
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A child cannot make well‐formed requests for clarification until mid‐elementary.
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Some revisions may occur as the speech is being produced, while others may take longer and await the entire utterance before making a judgment.
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Stalls include a) long silent pauses, b) pauses filled with um or uh, or c) repetitions of material already produced while a child recalls what he was about to say.
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Stalls may result from differing processing rates between higher level linguistic processing and lower level and quicker speech processing.
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Developmental changes in revision rate reflect changes in children’s ability to monitor language production.
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Two‐and‐a‐half‐year‐old bilingual children can repair communication breakdowns by switching languages to match that of their partner.
Topic Introduction, Maintenance, and Closure. • A topic is the content about which we speak and the cohesion in a conversation. •
Topic is maintained by commenting with additional information; altering the focus of the topic, called shading; or requesting more information.
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The topic is changed by introducing a new one, reintroducing one, or ending.
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At first, an infant attracts attention to self as the topic.
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By age 1, an infant is highly skilled at initiating a topic, although he or she is limited to topics about items that are physically present.
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Child utterances usually consist of adult imitations or new related information.
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By age 2, a child is capable of maintaining a topic in adjacent pairs of utterances.
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Between ages 2 and 3, a child gains a limited ability to maintain coherent topics.
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By age 3 ½, about three‐fourths of a child’s utterances are on the established topic.
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Repetition is a tactic used by preschoolers to remain on a topic.
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Five‐year‐olds may discuss as many as 50 different topics within 15 minutes.
Presupposition: Adaptation to the Listener’s Knowledge. • A preschool child becomes more adept at knowing what information to include, how to arrange it, and which lexical items and linguistic forms to use. •
The form of address used is based on presuppositions relative to the social situation.
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The choice of topic is based on an assumption of participant knowledge or interest.
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Children younger than 3 do not understand the effect of not providing enough information.
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Most 3‐year‐olds can distinguish between definite and indefinite articles.
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Verbs, such as know, think, forget, and remember are used correctly as presuppositional tools by age 4.
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By age 5 or 6, a child understands the verbs wish, guess, and pretend.
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Verbs such as say, whisper, and believe are not comprehended until age 7.
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The presuppositions that accompany wh‐ questions are learned with each wh‐ word.
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The use of devices, such as word order, stress, and ellipsis, changes with age.
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Through ellipsis, the speaker omits redundant information, thereby assuming the listener knows this information.
Directives and Requests. • The purpose of directives and requests is to get others to do things for the speaker. •
The form can be direct or indirect, conventional, or nonconventional.
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By age 2, a child can use attention‐getting words with gestures and rising intonation.
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Few indirect forms are used.
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Two‐ to 3‐year‐olds make politeness distinctions based on the age or size, familiarity, role, territory, and rights of the listener.
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Action requests are answered with the action even when information is sought.
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At age 3, a child begins to use modal auxiliary verbs in indirect requests, permissive directives, and question directives.
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Only about 6% of all the requests by 42‐ to 52‐month‐olds are indirect, although there is a sharp increase in the use of this form around age 4 ½.
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The child offers more explanations and justifications for requests.
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Deixis. • Deixis means indicating or pointing. •
Deictic terms may be used to direct attention, make spatial contrasts, and denote times or participants in a conversation.
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The development of this, that, here, and there illustrates the inherent difficulties.
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Mothers use these terms most frequently in directing their child’s attention.
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Later, children use this and here for directing attention but make little differentiation based on the location of the object of interest.
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There are three problems in the acquisition of deictic terms: point of reference, shifting reference, and shifting boundaries.
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The contrasts I/you and my/your develop relatively early, typically by age 2 ½.
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In the first phase of learning deictic terms, there is no contrast between the different dimensions, then children develop a partial contrast, and finally children master the full deictic meaning.
Intentions •
By about 30 months, the relative frequency of the six large pragmatic categories – representational, control, expressive, procedural, social, and tutorial – stabilizes.
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The control and representational functions account for 70% of all child utterances.
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The representational category is dominated by the statement function, which gradually increases to 50% of all representational utterances and 20% of all utterances by age 5.
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The wanting function decreases rapidly after 24 months.
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Direct requesting continues a slow increase until around 39 months.
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Other control intentions include prohibition, intention, request permission, suggestion, physical justification, offer, and indirect request.
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Expressive functions include exclamation, expressive state, and verbal accompaniment.
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Procedural functions include call, contingent query, and elicited repetition.
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The social and tutorial functions account for less than 4% of the child’s utterances at age 5.
NARRATIVES •
Narratives include self‐generated stories; telling of familiar tales; retelling of books, movies, or TV shows; and recounting of personal experiences.
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Narratives are essentially decontextualized monologues.
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They contain organizational patterns not found in conversation.
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They usually concern people, animals, or imaginary characters engaged in events.
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Narratives use extended units of story text; introductory and organizing sequences that lead to a conclusion; and the listener is relatively passive.
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Older preschool children’s story retelling skills are related to the extent to which mothers encouraged active participation during joint book reading.
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Cultural Differences. • Although storytelling is universal, the manner of that telling varies between and within cultures •
Narratives may vary in content or the ideas, goals, and themes children express; structural organization; and the function or purpose of the narrative.
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Narrative content also reflects cultural ideas and perspectives, such as the degree of individualism or collectivism of the culture.
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The organization of narratives is influenced by both context and culture. For example, topic-associating (TA) narratives, more characteristic of African American children, are organized around a series of episodes linked to some person or theme.
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In contrast, topic-centered (TC) stories, more characteristic of European American children, are structured around a single topic or closely related topics and emphasize the facts of the narrative in the order of occurrence.
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Some Latino cultures also encourage the TA style. For example, Central American mothers scaffold their preschoolers’ personal narratives as a conversation, while European American mothers focus on an accurate sequential organization.
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Narratives vary greatly even within the same child and may reflect the dynamic interaction of the story genre (personal or fictional) and culture.
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Japanese and U.S. children differ in the length of personal narratives. Japanese children tend to speak succinctly about collections of experiences, while children from the United States are more likely to elaborate on one experience.
Knowledge of Event Structure. •
Narratives are event descriptions based on underlying event scripts.
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To describe the sets of sequences that form the total event, the speaker must be able to describe single events and event combinations and relationships and to indicate the significance of each event within the overall event structure.
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Descriptions of entire events are based on a framework of scripts.
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Scripts based on actual events form an individual’s expectations about sequences and impose order on event information.
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By age 3, children are able to describe chains of events within familiar activities, such as a birthday party. Theoretically, scripts are similar across members of the same culture based on their common experiences.
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A narrator must have knowledge of both single events and connected sequences, linguistic knowledge of the method for describing events, and the linguistic and cognitive skill to consider the listener’s perspective.
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The elements of event knowledge are seen in the narratives of 4-year-olds.
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Underlying every story is an event chain.
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Events include actions; physical states such as possession and attribution; and mental states such as emotions, dispositions, thoughts, and intentions that may be causally linked as motivations, enablements, initiations, and resultants in the chain.
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Development of Narratives •
Although 2‐year‐olds possess basic patterns for familiar events and sequences, called scripts, they are not able to describe sequences of events accurately until about age 4.
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Early protonarratives have five times as much evaluative information as does conversation.
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Children begin to tell self‐generated, fictional narratives between 2 and 3 years of age.
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The overall organization of a narrative is called the narrative level.
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Centering is the linking of entities to form a story nucleus.
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Chaining is a sequence of events that share attributes and lead directly from one to another.
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Most of the stories of 2‐year‐olds are organized by centering.
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By age 3, however, nearly half of children use both centering and chaining.
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Initially, identification of the participants, time, and location may be nonexistent or minimal.
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The organizational strategies of 2‐year‐olds represent centering heaps, sets of unrelated statements about a central stimulus, consisting of one sentence added to another.
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Later, preschoolers begin to tell narratives characterized as centering sequences.
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Temporal event chains emerge between ages 3 and 5.
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Primitive temporal narratives are organized around a center with complementary events.
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Narratives are event descriptions based on underlying event scripts.
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The speaker must describe single events and event combinations and relationships and to indicate the significance of each event within the overall event structure.
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Underlying every story is an event chain.
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Unfocused temporal chains lead from one event to another while other attributes shift.
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Focused temporal or causal chains center on a main character who goes through a series of perceptually linked, concrete events.
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Most acquire the basic elements of narratives and can recount sequentially familiar or significant events by school age.
THEORY OF MIND •
Both ToM and language require similar sociocognitive abilities.
•
As children move into early elementary school, there is a decrease in directly elicited apologies and an increase in indirectly elicited ones.
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Self‐awareness develops in parallel with ToM.
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At age 2, children express their own emotions verbally and to begin recognize others’ emotions.
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Most 4‐year‐olds can relate the emotions of others to desires or intentions and can understand that others may have a different perspective on the world from their own.
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Children move from an incapacity for differentiating between points of view to taking into account that ignorance may lead to false beliefs.
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Understanding false belief is the most powerful predictor of communicative competence.
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Narrative portrayals change with more awareness of thoughts and emotions of others.
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Poor ToM relates to language that is ambiguous/incomplete and poorly adapted to the listener.
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Those children with higher ToM abilities are better at determining their listeners’misunderstanding and are more efficient in repairing them, often with reformulated information rather than simple repetition.
•
Maternal speaking style affects children’s understanding of the mind and development of ToM.
SUMMARY •
Most preschool speech accompanies solitary play or play with others or occurs within activities devoted primarily to conversation.
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Preschool boys play alone more often, talking to themselves and calling bystanders to notice this play.
•
Girls engage more in household activities and play and talk while organizing the task at hand.
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Children become true conversational partners, using a variety of forms to attain desired ends.
•
A child expands presuppositional skills and is better able to take the perspective of others.
•
Children experience pressure by teachers and peers to use language effectively in school.
Semantic Development •
Children add five words to their lexicon every day between the ages of 1 ½ and 6 years.
•
Several factors influence children’s knowledge of words of toddlers: more words are composed of low probability sounds and sound pairs, shorter words with high neighborhood density, and words that were semantically related to other words.
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Preschoolers with larger vocabularies are more popular with their peers.
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At age 2, several processes are involved in word learning: word frequency, word segmentation, fast mapping, and a longer, extended process whereby the word meaning is fleshed out.
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Mothers use the final position to highlight new or unfamiliar words.
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•
Mothers place unfamiliar nouns in shorter utterances than familiar nouns.
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Words may be fast‐mapped using one or more strategies.
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Using reasoning, a child determines that a definition cannot be the same as one already possessed.
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Associational strategies are those in which regularities in the language give clues to meaning.
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A child may use phonotactic probability to aid rapid recall of newly learned words.
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Next is an extended phase in which a child gradually refines the definition with new information.
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Fuller word meanings are derived from use by the child and others.
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Children use two operating principles to establish meanings: contrast and conventionality.
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Contrast is the assumption that every form contrasts to every other in meaning.
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Conventionality is the expectation that certain forms will be used to convey certain meanings.
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When gaps exist in preschoolers’ vocabularies children invent words.
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Vocabulary growth between ages 1 and 3 is positively related to the diversity of words in the mother’s speech and to maternal language and literacy skills, but not to maternal talkativeness.
•
Children expand their vocabularies through parental storybook reading.
RELATIONAL TERMS •
The order of acquisition of relational terms, such as location and time, is influenced by syntactic complexity, the amount of adult usage, and underlying cognitive concept.
Interrogatives •
Early question forms include what and where, followed by who, whose, and which, and finally by when, how, and why.
•
Children employ the following answering strategy: If word meaning is unknown, answer on the basis of the verb.
•
Causal, or “why” type questions are especially difficult because of the reverse order.
Temporal Relations and Terms •
Words of order, such as after and before, precede words of duration, such as since and until.
•
These precede terms of simultaneity, such as while.
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Temporal terms are initially produced as preposition, then as conjunctions joining clauses.
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When the meaning of a temporal term is unknown, children rely on order of mention.
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•
A second strategy is syntactic; the main clause becomes the first event.
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When all else fails, a child relies on knowledge of real‐life sequences.
•
Preschoolers generally do not follow multiple directions well.
•
Children 3 ½ to 5 years of age often omit one of the steps.
•
This is more common than order reversal.
Physical Relations •
Relational terms such as thick/thin, fat/skinny, more/less, and same/different are difficult.
•
Children first learn that terms are opposites, then the dimensions to which each term refers.
•
Terms such as big and little refer to general size on any dimension and are acquired before specific terms, such as deep and shallow.
•
The positive member, such as big or long, of each relational pair is learned first.
•
Learning and interpretation of descriptive terms is dependent on context.
•
Making same/different judgments is related to development of conservation, the ability to attend to more than one perceptual dimension without relying strictly on physical evidence.
Locational Prepositions •
The first English prepositions, in, on, and to appear at around 2 years of age.
•
Children may respond in relation to the objects rather than the prepositions used.
•
Other possible interpretive cues may be word order and context.
•
The term next to includes, but is not limited to, in front of, behind, and so on.
•
Next to is usually learned at about 40 months, followed by behind, in back of, and in front of.
•
A 3‐year‐old child interprets most prepositions of movement to mean toward.
Kinship Terms •
A preschooler has limited knowledge of kinship terms that refer to family members.
•
Initially, terms are related to specific individuals and to a child’s personal experience.
•
Next, a child gains some features of the definition of the person but not of the relationship.
•
A child gains a few of the less complex relationships first.
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After Mommy and Daddy, the child learns brother and sister.
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Most of the major kinship terms are understood by age 10.
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CONCLUSION •
There is a constant interchange between semantic and syntactic development.
•
It appears that both genetic and environmental factors underlie development and account for many individual differences across linguistic skills.
Semantic and Pragmatic Influence on Syntactic Development SEMANTICS •
Languages indicate the semantic case or category, such as agent (who) and the patient (whom) and their relation, in different ways, including word order and morphological markers.
•
In English, children primarily depend on word order for comprehension and production.
•
Discussion of case marking in English centers on pronoun case errors, such as Me go.
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About 50% of English‐speaking 2‐ to 4‐year‐olds make such pronoun errors.
PRAGMATICS •
Syntactic roles such as noun and verb are more abstract.
•
The communicative function of a word influences language form.
•
Preschoolers initially understand particular kinds of words based on what the words can and cannot do, communicatively.
•
Learning the English pronominal system is a very complex process.
•
Typically, speakers use anaphoric reference, or referral to what has come before.
•
When there is possible confusion, preschool children often use pronominal apposition, as in “My mother, she….”
•
Unless it is a dialectal characteristic, pronominal apposition begins to disappear by school age.
Language Development Differences and Delays LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT DIFFERENCES •
Language development differences that are not of concern, include bilingualism and dialectal differences
•
These are differences, not disorders.
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•
A language disorder shows up in both the native and the second language.
Bilingual Language Learning •
The age at which a child receives input in each language, the environment in which the language occurs, the community support and social prestige of each language, differences and similarities in the languages, individual factors such as motivation and language-learning aptitude, and maternal characteristics impact language development.
•
Higher maternal education is associated with the children’s better English vocabularies, faster English vocabulary development, and greater knowledge of English.
•
A child who learns two languages also learns two cultures, a double learning task, especially if the languages and cultures are particularly dissimilar.
•
Language socialization refers to the process in which both languages and cultures are learned through interactions with caregivers and others.
•
Children exposed to two languages often do not receive balanced input from the different languages.
Simultaneous Acquisition •
Simultaneous acquisition is the development of two languages prior to age 3.
•
In spite of the bilingual linguistic load, a child typically acquires both languages at a rate comparable to that of a monolingual child.
•
The social experiences in multilingual environments may provide children with the opportunity of taking another person’s linguistic perspective early in the language development process.
•
A young child learning two languages simultaneously must be able not only to discriminate speech sounds but also to remember language-related information.
•
Infants exposed to two languages simultaneously are able to discriminate words in both languages at the same age as children exposed to only one language can discriminate words in that language.
•
There may be three stages in the simultaneous acquisition of two languages in young children: (1) During the first stage, a child has two separate lexical systems, reflecting the child’s capacity to differentiate between the two languages prior to speaking, (2), in the second stage, a child has two distinct lexicons but applies the same syntactic rules to both, and (3) in the third stage, a child correctly produces lexical and syntactic structures from each language.
•
Language dominance, the language in which a child has relatively more proficiency, depends on the amount of input and support a child receives in that language.
•
All children acquiring two languages simultaneously exhibit some mixing, which can include both small units—such as sounds, morphemes, and words—and large units—such as phrases and clauses.
•
A child becomes truly bilingual and can manage two separate languages well by about age 7.
•
Bilingual children may develop separate language systems that are interdependent.
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•
Interdependence is seen in the processes of transfer, deceleration, and acceleration. In transfer, speech sounds specific to one language will transfer to productions of the other language. Transfer has been found to occur in a bidirectional manner.
•
Deceleration occurs when phonological development emerges at a slower rate in bilingual children than in monolingual children.
•
Bilingual children who may be proficient in both languages as pre-schoolers often shift dominance later to the majority language, typically the language used in school.
•
The truly bilingual person possesses a dual system simultaneously available during processing.
Successive Bilingual Acquisition •
Most bilingual children develop one language at home and a second with peers or in school.
•
Children who begin learning English at age 5 master comprehension before expression.
•
By the late teens it is difficult for a speaker to acquire native speaker pronunciation.
•
The age of arrival in an English‐speaking country is critical for second‐language learning, especially for East Asians.
•
Age of arrival is less of a factor for children immigrating from Europe.
•
Early exposure to L2 may result in a delay in L1 before it is mature.
•
Competence in L2 may be a function of relative maturity in L1.
•
The result may be semilingualism, a failure to reach proficiency in either language.
•
Children learning a second language at school age have acquired metalinguistic skills that may facilitate L2 learning.
•
Success in nonsimultaneous language acquisition is related to a learner’s attitude toward and identity with users of the second language and a positive attitude toward the first language and culture.
•
When children learn two languages successively, they go through easily recognizable stages.
•
In the first stage, a child uses L1 in the L2 environment even though everyone else is speaking L2.
•
In the second stage, the child gains receptive knowledge but says very little in English.
•
In a final stage, children use English creatively in conversation.
•
This may take 3‐5 years, and it may be more before a child can think and learn in English.
•
During transition, a child may use interlanguage, in which the grammar and pronunciation of L2 is influenced by L1.
•
Fewer than 5% of the errors in the second language are due to negative interference.
•
Use determines which language becomes dominant.
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•
Common differences noted in L2 learning include omission and overextension of morphological inflections, double marking, mis-ordering of sentence constituents, and the use of archiforms and free alternation.
•
An archiform is a member of a word class used exclusively.
•
As more members of a class are acquired, perhaps this, these, and those, the child may vary usage among the members without concern for the differences: this is free alternation.
•
Phonologic development follows a similar pattern in first and second languages.
•
It may take six to seven years to obtain cognitive academic proficiency in L2.
Development of African American English •
Urban African American children pass through three stages of language acquisition.
•
First, they learn the basics of language at home; then, from ages 5 to 15, they learn a local vernacular dialect from peers; and, finally, they develop the more standard AAE dialect.
•
Southern, rural, working‐class African American children are not encouraged to communicate conversationally or to ask questions.
•
Within other regions, language stimulation may appear in rhymes, songs, or stories.
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT DELAYS •
Several factors predict speech and language impairments among preschool children, such as male gender, ongoing hearing problems, and a reactive temperament.
•
Factors that potentially lessen impairment include a persistent and sociable temperament and higher levels of maternal psychological well‐being.
•
Significant predictors of late language emergence (LLE) at 24 months of age include family history of LLE and early neurobiological growth.
•
Children with slow language development at 24 to 31 months have later weakness in both spoken and written language‐related skills.
Low SES and Homelessness •
Although poverty and homelessness often affect the same people, the populations are not exactly the same.
•
SES is generally considered to be a combination of family income, parents’ education, and parents’ occupation.
•
In relation to language, parents with more formal education, regardless of culture, engage in more verbal interaction and use more diverse vocabulary and more complex utterances with their young children than parents with less education.
•
In contrast, parents with less education tend to see teaching and learning as formal or teacher-directed rather than social and interactive.
•
Factors related to income result from economic pressures and may include material hardships, parental stress and depression, and household problems.
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•
In general, families living in poverty have greater household density, family instability, lack of structure, higher noise levels, and general household disorganization.
•
Differences in parent language styles are more strongly related to socioeconomic differences than to race or ethnicity.
•
Compared with mothers with a high-SES background, mothers with a low-SES background use a smaller vocabulary, talk less, are more directive, and ask fewer questions of their children.
•
Many poor children begin school with lower levels of English language skills than their mid-SES peers.
•
Low levels of English language skill can result is poor school performance.
•
Socioeconomic differences in children's vocabulary are the result, in part, of differences in parents’ input.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 1. Ask students to volunteer as to whether they use self‐talk frequently. How does it help them? 2. Ask students to generate a brief example of a preschool narrative and label the type of narrative. 3. Use a videotaped play interaction between two children and a child and adult for observation of the conversational abilities of preschoolers. Discuss differences between the two situations. 4. Several studies of narration offer samples of children’s stories. Read these to the class and discuss how those stories might support language development.
Print Resources Bloom, P. (2002). How children learn the meanings of words. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hall, D.G., Quartz, D., & Persoage, K. (2000). Preschoolers’ use of syntactic cues in word learning. Developmental Psychology, 36, 449‐462.
O’Neill, D.K., Main, R.M., & Ziemski, R.A. (2009). ‘I like Barney’: Preschoolers’ spontaneous conversational initiations with peers. First Language, 29, 401‐425.
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Ryder, N., & Leinonen, E. (2003). Use of context in question answering by 3‐, 4‐, and 5 year‐old children. JPR, 32, 397‐416.
Storkel, H.L. (2001). Learning new words: Phonotactic probability in language development. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 44, 1321‐1337.
Winsler, A., Carlton, M.P., & Barry, M.J. (2000). Age‐related changes in preschool children’s systematic use of private speech in a natural setting. Journal of Child Language, 27, 665‐687.
Audiovisual and Online • Preschool Narrative Skills (2010). Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9dJrcKDK6c
• Mixed Expressive‐Receptive Language Delay (2009). Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFguWOufFrs
• The Young Child’s Theory of Mind. Retrieved from: http://www.kidsdevelopment.co.uk/YoungChildrensTheoryOfMind.html
•
Types of Bilingualism. Institute for Learning and Brain Science. Retrieved from:
http://modules.ilabs.uw.edu/module/bilingual-language-development/types-of-bilingualism/
• Late Blooming or Language Problem? Retrieved from: http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/lateblooming.htm
•
Speech and Language Delay and Disorder. Retrieved from:
http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/speech.htm
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Chapter 9: Preschool Development of Language Form When they have completed this chapter, students should understand: •
The major characteristics of syntactic development.
•
Preschool morphological development.
•
The acquisition order for negative and interrogative sentences.
•
The differences between embedding and conjoining and their acquisitional order.
•
The major phonological processes observed in preschool children.
•
The following terms: aspect, copula, epenthesis, mean length of utterance (MLU), modal auxiliary, phrase, priming, sibilants, tense, utterance.
Syntactic and Morphologic Development The Semantic‐Syntactic Connection •
How children acquire grammar is unknown.
•
Variations in rules and use cause some to question whether syntax acquisition involves rule learning.
•
Word learning depends on meaning, its role in sentences, and ways it is combined with others.
•
When a new word is learned, a child tentatively assigns it to a syntactic category.
•
A child confirms the category assignment or makes appropriate changes in category status.
•
When caregivers read to children, nouns and proper nouns are introduced with little explanation.
•
Adjectives are introduced and then described or contrasted with other meanings.
•
The brain predicts the next word based on syntactic patterns and grammatical and pragmatic rules.
•
Mean length of utterance (MLU) is a moderate predictor of language complexity of young English‐ speaking children; it is sensitive only to language developments that increase utterance length.
•
From age 18 months to 5 years, MLU increases by approximately 1.2 morphemes per year.
•
MLU is a quantitative value used to describe language development in language disorders.
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LANGUAGE INPUT •
The utterance of one person can influence the structure, vocabulary selection, or sounds used by a second speaker; this effect is called priming.
•
Priming occurs when a sentence produced by one speaker influences the sentences of a second speaker even though the second speaker’s productions do not contain the same words or semantic themes.
•
Priming reflects a learning process and reveals something of the speaker’s knowledge of how meanings and structure influence each other.
•
The effects of priming vary with a child’s age, typically in 3-year-old children.
•
In contrast, 4-year-olds show the varied effects of priming after only hearing a priming sentence.
PATTERNS IN PRESCHOOL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT •
Most children below age 3 do not fully understand SVO word order.
•
Many sentence types used after age 3 are learned with specific verbs and generalize later.
•
Children form abstract utterance‐level constructions by creating analogies among utterances.
•
Children show certain syntactic patterns because they are in the language around them.
Bound Morphemes •
Morphological learning is characterized by U‐shaped developmental growth.
•
The U‐shape represents correct production and comprehension, errors, and then correct use.
•
Some morphemes are multifunctional, as in markers used for plural, possessive, and third person –s.
•
Mothers provide an immediate comparison of immature utterances and the adult form.
•
At an MLU of 2.0 to 2.5, bound morphemes begin to appear.
PROGRESSIVE –ING •
Children initially express this verb tense as present progressive.
•
The progressive verb tense without the auxiliary (Mommy eating) is the earliest verb inflection acquired in English and is mastered early for most verbs used by young children.
•
Early learning may reflect that there are no irregular progressive forms.
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REGULAR PLURAL –S •
There is no English morpheme to indicate a singular noun; it is uninflected or unmarked.
•
The regular form of the plural is acquired orally prior to age 3.
•
Initially, a number or the word more may be used to mark the plural.
•
Next, the plural marker is used only for selected instances.
•
Then the plural generalizes to other instances, some of which are inappropriate.
•
Finally, the regular and irregular plural are differentiated.
•
Acquiring the English plural involves phonological learning as well.
•
If a word ends in a sibilant, the plural marker is different.
•
This distinction is especially difficult for children with hearing or perceptual impairments.
POSSESSIVE –‘S OR S’ •
The possessive is originally marked with word order and stress and is mastered late.
•
The earliest entities marked for possession are alienable objects.
•
The morphological form is mastered by age 3.
•
Phonological mastery takes much longer.
REGULAR PAST –ED •
Once a child learns the regular past tense rule, it is overgeneralized.
•
The regular past has several phonological variations.
•
Environmental input dominates and the child recovers from the overgeneralization.
REGULAR THIRD PERSON SINGULAR –S •
The person marker is governed by the person and number of the subject of the sentence.
•
Regular and irregular forms appear early but are not mastered until 3 ½ to 4 years of age.
•
Use of the third person singular morpheme – s is somewhat dependent on the phonological complexity of the verb stem.
•
Development of full understanding of third person –s may take longer than correct production.
•
AAE‐speaking children do not seem to use the information in the third person –s.
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NOUN AND ADJECTIVE SUFFIXES •
A child then acquires additional suffixes, such as the comparative –er and the superlative –est.
•
Children understand the superlative by about 3 ½ years of age and the comparative at age 5.
•
The derivational noun suffix –er, added to a verb to form the name of the person who performs an action, is also understood by age 5 and production is mastered soon after.
DETERMINANTS OF ACQUISITION ORDER •
Initial morphological development of verb markers is related to semantic aspects of the verb.
•
Once general forms are developed, the verb markers appear quickly.
•
The underlying temporal concept of the verb also seems to be a factor in morphologic learning.
•
Lexical aspect, temporal properties of situations referred to by sentence items, may be a factor.
•
Overgeneralization occurs when a child applies a category rule to subcategories.
•
A child may apply a limited morpheme to other words, as in unsad and unbig.
•
Morphologic rule learning reflects phonologic and semantic rule learning as well.
•
The child learns that a concept may have more than one form and that some forms, such as
•
more big and bigger, are actually alternatives of the same concept.
•
Later, morphophonemic rules are required to account for commonalities.
•
The underlying semantic concept may influence morphologic development.
•
A child progresses from a concrete action orientation to a more abstract reference.
•
Early morphology focuses on concrete relationships, such as plural and possession.
Phrase Development •
A phrase is a group of words that functions as a single distinct syntactic unit that is less than a sentence and does not contain both the subject and the predicate.
NOUN PHRASE DEVELOPMENT •
NPs act as the noun or serve the function in a sentence.
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•
At age 2, children learn that adjectives and articles do not precede pronouns or proper nouns.
•
By age 3, most children produce NP elaboration with the addition of each of the major elements
•
determiner, adjective, and post‐noun modifier – except initiator.
•
The first post‐noun modification appears at age 3 with adverb words, as in “This here.”
•
By age 4, a child adds quantifiers, demonstratives, and post‐noun prepositional phrases.
•
Embedded clauses appear in the post‐noun position shortly thereafter.
Articles A and The •
The articles the and a appear before age 2 but take some time to master.
•
Pragmatic considerations influence article use.
•
Initially, the indefinite article tends to predominate.
•
4‐year‐olds know to use some and any rather than a and the with some nouns because the name denotes no specific quantity.
•
Some children with language impairment overuse the definite article into school age.
VERB PHRASE DEVELOPMENT •
A VP includes the verb and all that follows, including noun phrases.
•
Children produce simple transitive verbs/phrases to describe activities performed with objects.
•
Intransitive verbs are used for a single participant and action.
•
There is a correlation between maternal verb use variety and a child’s development of verbs.
•
Auxiliary or helping verbs first appear in their negative form (can’t, don’t, won’t) at 30 months.
•
True auxiliary verbs appear later, including be, can, do, and will.
•
A sentence may be doubly marked for the past.
•
A small subset of irregular past tense verbs appear by age 2.
•
By 40 months the modal auxiliaries could, would, should, must, and might appear in negatives and interrogatives.
•
Most children have the auxiliaries do, have, and will by age 42 months.
•
By 46 months, a child masters both the regular and irregular past tense in most contexts.
Irregular Past Tense •
Irregular past-tense verbs, those that do not use the -ed ending, such as ate, wrote, and drank, are a small but frequently used class of words in English.
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•
Most errors seem to be based on attempts to generalize from existing irregular verbs as in sing/sang influencing bring to create brang.
•
This learning process takes a long time and many irregular verbs are not learned until school age.
•
At age 2.5-3 years, a child may begin to overextend the regular past -ed marker to irregular verbs, thus producing eated, goed, and so on.
•
By 46 months a child has usually mastered both the regular and the irregular past tense in most contexts.
Auxiliary Verbs •
Auxiliary or helping verbs support the main verb, as in “I can go” or “She is running”.
•
In addition, there can be multiple auxiliary verbs as in “She could have been sleeping”.
•
Auxiliary verbs may be marked for tense (do vs. did) and agreement (I do vs. he does)
•
Modal auxiliaries express the speaker’s mood or feeling as “I should go” vs. “I might go”.
•
Modal auxiliary verbs are used to express moods or attitudes such as ability (can), permission (may), intent (will), possibility (might), and obligation (must).
•
All auxiliary verbs appear before the subject in an inverted position (verb + subject) in questions (Did you…? Are they…? Will she…?).
•
All auxiliary verbs are in sentence-final position in elliptical constructions (we can, he would, you are, she does).
•
Auxiliary or helping verbs can, do, and will/would first appear in their negative form (can’t, don’t, won’t) at 30 months.
•
By 40 months the modal auxiliaries could, would, should, must, and might appear in negatives and interrogatives or questions.
•
A child progresses from a concrete action orientation to a more abstract reference.
•
Dialect-specific aspects are only found in the speech of speakers of a dialect.
•
In general, AAE-speaking children have both dialect-specific and dialect-universal aspects to their verb system.
•
Dialect-universal aspects are found across speakers of different English nonmainstream dialects.
Time and Reference •
Tense relates the speech time to the event time.
•
Aspect refers to the event’s completion, repetition, or continuing duration.
•
Initially, a child talks about things that are occurring now with no tense or aspect marking.
•
Between 18 months and 3 years, children speak about the past or present, although the reference point is always in the present.
•
Around age 3 to 3 ½, a child gains a sense of reference other than the present.
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•
Children first use time adverbs such as yesterday and tomorrow, and before and after later.
•
Between age 3 ½ and 4, a child acquires a flexible reference system at about the same time that the child can arrange things in a series and reverse sequential order.
Special Case of the Verb to be •
The verb to be (am, is, are, was, were) is a main verb/copula or auxiliary/helping verb.
•
As the copula, it is followed by nouns, adjectives, adverbs, or prepositional phrases.
•
The copula is not fully mastered until around age 4.
•
In general, the is and are forms develop before am.
•
The is form tends to be overused, contributing to singular‐plural confusion.
•
Initially, young children use it’s and it interchangeably, the copula appearing gradually.
•
The auxiliary or helping verb to be develops more slowly.
•
Children use highly frequent/lexically specific constructions to produce utterance with be.
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE DEVELOPMENT •
The earliest prepositions are typically in, on, and to.
•
By age 3, most children can talk explicitly about location events with three participants.
INFINITIVE PHRASE DEVELOPMENT •
Between 2 and 3 years of age, children acquire infinitives.
•
The most frequent error is omission of “to.”
•
At around age 2 ½, a child develops semi‐infinitives such as gonna and wanna.
•
Negatives are rare.
•
First, single nouns and third person pronouns are used in place of I (He wants to eat now).
•
Second, negative infinitives appear (I don’t like to eat mustard.)
•
Third, a wider range of verbs, such as remember and forget are used prior to the infinitive phrase (I forgot to buy candy).
•
Fourth, other tenses are used.
•
Fifth, children learn more complex constructions with a noun phrase between the two verbs (I want mommy to do it).
•
Finally, children develop wh‐ infinitives, such as I forget when to go to school.
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GERUND PHRASE DEVELOPMENT •
Gerund development follows that of infinitives and appears after age 4.
•
The most common forms are See X verb‐ing and Watch X verb‐ing.
Sentence Development •
Preschool sentence development can be gauged by an increase in the number of sentence elements and in the diversity of sentence forms.
•
Increases in number of elements occur in declaratives before other sentence types.
•
Most English‐speaking children possess these basic sentence types by age 5.
DECLARATIVE SENTENCE FORM •
A child develops the basic subject + verb + object sentence format by about 30 months.
•
The subject + auxiliary + verb + object form (Mommy is eating ice cream) appears before forms like “will be.”
•
Declaratives with double auxiliaries, as in “You will have to do it,” appear around 3 ½.
•
Finally, close to age 4, a child acquires indirect objects.
•
Indirect objects occur in three forms in English, to + object (I gave it to mommy), for + object (We bought it for daddy), and double‐object (I bringed mommy flowers).
INTERROGATIVE SENTENCE FORM •
Questions are prevalent in the speech adults address to children.
•
Questions are used to comment on where the child is gazing or to direct the child’s attention.
•
By 18 months, questions are mostly tutorial or genuine requests for information.
Subject-Verb Inversion. •
Children ask questions at the one‐word level through use of rising intonation, some variation of
what, or phonetically consistent forms. • Questions are confined to routines such as requesting names of objects, actions, or locations. •
When MLU is 2.25 to 2.75, a child asks what and where questions with a subject and a predicate.
•
Subject‐verb inversion occurs at the end of this phase in wh‐ interrogatives with the copula.
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•
At an MLU of 2.75 to 3.5 or 33 to 37 months, a child inverts subjects and auxiliary verbs.
•
Children seem to understand the relation between positive and negative forms of auxiliary can, will and does in declaratives by age 3.
•
There are very low levels of correct use in negative questions at 35 months.
•
When children produce auxiliary verb substitutions in interrogatives, they predominantly use either can or is in inverted position.
•
At 35 months, nearly half of the substitution errors are double marking.
•
By 40 months, most children attain the basic adult question form.
•
Who, when, and how interrogatives appear, but there is difficulty with temporal aspects.
•
The general order of acquisition of wh‐ question types is determined primarily by the frequency of use by caregivers and the elements in the declarative form that each wh‐ word replaces.
•
The ability to respond to wh‐ questions is related to semantics and to the immediate context.
•
Between MLU of 3.75 to 4.5 interrogative development is concerned with tensing and modals.
Tag Questions •
Mature tag questions appear later due to their relative complexity and infrequent usage.
•
At first, grammatically simple tag forms, such as okay, and right, are used.
•
Truer tags are added later, but with no negation of the proposition.
•
Finally, the full adult tag, as in “You like cookies, don’t you?” is acquired during early school age.
•
Negative interrogatives appear after age 5.
IMPERATIVE SENTENCE FORM •
Adult imperative sentences appear around age 2 ½.
•
The verb is uninflected and the subject, you, is understood and omitted.
•
Younger children produce early forms that mirror imperative sentences, such as “Eat cookie.”
•
These are not true imperatives because young children often omit the subject from sentences clearly intended to be declarative.
•
These omissions reflect cognitive processing limitations.
NEGATIVE SENTENCE FORM •
Five adult negative include: a) not and n’t attached to the verb; b) negative words, such as nobody and nothing; c) the determiner no used before nouns or noun‐like
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words; d) negative adverbs, such as never and nowhere; and e) negative prefixes, such as un‐, dis‐, and non‐. •
The earliest negative to appear is the single‐word form no.
•
In the first phase, the specific negative element(s) reflect parental use with the child.
•
In the second phase, around age 30 months, the negative structure is placed between the subject and the predicate or main verb.
•
In the final period, an MLU of 2.75 to 3.5, a 3‐year‐old child develops other auxiliary forms.
•
Because use of auxiliaries is relatively new, he may continue to make errors.
•
Negative interrogatives do not appear until after age 5.
•
Indefinite forms, such as nobody, no one, none, and nothing are difficult even for adults.
SUBORDINATE CLAUSE DEVELOPMENT •
Subordinate or dependent clauses are used to combine clauses to form complex sentences.
•
Among preschoolers we see two types, object noun‐phrase complements and relative clauses.
Object-Noun-Phrase Compliments •
Object-noun‐phrase complements first appear around age 3.
•
At first, the basic I know format appears alone, meaning something akin to maybe.
•
The subordinate clause fills an object role for verbs, such as think, guess, see, say, wish, know, hope, like, let, remember, forget, look, and show.
•
A second type of embedding occurs with attention‐getting verbs like look, followed by a clause.
•
Later subordinating words in embedded wh‐ complements include wh‐ words such as what, where, and when, with what being used most frequently.
Relative Clause Embedding •
Relative subordinate clauses are attached to nouns and describe the noun.
•
Many early relative clauses modify empty or nonspecific nouns.
•
Later, relative clauses are used to modify common nouns.
•
Full relative clauses appear close to age 4.
•
Relative clauses attached to the subject do not develop until after age 5.
•
Mature English speakers omit some relative pronouns without changing sentence meaning.
•
Most 4‐year‐olds can produce multiple embeddings within a single sentence.
•
Later forms include conjoined clauses and embedding in the same sentence.
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Connective Words •
Many connective words used to join clauses are first learned in nonconnective contexts.
•
What and where appear in interrogatives prior to their use as relative pronouns.
•
By age 4, however, she or he can comprehend a sentence that omits the relational word.
•
Most children begin to omit some relative pronouns in production soon after, although this form is rare in the speech of preschool children.’Later forms also include conjoined clauses and embedding in the same sentence.
COMPOUND SENTENCE DEVELOPMENT •
Most children have appropriate production of and to list entities between 25 and 27 months.
•
Around age 3, individual sentences within an ordered series may begin with and.
•
At an MLU of approximately 3.5, the conjunction because appears.
•
The first clausal conjoining occurs with the conjunction and around age 3 ½.
•
And is used as the all‐purpose conjunction.
•
Clausal conjoining with if appears shortly after and, followed by because, when, but, and so.
•
Because and so are initially used to mark causality or statements of people’s intentions.
•
At age 4, a child exhibits conjoining and embedding of phrases and clauses within a sentence.
•
By age 4 ½ to 5, multiple embeddings and three‐clause sentences account for 11% of utterances.
Conjunctions •
Initial clausal conjoining is additive: no relationship is expressed.
•
Next, conjoining is used to express either simultaneous or sequential events.
•
Causal relationships with and and that’s why appear first, as in “X and [led to] Y” (Julia jumped too high and she fell).
•
Later because is used and the order of the clauses is reversed (Julia fell because she jumped too high).
•
Finally, the child expresses a contrasting relationship, usually with the use of but.
•
The late appearance of the conjunction but in clausal conjoining is probably related to the complex nature of such propositions.
SUMMARY •
Syntactic acquisition is facilitated by practice.
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•
Young children’s sentences are often disrupted and filled with false starts and revisions.
•
Revision involves self‐monitoring and rapid replacement of words and structures.
•
Increasing revision demonstrates more skill, not less.
Phonemic and Phonologic Development •
honologic development progresses through a period of language decoding and hypothesis building.
•
Morphologic production depends on the ability to perceive and produce phonologic units.
•
A child develops the ability to determine and signal differences in meaning through speech sounds.
SPEECH‐SOUND ACQUISITION •
As a group, vowels are acquired before consonants.
•
As a group, nasals are acquired first, followed by plosives, approximants, lateral approximants, fricatives, and affricates.
•
As a group, glottals are acquired first, followed by bilabials, velars, alveolars and post‐alveolars, dentals and labiodentals, and palatals.
•
Sounds are acquired in the initial position in words first.
•
Consonant clusters and blends are not mastered until age 7 or 8.
•
The age of acquisition for some sounds may vary by as much as three years.
•
Surprising similarity exists in speech sound acquisition across languages.
•
Speech sound development of bilingual 3‐ to 4‐year‐olds is slower and shows transfer.
PHONOLOGIC PROCESSES
Syllable Structure Processes •
The final consonant may be deleted or followed by a vowel.
•
Final consonant processes usually disappear by age 3.
•
A child may delete unstressed syllables.
•
Syllable reduction reflects the interaction of syllable stress, location within the word, and phrase boundaries.
•
Reduplication is when one syllable becomes the same as another in the word.
•
This process disappears for most children before 30 months of age.
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Consonant Cluster Reduction • Preschoolers reduce or simplify consonant clusters, usually by deleting one consonant. •
A child may also exhibit epenthesis, or vowel insertion.
•
If a nasal plus a plosive or fricative is reduced, younger children will delete the nasal.
•
Individual differences reflect the sounds, types of clusters, and the locations within words.
•
By age 3, children are producing final clusters.
•
Word‐initial clusters may offer a greater challenge because of the greater variety.
•
Most children stop using the cluster‐reduction strategy by age 4.
Assimilation Processes •
Assimilation processes simplify production by producing different sounds in the same way.
•
One sound becomes similar to another in the same word.
•
Contiguous assimilation occurs when the two elements are next to each other; noncontiguous assimilation, when apart.
•
Progressive assimilation occurs when the affected element follows the element that influences it; regressive assimilation, when the affected element precedes.
Substitution Processes •
Many preschoolers substitute sounds in their speech.
•
These substitutions are not random and usually are in only one direction.
•
Sound‐for‐sound substitutions are usually articulatory in nature.
•
Phonological processes involve substitutions of classes of sounds.
•
Types of substitution processes are described according to the manner of production.
•
Obstruent sounds may experience stopping, in which a plosive is substituted.
•
Another frequent process is fronting, replacing palatals and velars with alveolar sounds.
•
Another process, gliding, in which /j/ or /w/ replaces /l/ or /r/, may last for several years.
ultiple Processes •
It may be difficult to decipher the phonologic process a young child is using.
•
Often, several processes will be functioning at once.
Perception and Production •
Speech‐sound perceptual skills in conversations develop relatively late.
•
Preschool children probably do not perceive spoken language as containing phoneme units.
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•
Preschoolers with good phonological memory skills produce language that contains more grammatical complexity, a richer array of words, and longer utterances.
Summary •
The preschool child uses phonologic processes for consistent speech performance.
•
Because a child’s perception does not mirror that of an adult, initial production also differs.
•
The child considers the adult model to be correct and monitors productions for comparison.
•
A child acquires much of the speech sound inventory but does not master all speech sounds.
•
Phonological rules related to morphological acquisition are not mastered until school age.
•
The processes of assimilation, and of consonant and syllable deletion, are very common.
•
All aspects of language and language development are intertwined and interdependent.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 1. Show students humorous examples of errors that adults make in terms of sentence construction or incorrect morphological use. Good examples are ambiguous news headlines. 2. Give students a language sample from which to calculate MLU. 3. Review the basic parts of speech for those students who need this knowledge base before proceeding to any discussion of syntactic development. You may be surprised at how little or how much knowledge they possess. 4. Use videos of children interacting and discuss their syntactic development. 5. Use taped recordings to help students understand phonological processes.
Print Resources Hurewitz, F., Brown‐Schmidt, S., Thorpe, K., Gleitman, L.R., & Trueswell, J.C. (2000). One frog, two frog, red frog, blue frog: Factors affecting children’s syntactic choices in production and comprehension. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 29, 597‐626.
Lieven, E., Behrens, H., Speares, J., & Tomasello, M. (2003). Early syntactic creativity: A
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usage‐based approach. Journal of Child Language, 30, 333‐370.
Rispoli, M. (2003). Changes in the nature of sentence production during the period of grammatical development. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46, 818‐830.
Rowland, C.F., & Theakston, A.L. (2009). The acquisition of auxiliary syntax: A longitudinal elicitation study. Part 2: The modals and auxiliary DO. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 52, 1471‐1492.
Thal, D.J., & Flores, M. (2001). Development of sentence interpretation strategies by typically developing and late talking toddlers. Journal of Child Language, 28, 173‐193.
Audiovisual and Online •
Speech Sound Disorders: American Speech-Language and Hearing Association. Retrieved from:
http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/speechsounddisorders.htm
•
Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) Video. (2009).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LqxcyltG0c
•
Acquisition Order for Grammatical Morphemes, (Brown, 1973):
https://www.asha.org/Practice-Portal/Clinical-Topics/Late-LanguageEmergence/Grammatical-Morphemes-in-Order-of-Acquisition/
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Chapter 10: Early SchoolAge Language Development When they have completed this chapter, students should understand: •
The conversational abilities of school‐age children.
•
Language differences between genders.
•
Story grammar development.
•
The syntagmatic‐paradigmatic shift.
•
Development of figurative language.
•
The different types of passive sentences and their development.
•
The continued development of embedding and conjoining and possible reasons for the sequence of conjunction development.
•
Morphophonemic changes.
•
Metalinguistic abilities.
•
The following terms: account, decentration, eventcast, metalinguistic, metaphoric transparency, morphophonemic, nonegocentrism, recount, story, story grammar.
Introduction •
Throughout early school‐age years there is an increase in the size and complexity of the child’s linguistic repertoire and in use within conversation and narration.
•
Children learn to pun and to find humor in word play.
•
Creative language can be heard in camp songs, nursery rhymes, jump‐rope rhymes, and jokes.
•
The development of pragmatics and semantics is most prevalent.
•
Much of the syntactic development in the school years is intrasentential, at the phrase level.
•
Many exceptions to rules are discovered and metalinguistic ability becomes well developed.
The Early School‐Age Child •
By the fifth birthday, a child has a good awareness of the body and how to use it.
•
They have a good sense of time and understand words such as yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
•
This influences understanding of cause and effect and comprehension of before and after.
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•
Five‐year‐olds use adult‐like language, although more subtle syntactic structures are missing.
•
Expressive vocabulary grows to about 2,600 words.
•
The 5‐year‐old can tell stories, has a budding sense of humor, and can tease and discuss emotions.
•
A school-age child is a highly social being, and peers become very important.
•
By age 12 cognitive and language abilities almost equal those of the adult.
•
The brain is nearly adult in size by age 8, but development is not complete.
•
Four major cognitive developments between ages 7 and 11 are inferred reality, decentration, transformational thought, and reversible mental operations.
•
Inferred reality is an inference about a problem based on appearances and internal information.
•
Decentration is the ability to consider several aspects of a physical problem at once.
•
Transformational thought is viewing a problem as existing in time and anticipate consequences.
•
Reversible mental operations enable a child to recognize that change can be undone or reversed.
•
Peers, especially same‐gender peers become very important.
•
As ToM continues to develop, a child begins to realize that his or her own reality is not the only one.
•
The child also learns to manipulate and influence others, especially through language.
•
A first‐grader has an expressive vocabulary of approximately 2,600 words but may understand as many as 8,000 to 10,000 root English words and 14,000 when various derivations are included.
•
This expands to an understanding of approximately 50,000 words by sixth grade.
•
Multiple meanings are acquired.
•
School years are a period of stabilization of rules previously learned and the addition of new rules.
Pragmatic Development •
The most dramatic linguistic is in language use or pragmatics.
•
Very different rules for talking apply between the classroom and conversation.
•
“Text‐related” or ideational language becomes more important than social, interpersonal language.
•
Nonegocentrism is the ability to take the perspective of another person.
•
As a child gains greater facility with language structure, he can concentrate more on the audience.
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•
Decentration is moving from rigid, one‐dimensional descriptions to coordinated, multi‐attributional ones, allowing partners to recognize that there are many dimensions and perspectives to a topic.
NARRATIVES •
Anecdotal narratives of a personal nature predominate, accounting up to 70% of all narratives.
•
The recount tells about past experiences.
•
The eventcast is an explanation of a current or anticipated event and may be used to direct others in imaginative play.
•
Accounts are highly individualized spontaneous narratives in which children share their experiences and are not simply reporting information requested by adults.
•
Stories have a pattern in which the main character must overcome a problem or challenge.
•
By the time most children in the U.S. begin school, they are familiar with all forms of narration.
Development of Narratives •
Generally, by age 6, children’s narratives become causally coherent.
•
The conjunction and continues to be used frequently.
•
A plan is a means, or series of actions, intended to accomplish a specified end.
•
Scripts are dialogues that accompany familiar routines in the child’s everyday environment.
•
Between ages 2 and 10, children’s stories begin to contain more mental states and more initiations and motivations as causal links.
•
At around age 4, children’s stories begin to contain more explicit physical and mental states.
•
By age 6, children describe motives for action.
•
In mature narratives, the center develops as the story progresses, and causal relationships move toward the ending of the initial situation called the climax.
•
An episode contains a statement of the problem or challenge.
•
Between ages 5 and 7, plots emerge.
•
Narratives of a 7‐year‐old typically involve a beginning, a problem, a plan, and a resolution.
•
By second grade, a child uses beginning and ending markers, as well as evaluative markers.
•
The sense of plot in fictional narratives is increasingly clear after age 8.
•
The narrative presentation relies largely on language than on actions and vocalizations.
Story Grammar Development •
Story grammar forms a narrative framework, the internal structure of a story.
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•
Story grammars aid information and narrative processing, as well as narrative interpretation and memory.
•
A story grammar usually consists of the setting plus the episode structure.
•
Each story begins with an introduction contained in the setting.
•
An episode in English consists of an initiating event, internal response, plan, attempt, consequence, and reaction.
•
Episodes may be linked additively, temporally, causally, or in a mixed fashion.
•
Descriptive sequences describe characters, surroundings, and habitual actions.
•
Action sequences have a chronological order for actions but no causal relations.
•
Reaction sequences consist of a series of events in which changes cause other changes with no goal‐directed behaviors.
•
Abbreviated episodes contain an implicit or explicit goal.
•
Complete episodes contain a goal‐oriented sequence consisting of consequence and two of the following: initiating event, internal response, or attempt.
•
Complex episodes are expansions of a complete episode or multiple episodes.
•
Interactive episodes contain two characters who have separate goals and actions that influence each other.
Narrative Differences •
The narratives of underachieving children may be shorter, have less internal organization and cohesion, and contain fewer story grammar components and less sentence complexity.
•
Narration varies with the context or situation and with culture.
•
The narratives of some African American children, especially girls, have a distinct structure.
•
These narratives, characterized by topic‐associating, consist of theme‐related incidents that make an implicit point, such as the need to help your baby brother or to avoid someone.
•
Dialogue is increasingly used within narratives as children mature.
CONVERSATIONAL ABILITIES •
Individual variability exists, and some 7‐year‐olds are more adept than the least effective adults.
•
Successful communicators use questions before introducing a possibly unfamiliar topic, are quick to recognize communication breakdown, and offer further explanation or repair.
Language Uses •
Language functions increase greatly with the demands of the classroom.
•
The expectations of the classroom teacher may differ from that of a child.
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Speaking Style •
The style‐switching behavior reported for 4‐year‐olds is even more pronounced by age 8.
•
When speaking with peers, a child makes more nonlinguistic noises and exact repetitions and engages in more ritualized play.
•
With adults, a child uses different codes for his parents than for those outside the family.
Topic Introduction and Maintenance •
The child can introduce a topic, sustain through several turns, and close or switch the topic.
•
The proportion of introduced topics maintained in subsequent turns increases with age.
•
There is a growing adherence to the concept of relevance.
•
An 8‐year‐old’s topics are concrete; sustained abstract discussions emerge around age 11.
Indirect Requests •
In general, the 5‐year‐old is successful at directly asking, commanding, and forbidding.
•
By age 7, he or she has acquired greater facility with indirect forms.
•
A school‐age child follows two rules: Be brief and be devious (or avoid being demanding).
•
Eight‐year‐olds and adults recognize most nonliteral requests for action as well.
•
Interrogative forms are more difficult than declaratives, and negative forms are more difficult than positive forms.
•
Polarity is another factor, especially when it differs from the literal meaning.
Conversational Repair •
A 6‐year‐old may elaborate some elements in the repetition, providing more information.
•
A 9‐year‐old clearly provides additional input for the listener.
Deictic Terms •
By school age, most children can produce deictic terms (here, there) correctly.
•
By about age 7, a child produces and comprehends singular and plural demonstratives (this, that, these, those) or words that indicate to which object or event the speaker is referring.
SUMMARY •
Children become more able to concentrate on language use with improved language abilities.
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Semantic Development •
Children increase vocabulary size and the specificity of definition.
•
They acquire an abstract knowledge of meaning.
•
One outgrowth is the creative or figurative use of language.
VOCABULARY GROWTH •
By graduation from high school, a young adult may understand as many as 80,000 words.
•
There is growth in interrelated semantic concepts, semantic classes, synonyms, homonyms, and antonyms.
•
Development of semantics varies with educational level, SES, gender, age, and culture.
•
A child first adds features that are common to the adult definition (slowmapping).
•
Second, a child brings together all the definitions than can fit a single word.
•
Between the ages of 7 and 11, there are significant increases in comprehension of spatial, temporal, familial, disjunctive, and logical relationships.
•
Finally, as the child attempts to be more precise, he or she adds adverbs of magnitude.
•
In early elementary school, there is a decrease in the use of specific spatial terms.
•
These new relations also require new, more complex syntactic structures.
•
The ability to define words progresses in two ways.
•
First, a child progresses from definitions based on experience to more socially shared meaning.
•
Second, he moves syntactically from single‐word action definitions to sentences.
•
Around age 11, a child acquires all the elements of the conventional adult definition.
•
Older elementary school children rely on syntax for clues to word meaning.
CONCEPTUAL CHANGE •
Taxonomies are categories of objects that share a common essence, such as trees or tools.
•
Objects related by themes are bound by an event.
•
By age 6, children organize concepts similarly to adults, based on more than physical similarity.
•
Within two years, categorical relations are preferred.
•
Thematic knowledge gradually increases.
•
With development and education, taxonomies strengthen and are less affected by task/context.
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RELATED COGNITIVE PROCESSING •
“Chunking” semantically related information into categories is used for remembering.
•
Using semantic relations resolves word ambiguities.
•
Categorical structures are stored hierarchically.
•
Surface – syntactic rules and phonetic strings.
•
Deep – semantic categories and relations.
•
Contextual – situation or image.
•
Children shift in linguistic processing from reliance on surface to reliance on deep strategies.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE •
Figurative language is words used in an imaginative way to create an imaginative or emotional impression.
•
Use is indicative of higher language functions and correlates with adolescent literacy skills.
•
It is not until age 9 or 10 that children rate sarcastic criticism as more “mean” than irony.
•
Primary types of figurative language are idioms, metonyms, metaphors, similes, and proverbs.
•
Metaphoric transparency, the extent of the literal‐figurative relationship, affects interpretation.
•
Metonyms are figures of speech in which an individual example stands for a whole category.
•
Metaphors and similes compare actual entities with a descriptive image.
•
Children as young as age 3 can produce intentional, appropriate, descriptive metaphors.
•
Metaphors become less frequent, if more appropriate, in spontaneous speech after age 6.
•
The 5‐ to 7‐year‐old avoids crossing from physical into psychological domains and prefers to associate two terms rather than equating them.
•
Proverbs are short sayings that embody a generally accepted truth, useful thought, or advice.
•
The ability to comprehend proverbs is correlated with perceptual analogical reasoning ability.
•
Idiom learning is associated with familiarity and with reading and listening comprehension skills.
•
World knowledge is related to a general ability to interpret figurative expressions.
•
A figurative expression may be learned and stored as a large single lexical item.
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Syntactic and Morphologic Development •
Language productivity and syntactic complexity are influenced by speaking task and familiarity.
•
Syntactic development is characterized by gradual increase in the length and complexity.
•
Language productivity and syntactic complexity are greater in expository genre than conversation.
•
Syntactic complexity is greater when children talk about an area of expertise.
•
Children produce more language with greater syntactic complexity during explanations.
MORPHOLOGIC DEVELOPMENT •
Learning a morphological rule begins with the hypothesis that a set of words are treated in a certain way grammatically, followed by morphological generalizations.
•
The main developments are in the addition of inflectional prefixes and derivational suffixes.
•
Derivational suffixes are first learned orally, especially for more complex forms.
•
A very limited general order of school‐age acquisition is –er, ‐y, noun compounds, and –ly.
•
Difficulty in learning is related to morphophonemic processes.
•
A second type of –er ending is used in the comparative, as in taller.
•
Children generalize morphologic knowledge to new words for semantic decoding.
NOUN‐ AND VERB‐PHRASE DEVELOPMENT •
Five‐ to seven‐year‐olds use most elements of noun and verb phrases but may omit elements.
•
Rhythm of a sentence is more salient, and children often miss small, unstressed functors.
•
School‐age have difficulty with some prepositions, verb tensing and modality, and plurals.
•
Unique instances or rule exceptions, such as irregular past and plural, are particularly difficult.
Noun Phrases •
Development continues with additional modifiers and mastery of the pronoun system.
•
At 60 months, children add adjective element descriptor where nouns serve as modifier.
•
This is in addition to articles, possessive pronouns, adjectives, quantifiers, demonstratives, and post‐noun prepositional phrases.
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•
Most children produce three‐element NPs only.
•
The post‐noun embedded clause is added by 72 months.
•
There also are changes in three‐element elaborated NPs.
•
Most children are producing four‐element NPs, although no form predominates.
•
At 84 months, children add numerical terms to the determiner category.
•
The initiator category, the possessive noun and ordinal elements of adjective category, and the post‐noun modifier elements of adjectival and adverbial are used infrequently.
•
A child learns to differentiate between subject and object pronouns and use reflexives.
•
A child can carry pronouns across sentences and determine to which noun a pronoun refers.
•
Adjective ordering also becomes evident within the noun phrase.
•
The distinction between mass and count nouns and their quantifiers is acquired slowly.
•
Children learn to use the determiner (this, that) with count nouns and not with mass nouns.
Verb Phrases •
Verbs are more difficult than nouns, maybe related to varied syntactic marking.
•
A child adds verb tenses, such as the perfect, additional irregular past‐tense verbs, and modal auxiliary verbs or modals.
•
The possibility, obligation, permission, and intention forms develop before validity, truth, and functionality forms.
•
Adverbs of likelihood, such as definitely, probably, and possibly, can be difficult.
•
Definitely is learned first and understood best by most children.
SENTENCE TYPES •
Comparative relationships are is easy to interpret, whereas passives are more difficult.
•
Prosody aids mature listeners by segmenting linguistic units.
•
In both English and Spanish, sentences become longer with the addition of more words, embedded phrases, and embedded clauses.
•
In both English and Spanish, children with low school achievement have less complex syntax.
Passive Sentences •
Children do not comprehend some forms of passive sentences until about age 5 ½.
•
Production of passives begins in the late preschool years with short sentences.
•
Development of –ed and –en used in passive sentences takes until school‐age for mastery.
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•
Commission errors – applying morphological markers where it is not needed – persist.
•
Types of passives are: reversible, instrumental nonreversible, and agentive nonreversible.
•
An increase in nonreversible passive production occurs just prior to age 8.
•
Agentive nonreversibles appear at age 9.
•
Children’s passives are semantically different from adults and take a long time to acquire.
Conjoining •
The conjunction of choice for narration remains and.
•
By 11 to 14 years of age, approximately 20% of narrative sentences begin with and.
•
This decreases to 5% in writing.
•
Full understanding of if, so, and because does not develop until school age.
•
Children first confuse because with and and then, using them all in a similar fashion.
•
True comprehension of because does not seem to develop until age 7.
•
Because is learned before if and although, which in turn are followed by unless.
Embedding •
By 5 years of age, most children can produce sentences containing subordinate clauses.
•
Syntactic complexity is influenced by intellectual stimulation and expanded knowledge.
•
Relative pronoun use is expanded with the addition of whose, whom, and in which.
•
Multiple embeddings increase.
•
Semantic role is an important factor in interpretation.
•
Comprehension of embedded clauses is based on the place and manner of the embedding.
•
Working memory is significantly involved in comprehension of complex sentences.
•
Complex sentence comprehension relies on processing speed and attention allocation and control.
SUMMARY •
A child adds new morphologic and syntactic structures and expands and refines existing forms.
•
This enables expression of increasingly complex relationships and use of creative language.
•
Underlying semantic concepts are often the key to this complex learning.
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Phonologic Development •
During the early school years, a child completes the phonetic inventory.
•
By age 5, a child can identify syllables.
MORPHOPHONEMIC DEVELOPMENT •
Morphophonemic changes are modifications resulting when morphemes are placed together.
•
A child also learns the rule for vowel shifting.
•
The stress placed on certain syllables or words reflects the grammatical function of that unit.
•
Noun‐verb pairs also differ.
•
Pitch contours are gradually integrated into units larger than individual words.
•
By age 12, full adult stress and accent are acquired.
SPEECH PRODUCTION •
Increased sentence length and complexity requires increased speech motor planning.
•
Although younger children vary considerably in their movement, such as lip‐ rounding, to produce sounds, these movements may affect and extend across an entire utterance.
SUMMARY •
A child learns rules for permissible combinations and for the use of stress, which is related to syntactic and semantic growth as well.
Metalinguistic Abilities •
In adults, comprehension and production are almost automatic.
•
Full awareness in terms of metalinguistic abilities is not found until age 7 or 8 years.
•
After age 7 or 8, the development of decentration enables a child to concentrate on and process message meaning and linguistic correctness simultaneously.
•
Preschool children make judgments of acceptability based on content.
•
The ability to detect syntactic errors develops first.
•
Ability to perform judgment tasks differs with age, working memory, and phonological ability.
•
Metalinguistic abilities usually emerge after a child has mastered a linguistic form.
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•
Metalinguistic awareness is essential to semantic organization and the development of reading.
•
Metalinguistic skill development is related to language use, cognitive development, reading ability, academic achievement, IQ, environmental stimulation, and play.
Language Difference •
Children who learned two languages simultaneously may be at an advantage in school.
•
Children who are learning English successively may experience some difficulty in school.
CODE SWITCHING DEVELOPMENT •
Bilingual speakers often exhibit code switching, or shifting from one language to another, especially when both languages are used in the environment.
•
Code switching is the result of functional and grammatical principles and is a complex, rule‐ governed phenomenon that is systematically influenced by the context and the situation.
•
Systematic code switching is a function of the participants, their perceived language proficiency, language preference, and social identity.
•
Interviews and narratives contain few switches, but switches happen frequently in conversation.
•
It is a device used for direct quotes, emphasis, clarification or repetition, elaboration, focus on a portion of a message, attention getting and maintenance, and personal interjections or asides.
•
It may be an aid for retention of the first language.
AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH SPEAKERS AND SOCIETY •
AAE speakers are granted shorter employment interviews, offered fewer positions, and offered lower‐paying positions.
•
Some educators exhibit a bias in favor of SAE or a regional or majority dialect.
•
There is a marked increase in AAE use during school age, especially from grades 3 to 5.
•
African American children’s comprehension is similar for both dialects.
•
Speakers of AAE may have difficulty with reading and spelling.
•
AAE speakers may not recognize the significance of the grammatical markers that they omit.
•
Among 5‐ to 8‐year‐old African American children, higher familiarity with school English is associated with better reading achievement.
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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 1. Provide examples of child narratives and ask students to identify the various aspects of story grammar. 2. Discuss code‐switching and the students’ perceptions of whether it is a positive, negative, or neutral phenomenon. Discuss situations in which code‐switching might be more or less acceptable. 3. Provide examples (preferably video) of young elementary school children explaining the meaning of various figurative language constructions. Discuss any literal interpretations and how the figurative interpretation arises.
Print Resources DeThorne, L.S., Petrill, S.A., Hart, S.A., Channell, R.W., Campbell, R.J., Deater‐Deckard, K., Thompson, L.A.,& Vandenbergh, D.J. (2008). Genetic effects on children’s conversational language use. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 51, 423‐435.
McGregor, K.K., Friedman, R.M., Reilly, R.M., & Newman, R.M. (2002). Semantic representation and naming in young children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 332‐346.
Nippold, M.A., & Duthie, J.K. (2003). Mental imagery and idiom comprehension: A comparison of school‐age children and adults. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46, 788‐799.
Nippold, M.A., Hegel, S.L., Sohlberg, M.M., & Schearz, I.E. (1999). Defining abstract entities: Development in pre‐adolescents, adolescents, and young adults. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 42, 473‐481.
Turkstra, L., Ciccia, A., & Seaton, C. (2003). Interactive behaviors in adolescent conversation dyads. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools, 34, 117‐127.
Whitmore, J.M., Shore, W.J., & Hull Smith, P. (2004). Partial knowledge of word meanings: Thematic and taxonomic representations. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 33, 137‐164.
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Audiovisual and Online •
What Does is Mean to be Bilingual. Babbel Magazine. (2015). Retrieved from:
https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/the-bilingual-brain/
•
Boy’s and Girls’ Brains are Different: Gender Differences in Language Appear Biological. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080303120346.htm
•
Story Grammar Elements: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~duchan/history_subpages/storygrammar.html
•
Code Switching: Jumping Between Two Different Languages. Retrieved from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Na4UvRIhu4
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Chapter 11: SchoolAge Literacy Development When they have completed this chapter, students should understand: •
The process of reading.
•
Bottom‐up and top‐down reading processing.
•
The development of reading and writing.
•
The development of spelling.
•
The following terms: blending, critical literacy, decoding, dynamic literacy, executive function, literacy, metacognition, phonemic awareness, phonics, phonological awareness, print awareness, segmentation.
Introduction •
Literacy is the use of the visual mode of communication for reading and writing.
•
Reading and writing are not simply speech in print.
•
Reading and writing lack conversational give and take, are more permanent, lack paralinguistic features, have their own vocabulary and grammar, and are processed differently.
•
Literacy rests on a language base.
•
Early exposure to reading and a literate atmosphere are most important to early reading success.
•
Children with a history of preschool speech/language problems have later problems with reading.
•
The relationship between dialects and literacy achievement is complex.
•
Genetic factors are important in the relationship between early speech and reading.
The Process of Reading •
The reader must process information that is decontextualized.
•
Poor readers exhibit poor narrative skills; narratives are shorter and less well‐ developed.
•
Oral language and written context play a role in word recognition and in meaning construction.
•
The first step is decoding, or breaking a word into its component sounds and blending
•
Phonological skills are required for decoding, whereas syntax, morphology, semantics, and pragmatics are vital for comprehension.
•
Comprehension requires self‐monitoring, semantic organization, summarization, interpretation, mental imagery, connection with prior knowledge, and metacognition.
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PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS •
Phonological awareness is knowledge of sounds, syllables, and the sound structure of words.
•
Phonemic awareness is the ability to manipulate sounds, such as blending, segmenting, syllabication, phoneme identification, alliteration, and rhyming.
•
Better phonological awareness is related to better reading.
•
Phonological awareness is the best predictor of spelling in elementary school.
•
Segmentation (dividing a word into its parts) and blending (creating a word from individual sounds and syllables) are the most important phonological skills for reading development.
•
Phonological representation, the speech sound information in a child’s memory, forms the basis for phonological awareness.
•
After kindergarten, the best predictor of reading success is reading itself.
•
Word reading influences phonological awareness.
•
SES, age, speech sound accuracy, and vocabulary contribute to phonological awareness in children aged 2 to 5.
BOTTOM-UP AND TOP-DOWN PROCESSING •
We can describe reading by two processes, dubbed bottom-up and top-down.
•
As readers mature they move from the former to the latter.
•
Hence, bottom-up emphasizes lower-level perceptual and phonemic processes and their influence on higher cognitive functioning.
•
Bottom-up processing suggests that knowledge of both perceptual features in letters and grapheme–phoneme (letter–sound) correspondence, as well as lexical retrieval, facilitate word recognition and decoding.
•
In contrast, the top-down, or problem-solving, process emphasizes the cognitive task of deriving meaning.
•
Top-down processing requires higher cognitive functions, such as concepts, inferences, and levels of meaning, influence the processing.
•
Bottom-up processing cannot account for the entire reading process, such as sentence comprehension, the effects of context on comprehension, or the use of hypothesis testing with unfamiliar or upcoming words in the text.
•
The top-down or problem-solving model of reading addresses these inadequacies by viewing reading as a psycholinguistic process in which a reader uses language and conceptual knowledge to aid in recognizing words sequentially.
•
Most likely, mature reading consists of parallel processes, both top-down and bottom-up, that provide information simultaneously at various levels of analysis.
•
The processes are interactive, and relative reliance on each varies with the material being read and the skill of a reader.
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•
By third or fourth grade, children employ both a bottom-up strategy when reading isolated words and a top-down strategy when reading text.
READING FLUENCY •
Rapid and accurate reading of text is enabled by rapid retrieval of orthographic, phonological, and semantic processes.
•
This retrieval leads to an effective speed of reading that allows comprehension to occur.
•
Fluency enables the cognitive reallocation of attention from subword units, such as phonemes, to higher language and cognitive processes needed for comprehension.
•
The development of reading fluency depends on multiple factors, such as: phonological awareness, visual perception, knowledge of orthographic representation, word recognition, speed of lexical access and retrieval, and higherlevel language and conceptual knowledge.
•
The 26 letters of the English alphabet are used to form approximately 24 consonants and 21 vowels or diphthongs.
•
The letters can be combined in over 1,100 ways to form the sounds of English.
•
In other words, a child first uses his or her knowledge of language to help figure out the word, much as in speech, when the listener predicts the next word, phrase, or clause.
•
Auditory and visual features are used to enter a reader’s mental dictionary or lexicon.
•
Higher processing, such as comprehension of longer sentences and inferring meaning, involves linguistic and conceptual knowledge.
COMPREHENSION •
At a basic level of comprehension, the reader is concerned primarily with decoding.
•
In critical literacy, a reader actively interprets, analyzes, and synthesizes information and can explain content.
•
In dynamic literacy, a reader can relate content to other knowledge.
•
Two aspects of metacognition are important for reading: self‐appraisal (knowledge of one’s own cognitive processes and how they are used) and executive function.
•
Executive function is self‐regulation and includes the ability to attend, set reasonable goals, plan and organize to achieve each goal, to initiate, monitor, and evaluate one’s performance in relation to the goal, and to revise plans and strategies based on feedback.
•
Efficient readers use self‐regulation, such as slowing down for more difficult text.
•
In bottom‐up processing, reading is translating written elements into speech.
•
Top‐down processing, or problem‐solving, emphasizes the derivation of meaning.
•
A child must segment words into phonemic elements and learn the alphabetic code.
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•
When that process is automatic, the child can concentrate on meaning.
•
It takes a child .5 second to recognize a familiar short word, whereas adults average .25 second.
•
Information processing theory suggests that if processing facilities are limited (as when extra time is spent on lower‐level decoding), fewer resources are left for higher‐level comprehension.
•
Oral and visual languages share the same cognitive processes at the level of word recognition.
•
Children initially read aloud, but then eventually go from visual analysis to word recognition.
•
Information is temporarily stored in a speech‐sound code for processing, regardless of input.
•
A mature reader makes predictions from syntactic and semantic cues; the text is confirmation.
•
Mature silent readers sample enough of a word to confirm the hypothesis.
•
Top‐down and bottom‐up processes are likely used in parallel.
•
Readers process material both bit‐by‐bit and holistically.
Reading Development EMERGING READING •
Reading development begins in social interactions between a child and caregiver around age 1.
•
Actual text reading by parents usually begins late in the second year.
•
Age of onset of home reading is related to a child’s language skills, especially comprehension.
•
In pre‐reading, a child becomes aware of print and sounds while gradually making associations.
•
By age 3, children are familiar with books and can recognize their favorite books.
•
They gain print awareness, knowing the direction in which reading proceeds, being interested in print, and recognizing some letters.
•
They later learn that words are discrete units and recognize literacy terminology.
•
Words may be stored by visual features.
•
Emergent story reading begins between ages 2 ½ and 4.
•
By age four, most children can recognize their names and a few memorized words.
•
Home literacy results in better phoneme awareness, letter knowledge, and vocabulary.
•
Most 3‐year‐olds cannot segment words into smaller units; most children need instruction.
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•
By age 4, children attend to phonological similarities and syllable structure.
•
Each syllable can be divided into the onset (initial phoneme) and rime (remaining part of the word), which consists of the nucleus/vowel and coda (final phoneme(s)).
•
Syllable and syllable stress knowledge are needed to decode and pronounce written words.
•
In the alphabetic phase, children concentrate on decoding single words in simple stories.
•
In reading, they use a memorized combination of word shapes, letter names, and guessing.
•
Phonics (letter‐sound correspondence) is introduced around 1st grade.
•
It is harder to make the sound of a given letter than to identify the letter given a sound.
•
Morphological awareness begins to contribute more to decoding than phonological awareness.
•
Next, children rely on visual configuration, attending only to first letter and length.
•
Children then learn sound‐spelling correspondence rules and are able to sound out novel words.
•
Semantics is an important factor in word decoding; poor readers tend to guess wildly.
•
In the orthographic phase of reading development (grades 3‐4), the child is able to analyze unknown words using orthographic patterns and contextual references.
•
In third grade, the child reads silently and uses reading texts in different content areas.
•
There is a shift from learning to read to reading to learn.
•
Adolescents use inference and recognition of viewpoint to aid comprehension.
•
Adults integrate what is read with current knowledge and make critical judgments.
•
Comprehension is aided by text cohesion for all readers.
MATURE READING •
Mature readers use very little cognitive energy determining pronunciation.
•
Language and world knowledge are used to derive an understanding of text, which is monitored.
•
Skilled readers predict the next word or phrase and glance at it to confirm.
•
Printed words are mostly processed quickly, automatically, and unconsciously.
•
Reading active; ideas and concepts are formed and modified, details remembered and recalled, and information checked.
•
Reading skill continues to be strong through adulthood unless there is neuropathology.
•
Reading is a primary way that adults increase vocabulary and knowledge.
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The Process of Writing •
The writer considers the audience, requiring more cognitive resources for planning and execution.
•
Children use constructions other than those used in speech and to represent phonemes with letters.
•
Writing uses knowledge and new ideas combined with language knowledge to create text.
•
Writing is more abstract than speech and more decontextualized than conversation.
•
Once writing becomes more automatic, grammar becomes more advanced than that in speech.
•
Dialectal structures do not occur in writing for children who speak majority dialects.
•
Children who speak African‐American English (AAE) who learn to use standard dialect in writing outperform peers who do not.
•
Writing consists of: text construction, handwriting, spelling, executive function, and memory.
•
Complex subjects are found more frequently in the writing of 9‐year‐olds than in adult speech.
•
Written sentences include more prepositional and adverbial phrases.
•
By age 9 or 10, writing is free of many of the features of speech and is more mature than speech.
•
Writing ability generally lags behind reading comprehension.
ORTHOGRAPHIC KNOWLEDGE •
Orthographic knowledge is information stored in memory that tells us how to represent spoken language in written form.
•
As such, orthographic knowledge plays an important role in literacy acquisition.
•
Orthographic knowledge consists of the following elements: ▪
Stored mental representations of specific written words or word parts called mental graphemic representations (MGRs). MGRs consist of specific sequences of graphemes or letters representing written words.
▪
Orthographic patterns that govern how speech must be represented in writing, including knowledge of how a letter or letters may represent speech sounds, called alphabetic knowledge or letter-to-sound correspondence rules; how we represent sounds that go beyond one-to-one correspondence.
▪
MGRs and patterns ‒ are used in reading and spelling; one reads and spells either by accessing previously stored knowledge of the specific words found in MGRs or by using your knowledge of orthographic patterns.
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▪
Orthographic processing refers to the ability to acquire, store, and use both MGR and orthographic pattern knowledge.
SPELLING •
Spelling of most words is self‐taught using trial‐and‐error.
•
Only about 4,000 words are explicitly taught in elementary school.
•
Good spellers rely on a combination of memory, spelling and reading experience, phonological/semantic/morphological knowledge, orthographic knowledge and mental grapheme representations, and analogy.
•
Representations are formed through repeated exposure to words in print.
Writing Development •
Forming letters and learning to spell develops first; text generation and executive function are later.
•
Spelling competes for cognitive processing capacity.
•
Poor or inexperienced spellers produce poorer, shorter texts.
EMERGING WRITING •
Initially, children treat writing and speaking as two separate systems.
•
Three‐year‐old children write in their own way but don’t realize that writing represents sounds.
•
By age 4, some real letters may be included.
•
In early writing, children expend a great deal of cognitive energy on mechanics.
•
Over time, spelling becomes more accurate and automatic.
•
Children eventually write in the same manner as they speak, although speech is more complex.
•
Around age 9 or 10, talking and speaking become differentiated.
MATURE WRITING •
Speaking and writing become consciously separate, but this is not achieved by everyone.
•
The writer has flexibility in style.
SPELLING DEVELOPMENT •
Preliterate attempts at spelling consist of scribbles and drawing with an occasional actual letter.
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•
Children later use some phoneme‐grapheme knowledge along with letter names.
•
They gradually become aware of conventional spelling and are able to analyze a word.
•
Children use “invented spelling” wherein names of letters may be used in spelling.
•
Children often have difficulty separating words into phonemes.
•
In phonemic spelling, a child is aware of the alphabet and correspondence of sound and symbol.
•
Children then learn spacing, sequencing, ways to represent phonemes, and the morpheme‐ grapheme relationship.
•
6‐year‐olds initially learn morphological rules for spelling on a word‐by‐word basis.
•
As a child recognizes regularities, spelling becomes more efficient.
•
Increased memory is very important.
•
Children learn consonant doubling, stressed/unstressed syllables, and root words/derivations.
•
Most spellers shift from a phonological strategy to a mixed one between second and fifth grade.
TEXT GENERATION AND EXECUTIVE FUNCTION •
Young writers are often oblivious to the needs of the reader.
•
6‐year‐olds pay little attention to format, spacing, spelling, and punctuation.
•
Other aspects of writing will deteriorate when one aspect is stressed.
•
Text generation begins with oral narratives.
•
Children become proficient in representing absent entities and events and in describing the internal states, thoughts, and feelings of characters in their narratives at about age 4.
•
Once children begin to produce true spelling, they generate text.
•
Older writers use more variety for dramatic effect.
•
Composition initially lacks coherence and ideas may be joined with little organization.
•
Drawings may be used to highlight important portions and help organize the text.
•
Later, ideas may relate to a central idea.
•
Simple narratives, consisting of a list of sequential events, and expository texts emerge next.
•
Advanced narratives and expository text develop by middle school.
•
There is an increase in embedded subordinate clauses and a decrease in coordination or compound sentences.
•
Relative clause use doubles in quantity between ages 7 and 17 and continues to increase into adulthood.
•
Adverbial clauses also increase and diversify.
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•
By adolescence, writers modify nouns, often using four or more modifiers.
•
Verb phrases are expanded by increasing use of modality, tense, and aspect.
•
Young adult writers develop the executive function needed for mature writing.
•
Children proofread and revise as early as third grade.
•
Until adolescence, young writers need adult guidance in planning and revising their writing.
•
By junior high, teens are capable of revising all aspects of writing.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 1. Provide examples of words that are easy to decode and others that would result in errors if strict decoding rules are followed. Use this to discuss the multiple strategies needed to become an effective reader and the complexity of reading in the English language. 2. Collect some examples of children’s writing and use in class as a demonstration. 3. Ask students to generate examples of invented spelling.
Print Resources Charity, A.H., Scarborough, H.S., & Griffin, D.M. (2004). Familiarity with school English in African American children and its relation to early reading achievement. Child Development, 75, 1340‐1356.
Ehri, L.C. (2000). Learning to read and learning to spell: Two sides of a coin. TLD, 20(3), 19‐ 36.
Foy, J.G., & Mann, V. (2003). Home literacy environment and phonological awareness in preschool children: Differential effects for rhyme and phoneme awareness. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 59‐ 88.
Patton Terry, N., McDonald Connor, C., Thomas‐Tate, S., & Love, M. (2010). Examining relationships among dialect variation, literacy skills, and school context in first grade. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 53, 126‐145.
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Audiovisual and Online •
Literacy Center. Retrieved from: http://www.literacycenter.net/
•
First Steps Toward Literacy: What Effective Pre-K Instruction Looks Like. Retrieved from: https://www.aft.org/ae/winter2018-2019/neuman
•
Reading Milestones. Retrieved from: http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/all_reading/milestones.html
•
From Scribbles to Sentences. Retrieved from: http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=11273
•
30 Summary Chart for Five Stages of Spelling Development. Retrieved from: https://literacyonline.tki.org.nz/.../summary+chart+for+five+stages+of+spelling+devel...
•
Early Reading and Writing Development. Retrieved from
http://www.getreadytoread.org/early-learning-childhood-basics/early-literacy/early-readingand-writing-development
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Chapter 12: Adolescent and Adult Language When they have completed this chapter, students should understand: •
Pragmatic development of adolescents and adults.
•
Semantic development of adolescents and adults.
•
Syntactic and morphologic development of adolescents and adults.
•
Phonological development of adolescents and adults.
•
Conversational abilities of adults.
•
The different communication styles of women and men.
•
Changes in literacy seen among adolescents.
•
The terms coarticulation and genderlect
Introduction •
Development continues through adulthood except in the cases of poor health, accident, or injury.
•
Cognitive growth continues through adulthood, with new skills, words, and problem‐ solving skills.
•
Myelination is complete in early adulthood and dendritic pruning continues into adolescence.
•
Adults are flexible and adapt to subtle differences in social communication environments.
•
Comprehension of oral and written language, syntactically complex sentences, and inferences decline with increased age.
•
The elderly are more able to recall underlying meaning than syntax.
•
Hearing loss increases with age.
•
Children with even mild‐moderate hearing loss exhibit language deficits in adolescence.
•
Adolescents with language impairments tend to be less independent than their peers.
Pragmatics •
Mature language is efficient and appropriate.
•
Adults use many registers, or styles of speech, and observe special communication rules.
•
Registers are acquired based on exposure and need, and disappear with infrequent use.
•
Adult narratives improve in main themes and details into the early senior years and decrease after the late 70s where flexibility, word retrieval, and morphosyntax decline.
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NARRATIVES SPEAKING STYLES •
Speaking styles are socially conditioned.
•
Difference in: syntactic complexity, word choice, phonological form, and phonetic realization.
•
Style shifting is rapid and unconscious, determined by social distance, context, and feedback.
•
It takes several years in early childhood for children to acquire distinct speaking styles.
•
Children use shorter vowel duration, lower fundamental frequency, and more fully articulated initial and final phonemes in words in clear versus casual speech.
•
Adults use a slower rate, more pauses, greater pitch range, and emphasis on initial and final sounds in words in clear speech.
CONVERSATIONAL ABILITIES •
Adolescents communicate largely in conversations.
•
Diversity of communication partners increases in the workplace or higher education.
•
Adolescents use neutral and positive facial expressions, feedback, and contingent responses.
•
Adolescents rarely show negative emotions, turn away, request clarification, or fail to answer questions in conversations with peers.
•
Adults use delay markers uh and um differently; uh is a short delay, and um is a longer delay.
•
Adults effectively use shading to move from one topic to another and maintain continuity.
•
Detection of communication breakdown improves with age and metalinguistic skill.
•
The variety of intentions expressed in conversations increase through adolescence.
•
High‐schoolers use language creatively in sarcasm, jokes, and double meanings.
GENDER DIFFERENCES •
Language reflects gender differences in early elementary school.
•
Context and topic influence conversational style more than gender.
•
Physiological differences influence production of some phonemes.
Vocabulary Use •
Women swear less, use more polite words, certain descriptors, and more color words.
•
Women use expressions (oh dear), whereas men use expletives (damn it).
•
First‐graders know whether the speaker is a man or woman based only on words spoken.
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Conversational Style Men: • Talk more in public than at home. •
Tend to lecture and can seem inattentive.
•
See themselves as information providers.
•
Sit farther apart in conversation and do not face each other (adolescent males).
•
See conversations as an opportunity for debate or competition.
•
Are silent when listening, giving little verbal feedback.
•
See talking as a way to maintain status and independence.
•
Change topics often and rarely involve personal issues or feelings.
•
Interrupt to suggest alternative views, argue, introduce new topics, or complete the speaker’s sentence.
Women: •
Are more indirect, seek consensus, and listen carefully.
•
See themselves as facilitators.
•
Sit closer and may touch during conversation (adolescent females).
•
See conversations as a way to create intimacy.
•
Share topics at length and explore them thoroughly.
•
Have less difficulty finding something to talk about and change topics less often.
•
Smile and maintain eye contact more than men.
•
Are more likely to be interrupted than males.
•
Interrupt to clarify and support the speaker.
•
Give up their conversational turns more easily than men.
•
Ask more questions as a way of indirectly introducing conversational topics.
Development •
At 2 years of age, daughters are imitated more by their mothers and are talked to longer.
•
Fathers use imperatives and insults with sons, and diminutive terms with daughters.
•
Kindergarten boys talk about space, quantity, movement, self, and value judgments.
•
Kindergarten girls talk more about traditional female roles, such as school.
•
Boys’ relationships are based more on doing than talking.
•
Boys’ groups are larger and more hierarchical.
•
To boys, the listener role is seen as passive and submissive, with the talker being assertive.
•
Girls play in pairs, sharing, talking, and telling secrets.
•
Girls talk about concerns and problems, with agreement and understanding expressed.
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•
Girls’ language is more inclusive and group‐oriented.
•
Preadolescent and adolescent boys and girls both use verbal aggression such as insults.
•
Genderlect is well established by mid‐adolescence.
Conclusion •
Women use nonlinguistic behaviors that may signal that they are less dominant.
•
Men can interrupt and their topics are held for longer, which may give them a higher status.
•
The use of feminine exclamations suggests lack of power or conviction.
•
The basis for gender differences has not been determined.
•
Culture is important; men and women around the world interact in very different ways.
Semantics •
The average healthy person adds new words to his/her lexicon throughout life.
•
Seniors are less accurate and slower in word retrieval and naming and use more indefinite words.
•
Deficits reflect poor working memory and affect grammaticality.
•
Older adults are as able as young adults to define words.
•
Seniors do not hear as well and miss critical information.
•
Seniors use older terminology.
•
Adult definitions are more abstract, descriptive, and have concrete terms and references.
•
Adults use synonyms, explanations, and categories in definitions, as well as exclusions and biases.
•
Adolescents use category membership, synonyms, function, description, degree, improved core features, and subtlety.
•
Figurative language is difficult into adulthood.
•
Idioms and proverbs that are familiar, supported by context, and transparent are easier.
•
The ability to interpret proverbs is related to overall education by older adulthood.
•
The ability to define idioms increases with age, and includes more critical and related concepts.
Syntax and Morphology •
Length and syntactic complexity increases and then stabilizes in middle age.
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•
Increase in complexity is generally in use of dependent clauses.
•
More complex sentences are used to explain procedures than in conversation.
•
Cohesion is achieved by using devices such as articles, pronouns, and nouns.
•
Increasingly abstract thought allows for integration of new information.
•
This supports the production of dialogues and social monologues.
•
Expository monologues are difficult and require production that reflects the speaker’s knowledge.
•
There is a greater demand on the speaker to deliver information in expository speech.
•
Greater syntactic complexity is used compared to narratives.
•
Complex thought drives use of complex language.
NOUN PHRASES •
Density and variety of nouns and noun phrase types increases into adulthood.
•
Children express increasingly complex concepts and abstract terms.
•
There is an increase in categorical and abstract nouns and noun phrases in adolescence.
•
Changes in noun use are affected by linguistic, cognitive, and social development, as well as modality and text genre.
•
Written text contains more complex noun structures with increased age and education.
VERB PHRASES •
Adolescents and adults become more adept as using tense and aspect.
•
increased use of multiple auxiliary verbs, as I could have been injured, rarely occurs in school-age children.
•
Verb overgeneralization errors occurring during the kindergarten age, such as Daddy poured a slice of bread for me.
•
From later teen years and upward, we find that the greater the overall frequency of the verb in communication, the lower the probability of the error.
CONJUNCTS AND DISJUNCTS •
Adverbial disjuncts comment on or convey the speaker’s attitude toward the content of the connected sentence (e.g., “To be honest…”).
•
Adverbial conjuncts signal a logical relation between sentences (e.g., “As a result of…”).
•
Devices may be concordant or discordant.
•
Conjuncts are more common in literature than conversation.
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•
Development of conjuncts occurs gradually from school age into adulthood.
•
Comprehension exceeds production.
Phonology •
Finer aspects of speech development continue into late adolescence.
•
Male‐female differences in laryngeal or formant frequency are evident by age four.
•
Formant frequency decreases into adulthood.
•
Adult phonological knowledge is multidimensional.
•
Phonemes vary as a function of both the phonetic context and social factors.
ACOUSTIC-PERCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE •
Adults use frequency, intensity, and duration to determine speech sounds.
•
High neighborhood density can benefit word learning in adults.
•
Phonotactic probability aids in word learning in both children and adults.
ARTICULATION KNOWLEDGE •
Articulatory knowledge refers to knowing the movements needed to produce speech sounds.
•
Movements vary with phonetic and prosodic context, as well as frequency and word similarity.
•
Sound production accuracy depends on being able to recognize these factors and adapt accordingly.
•
Fluency increases into adulthood and is aided by coarticulation, where the mouth moves in anticipation of speech sounds to be produced later in the utterance.
•
Adult phonological knowledge involves the way speech‐sound categories are used to convey meaning through morphophonemic changes and allowable speech‐ sound combinations.
•
The knowledge that words are composed of strings of phonemes is acquired into adolescence.
•
Children with larger vocabularies have better phonological skills.
SOCIAL-INDEXICAL KNOWLEDGE •
Social‐indexical knowledge includes knowing how linguistic variability conveys a speaker’s membership in social groups.
•
A person’s speech may identify group membership and influence a listener’s perspective.
•
Ability to comprehend unfamiliar dialects develops through childhood and adolescence.
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Literacy •
Pleasure reading decreases through adolescence, especially among males.
•
Magazines, novels, and comics are popular.
•
Adults read more than adolescents, often at work.
•
Adults refine reading and writing abilities.
•
The biggest change in adolescence and adulthood is the ability to engage with print and read and write with purpose (related to executive function).
•
Teenagers can revise independently, and their composition improves significantly.
•
Adult writing is longer with more complex sentences, abstract nouns, and metalinguistic/metacognitive words.
Bilingualism •
Immigrant children score lower on English language tests than nonimmigrant children.
•
Language growth in English continues into adolescence more than nonimmigrant children.
•
Poorer children have lower language skills than do affluent children.
•
There is a “sensitive” period when learning particular skills.
•
Native language proficiency cannot be obtained when learning begins after puberty.
•
Early second language exposure leads to better grammaticality judgments.
•
Non‐native listeners rely on social cues more than grammatical analysis to determine meaning.
•
This may be due to slower processing speed and cognitive resource allocation.
•
When more resources are allocated to phonological analysis, fewer are left for comprehension.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 1. Show video examples of language abilities of older adults who are aging typically, and those with neuropathology. Discuss the differences. 2. Provide examples of coarticulatory errors that can be made in typical conversation. Ask students to monitor their own speech for the next week and to document their own coarticulatory errors. Classify them as a class. 3. Ask students to describe differences between male and female speakers prior to reading the text.
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Print Resources Conti‐Ramsden, G., & Durkin, K. (2008). Language and independence in adolescents with and without a history of specific language impairment (SLI). Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 51, 70‐83.
Kemper, S., Thompson, M., & Marquis, J. (2001). Longitudinal change in language production: Effects of aging and dementia on grammatical complexity and prepositional content. Psychology and Aging, 16, 600‐614.
Nippold, M.A., Hesketh, L.J., Duthie, J.K., & Mansfield, T.C. (2005). Conversational vs. expository discourse: A study of syntactic development in children, adolescents, and adults. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 48, 1048‐1064.
Turkstra, L., Ciccia, A., & Seaton, C. (2003). Interactive behaviors in adolescent conversational dyads.
Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools, 34, 117‐127.
Audiovisual and Online •
What Your Speaking Style, Like, Says About You. TedxDublin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAGgKE82034
•
What is coarticulation? SWP Phonetics. Retrieved from: https://swphonetics.com/coarticulation/whatcoart/
•
Selected Phonological Processes. Retrieved from:
https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/speech-sound-disorders-articulation-andphonology/selected-phonological-processes/
•
Why Bilinguals are Smarter. The New York Times. Retrieved from: richard@qwconsultancy.com
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https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html
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Test Bank
Chapter 1: The Territory Multiple Choice 1.
Language is
A)
a shared code.
B)
a system for representing concepts.
C)
rule‐governed.
D)
generative.
E)
all of the above.
2.
Approximately how many new words are added to the English language each
A)
1
B)
6
C)
18
D)
24
3.
American Sign Language is
A)
not rule‐governed.
B)
a language.
C)
the English language in another mode.
D)
not a language because it is not transmitted by speech.
E)
all of the above.
4.
Which of the following are true about language?
A)
Languages stay the same over time.
day?
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B)
Languages can add new words.
C)
Languages can die.
D)
Both B and C
E)
All of the above
5.
Intonation, stress, and speaking rate are examples of
A)
nonlinguistic cues.
B)
metalinguistic cues.
C)
paralinguistic cues.
D)
linguistic cues.
E)
none of the above.
6.
Language has the following property/properties:
A)
it is a social tool
B)
it is rule‐governed
C)
it is generative
D)
all of the above
7.
Which of the following are examples of nonlinguistic cues?
A)
eye contact
B)
facial expression
C)
rising pitch
D)
both A and B
E)
all of the above
8.
Grammar is
A)
a set of language rules.
B)
only found in syntactic rules.
C)
the same as “parts of speech” learned in school.
D)
the same as linguistic performance.
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E)
all of the above.
9.
Language form consists of
A)
syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
B)
syntax, morphology, and phonology.
C)
phonology, semantics, and pragmatics.
D)
morphology, phonology, and semantics.
10.
The aspect of language concerned with word order and sentence organization is
A)
syntax.
B)
morphology.
C)
phonology.
D)
semantics.
E)
pragmatics.
11.
Pragmatics falls under the category of language
A)
form.
B)
content.
C)
use.
D)
all of the above.
12.
Semantics falls under what component of language?
A)
form
B)
content
C)
use
D)
all of the above
13.
The smallest grammatical unit is a
A)
speech act.
B)
phoneme.
C)
performative.
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D)
morpheme.
14.
A phoneme is
A)
the smallest grammatical unit.
B)
a unit of sound that identically represents the letters of the alphabet.
C)
different enough from other phonemes to signal changes in meaning.
D)
all of the above.
15.
The following are bound morphemes:
A)
‐ing
B)
‐ly
C)
is
D)
both A and B
16.
Language is a unique vehicle for
A)
phonology.
B)
metalinguistic activity.
C)
vocalizations.
D)
thought.
17.
All but which of the following is one of the general concerns of pragmatic rules?
A)
selection of appropriate form
B)
use of forms consistent with roles
C)
correct sound combinations
D)
use of ritualized forms
18.
Morphology is concerned with
A)
which word combinations are grammatical and which are not.
B)
the internal organization of words.
C)
how words are used socially.
D)
what words mean.
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19.
Free morphemes are
A)
grammatical tags or markers that cannot function independently.
B)
grammatical tags or markers that can function independently.
C)
are never connected to bound morphemes.
D)
are always connected to bound morphemes.
20.
Antonyms are words that
A)
differ in every semantic feature.
B)
differ in the opposite value of at least two important features.
C)
differ in the opposite value of one feature.
D)
are very similar.
True/False 1.
Speech is the only mode of human communication.
2.
Language remains the same across time.
3. In face‐to‐face conversation, more emphasis is placed on nonverbal means of communication than on speech.
4. Dialects are subcategories of a parent language that use similar, but not identical rules.
5.
American Sign Language is simply a manual form of spoken English.
6.
You cannot have communication without speech and language.
7.
Dialectal speakers have a language disorder.
8.
Kindergartners know most of the rules of their native language.
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9.
Spoken language is more informal than written language.
10. For mature language users, words do not refer directly to an object, event, or relationship, but to a concept.
Short Answer 1.
The specific sounds of a language are called .
2.
The degree to which a speaker is successful in communicating is referred to as
. 3. Paralinguistic mechanisms that act across elements of a sentence and have the potential to change the form and meaning of a sentence are known as .
4.
Learning to read and write requires
skills.
5.
The five components of language are ,
,
6.
The main elements of a sentence include
and a .
7.
Derivational morphemes include both
and
,
, and
.
.
8.
knowledge forms each person’s mental dictionary.
9.
Words such as “mother” and “girl” share the feature of “female.”
10.
Language use is also called
.
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1. Describe the differences and the relationships among speech, language, and communication.
2. Scenario A: A baby is reaching to be picked up. Scenario B: A girl sends a text message to her friend. Determine if each of these scenarios involves speech, language, and/or communication. Explain why each component is or is not included.
3. Explain how languages grow and change over time. How do languages avoid becoming obsolete?
4. Explain the importance of the English language throughout the world and how it is changing with such expansive use.
5. Discuss the deficit and sociolinguistic approaches to dialects. Explain how the different approaches reflect two different viewpoints regarding the value of dialect use.
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Chapter 2: Describing Language Multiple Choice 1. context?
Which type of language scientist is most interested in linguistic or cultural
A)
sociolinguist
B)
speech‐language pathologist
C)
linguist
D)
behavioral psychologist
2.
Which of the following theories of language development is the newest?
A)
semantic/cognitive
B)
sociolinguistic
C)
emergentism
D)
behaviorist
3. According to the sociolinguistic model, the motivation for language use and acquisition is A)
direct reinforcement.
B)
effective communication.
C)
fear of punishment.
D)
the semantic rules.
4.
All of the following are stages of early communicative functions, EXCEPT
A)
extralocutionary.
B)
illocutionary.
C)
perlocutionary.
D)
locutionary.
5.
Off‐line test tasks can tell us
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A)
what children know.
B)
how children process language.
C)
how children access language.
D)
both B and C
6. In general, preschool children will perform better during language testing/sampling with A)
a peer.
B)
the researcher.
C)
their classroom teacher.
D)
both B and C
7.
A language sample should fulfill the twin requirements of
A)
truthfulness and faithfulness.
B)
structure and experimentation.
C)
naturalness and representativeness.
D)
being theoretical and analytical.
8.
A representative sample
A)
contains the child’s typical language performance.
B)
requires a very restricted context.
C)
can be best obtained in one situation rather than several.
D)
is best obtained in a test situation.
E)
none of the above
9.
Cross‐language studies attempt to investigate
A)
universality.
B)
acquisitional principles.
C)
linguistic specificity.
D)
relative difficulty.
E)
all of the above
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10.
Numerical scores, such as MLU are
A)
inadequate for describing language development in detail.
B)
the main method for diagnosing a language disorder.
C)
the most valuable measure of language performance.
D)
none of the above.
11.
Norms for MLU
A)
are the same for each language.
B)
are different for each language.
C)
change from year to year.
D)
are different for boys and girls.
12.
Determining whether a child has mastered a language feature
A)
is very difficult.
B)
depends on whether he has been explicitly taught.
C)
can be determined based on one language sample.
D)
can be determined with certainty through standardized tests.
13. Which type of researchers are interested in the psychological processes and constructs underlying language. A)
Psycholinguists
B)
Psychologists
C)
Speech scientists
D)
Speech‐language pathologists
14. language
stated that the semantic‐syntactic relations apparent in children’s early correspond closely to categories of infant and toddler sensory‐motor cognition.
A)
Skinner’s Verbal Behavior
B)
Semantic Revolution
C)
The generative approach
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D)
none of the above
15. Children use which of the following general cognitive processes to understand the communicative significance of utterances and create more abstract dimensions? A)
intention‐reading
B)
pattern‐finding
C)
A and B
D)
none of the above
16.
Which of the following are considerations that influence data collection?
A)
method
B)
population and language sample size and variability
C)
naturalness and representativeness
D)
all of the above
17. It may be appropriate to follow a few children for a period of time, called a ____________ study, but inappropriate to administer a one‐time‐only test to the same limited number of children. A)
observational
B)
treatment
C)
longitudinal
D)
none of the above
18.
Grouping children by age and matching them in studies
A)
is the best method to conduct a study of language development
B)
may be inappropriate
C)
is not possible
D)
none of the above
19.
Ways of collecting data include:
A)
diary accounts
B)
checklists
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C)
parental reports
D)
all of the above
20.
Cross‐language studies are usually designed to investigate:
A)
universality
B)
linguistic specificity
C)
relative difficulty
D)
acquisitional principles
E)
all of the above
True/False 1.
The language that young children hear is regular and grammatical.
2. An assumption of the semantic approach is that content or meaning precede language form.
3. In the emergentist theory, outcomes may arise that are not obvious or predictable based on input.
4.
Emergentists believe that the LAD is innate.
5. Language data are usually collected in two ways: structured testing and experimental manipulation.
6.
It is simple to collect and analyze a child’s language.
7. If a preschool child answers incorrectly, it is a good indication that the child doesn’t have adequate comprehension or knowledge.
8.
A language sample should always contain at least 100 utterances.
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9. The sample population should reflect the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic characteristics of the overall target population.
10. The most thorough, efficient, and accurate method for collecting data is written transcription.
Short Answer 1.
In early two‐word utterances, meaning is signaled by ‐
2.
Cognitive precursors to language develop in the
3. the ________
.
year of life.
The unit of language that includes the form, content, and use of an utterance is
. 4. and
Two routines that seem to be particularly important for early communication are ______.
5. The type of memory children use to hold information for a short time while the brain processes information is known as .
6. In language research, the data‐collection procedure used.
7.
and researcher’s
Formal elicitation tasks tend to produce
will influence the type of
child language than
conversational sampling.
8. Theoretically, the most representative language sample for an older child should be elicited in _________ with _____ as conversational partner(s).
9.
A parent’s adapted way of speaking to a child is termed
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.
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10. attempt to measure operations at various points during processing and describe individual and integrative components.
Essay 1. Discuss the limitations of each of the theoretical positions presented and explain the ways in which each subsequent theory attempted to address these limitations.
2. A behavioral notion of language development can be considered weak because it is dependent upon the inadequate language modeling of the adults within the infant’s environment. Yet, it is these very adults that the sociolinguistic model credits with early language development. What happened to our knowledge of caregiver behavior in the intervening thirty years?
3. Explain the limitations inherent in each of the methods of collecting child language data.
4. Describe a study question that would be most appropriately answered using spontaneous conversational language sampling. Explain why. Then describe a study question that would be most appropriately answered using structured testing. Explain why.
5. Explain the observer’s paradox and provide specific examples of how it would affect data collection. What are some ways to lessen the impact of this principle?
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Chapter 3: Neurological Bases of Speech and Language Multiple Choice 1.
A neuron consists of all but which of the following?
A)
dendrite
B)
synapse
C)
cell body
D)
axon
2.
Basic brain function(s) include
A)
regulation, processing, and formulation.
B)
respiration, phonation, and articulation.
C)
metalinguistics, executive functioning, and coordination.
D)
none of the above
3.
The largest transverse tract within the brain is the
A)
corpus callosum.
B)
reticular formation.
C)
thalamus.
D)
cortex.
4. One brain imaging technique that has contributed to our knowledge of which parts of the brain are active language processing is A)
spectral analysis.
B)
positron emission tomography.
C)
magnetic emissions.
D)
deep brain stimulation.
5.
The right hemisphere is NOT dominant for which of the following?
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A)
visuospatial processing
B)
speech prosody and affect
C)
arithmetic
D)
environmental noises
6.
Gross brain weight changes most rapidly during
A)
adolescence.
B)
the school years.
C)
the preschool years when language is developing rapidly.
D)
the first two years of life.
7.
The primary anatomical asymmetry for the brain is found in the
A)
left temporal lobe.
B)
left frontal lobe.
C)
left parietal lobe.
D)
left occipital lobe.
8.
Auditory processing is concerned with
A)
representational meaning.
B)
underlying ideational concepts.
C)
the nature of the incoming auditory signal.
D)
working memory.
9.
Incoming auditory signals are
A)
received by the thalamus and relayed to Heschl’s gyrus in each hemisphere.
B)
received by the corpus callosum and relayed to Wernicke’s area.
C) received by the thalamus in each hemisphere and relayed to Heschl’s gyrus in the left hemisphere. D) received by Heschl’s gyrus in the left hemisphere and relayed to Wernicke’s area in the right hemisphere.
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10.
Linguistic analysis is accomplished primarily in
A)
Broca’s
B)
Heschl’s
C)
Brodmann’s
D)
Wernicke’s
area.
11. In addition to paralinguistic processing, limited word recognition and semantic decoding occur in the . A)
left hemisphere
B)
right hemisphere
C)
frontal lobes
D)
occipital lobes
12.
is a person’s ability to sustain attention over time.
A)
Reaction
B)
Discrimination
C)
Orientation
D)
Organization
13.
Memory is hindered by
A)
poor organization.
B)
mediational strategies.
C)
associational strategies.
D)
chunking.
14.
Information is retained in long‐term memory by
A)
discrimination.
B)
short‐term memory.
C)
attention.
D)
rehearsal.
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15.
Speech comprehension varies based on the information’s
and
of the
incoming information. A)
complexity, ambiguity
B)
ambiguity, speed
C)
complexity, speed
D)
none of the above
16. The model of language processing that addresses the fact that the brain can handle more than one task at a time is known as A)
top‐down/bottom‐up processing.
B)
passive/active processing.
C)
serial/parallel processing.
D)
executive function processing.
17. The concept that children must learn that people have thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that may be different from their own is referred to as A)
metalinguistics.
B)
theory of mind.
C)
information processing.
D)
metacognition.
18. problems.
is the ability to apply learned material in solving similar but novel
A)
Metalinguistics
B)
Generalization
C)
Successive processing
D)
Generativeness
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19.
Passive processing is most similar to processing.
A)
analytical
B)
bottom‐up
C)
top‐down
D)
linguistic
20.
Theory of Mind (ToM) is concerned with how brain activity produces .
A)
the mind
B)
consciousness
C)
theoretical and rational thought
D)
the personality
True/False 1. Most sensory and motor functions of the cerebrum are contralateral, which means that each hemisphere is concerned with the body’s same side.
2.
The synapse is the space between neurons.
3.
Hearing is exclusively contralateral.
4.
The hills of the cortex are known as sulci.
5.
In overall brain functioning, neither hemisphere is dominant.
6.
Brain lateralization is unique to humans.
7. The right hemisphere engages in holistic interpretation while the left is best in step‐by‐step processing.
8.
The right hemisphere is not involved in linguistic processing.
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9. the brain.
It is relatively easy to identify the spot in which speech and language reside in
10. Simultaneous processing is very precise but is quickly overwhelmed, and successive processing must then take responsibility for comprehension.
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Short Answer 1.
Neurolinguistics is
.
2.
The central nervous system consists of the
3.
Neural tissue that exists outside the CNS is part of the
4.
The basic unit of the nervous system is the
and
.
.
.
5. Each hemisphere consists of white fibrous connective tracts covered by a gray layer of cell bodies called the ___ .
6.
Approximately percent of the human population is left‐dominant for language.
7. When a specific ability is primarily housed in one hemisphere, that hemisphere is said to be for that ability.
8.
Much of the maturational increase in the brain is the result of the process of .
9.
Top‐down processing is
‐driven, while bottom‐up processing is
-
10.
Knowledge of your own cognitive and memory processes is known as
.
driven.
Essay 1. Briefly explain the process of brain maturation in infants and relate this maturation to linguistic growth.
2. Explain what theory of mind is and its major components. Hypothesize as to why it is so important for language development. richard@qwconsultancy.com
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3. Hemispheric asymmetry is most pronounced in humans. Discuss at least three major functions of the left and right hemispheres, respectively.
4. Explain how language comprehension occurs in the brain, using specific neuroanatomical terminology.
5. Explain how language production occurs at the level of the brain, using specific neuroanatomical terminology.
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Chapter 4: Cognitive, Perceptual, and Motor Bases of Early Language and Speech Multiple Choice 1.
Brain development begins within
A)
6
B)
18
C)
24
D)
36
2.
Babies babble with
A)
only sounds present in their native language
B)
sounds from the native language, and some that are not
C)
sounds produced in their environment
D)
sounds that adults cannot produce
3.
The inner ear is formed
A)
at conception.
B)
20 weeks postconception.
C)
just before birthing contractions begin.
D)
at birth.
4.
Habituation is
A)
treating each presentation of a stimulus as a unique and different event.
B)
reacting less strongly to successive presentations of a stimulus.
C)
reacting more strongly to successive presentations of a stimulus.
D)
an entity used to represent another entity.
5.
The newborn is capable of auditory discrimination of
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A)
her/his mother’s voice from others.
B)
frequency change patterns.
C)
intonational patterns.
D)
duration and loudness levels.
6. EXCEPT
Speech perception at 6 months is highly correlated with all of the following
A)
word understanding.
B)
articulation.
C)
word production.
D)
phrase understanding.
7. Regularities in stress, intonational patterns, and phonotactic organization help infants perceive A)
phoneme differences.
B)
schemes or concepts.
C)
word boundaries.
D)
equilibration.
8. Infants can discriminate their own language(s) from other languages with the same prosodic patterns at A)
1 month.
B)
3 months.
C)
5 months.
D)
7 months.
9.
Which of the following reflexes does NOT disappear by 6 months?
A)
gagging
B)
sucking
C)
phasic bite
D)
rooting
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10.
Jargon, by definition, contains
A)
single words.
B)
variegated babbling.
C)
at least three different consonants.
D)
adultlike prosodic patterns.
11.
Fetal development can be altered by environmental influences, such as
A)
tobacco
B)
alcohol
C)
drugs
D)
all of the above
.
12. When incoming information matches an existing scheme, and, therefore, can be incorporated into it, the cognitive process is called A)
equilibration.
B)
assimilation.
C)
organization.
D)
accommodation.
13.
At two months of age, infants prefer to look at .
A)
an average face
B)
a very unusual face
C)
their own face in the mirror
D)
their siblings’ faces
14.
A reflex is
A)
a response mediated by the cortex
B)
absent in newborns
C)
an automatic, involuntary motor pattern
______.
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D)
a complex motor movement mediated by the cerebellum
15.
Cognition includes which of the following?
A)
acquisition
B)
organization and storage
C)
memory
D)
use of knowledge
E)
all of the above
16.
Which of the following is an example of symbolic play?
A)
banging a spoon on the table
B)
eating with a spoon
C)
using a spoon as a doll
D)
pretending to feed a doll with a spoon
17.
Many of an infant’s behavior‐state changes reflect internal changes or intrinsic
A)
brain activities
B)
reflexes
C)
sleep patterns
D)
needs
18.
Organization is necessary for increased processing if one assumes that
A)
long‐term memory capacity
B)
working memory capacity
C)
short term memory capacity
D)
all of the above
is
fixed.
19. are called: A)
A baby’s cognitive structures used for processing incoming sensory information schemes
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B)
theory of mind
C)
working memory
D)
scaffolding
20.
An infant’s schemes are organized according to
A)
reflexes, motor programming
B)
the environment, needs
C)
comprehension, expression
D)
sensory input, motor responses
and
.
True/False 1.
2. explore.
Most theorists agree that linguistic growth drives cognitive growth.
Babies actively contribute to their own cognitive growth as they observe and
3.
Newborn babies can see clearly at birth.
4.
Newborn babies can perceive just about any phoneme used in human language.
5.
A neonate is able to control motor behavior smoothly and voluntarily.
6.
Infants with hearing impairment babble.
7.
Mental concepts are linked into complex informational webs called mental
maps.
8. When an infants focus on a face, it is likely he or she is comparing the face to his or her internal concept of a face.
9.
The more words a child hears, the faster she or he will learn language.
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10.
There are cognitive and perceptual prerequisites for early language.
Short Answer 1. Although all the brain’s neurons are developed by the end of the second trimester, __________ has barely begun.
2.
is the first sense to develop in utero.
3.
With newborns, a moderate level of stimulation is likely to maintain their
.
4.
A burst of synaptic growth, typically found in 8‐to 10‐month‐olds, is called
.
5.
Newborns produce predominantly
sounds.
6. “Ma ma ma” is an example of babbling and “ama aba” is an example of __________ babbling.
7. The __________ a baby uses during babbling are the most likely to be influenced by the baby’s native language.
8. .
Information is placed in long‐term storage and maintained by a process called
9. When incoming information does not match an existing scheme and cannot be incorporated into it, a new or modified scheme must be created. This cognitive process is called ___________________.
10.
Noncrying vowel‐like sounds with consonantal elements are called .
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Essay 1. Using what you know about sensation, perceptual, and cognitive development, explain how a newborn baby must experience the world.
2. Describe a child’s journey from reflexive non‐crying sounds to first words. Make sure to include relevant vocabulary.
3. concepts.
Define what a mental concept is and explain how children form mental
4. What is the role of the caregiver in language learning? Does the mother directly instruct the infant? Include a discussion of six techniques that mothers use to create opportunities for children to participate in interactions.
5. Infants who have better memory have many advantages. Explain how better recognition, recall, working memory, and organization impacts language development in infants.
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Chapter 5: The Social and Communicative Bases of Early Language and Speech Multiple Choice 1.
Baby talk contains
.
A)
a high frequency of commands
B)
demands for real words
C)
multiple requests
D)
none of the above
2.
What does a newborn do that has high signal value for a caregiver?
A)
move his or her head
B)
reach out
C)
intentionally vocalize
D)
sigh
3.
By 2 weeks, the infant
A)
is able to distinguish intonational patterns.
B)
is able to distinguish her/his mother from a stranger.
C)
averts attention from an expressionless face.
D)
enjoys object play.
4. Caregivers exaggerate facial expression and voice, and vocalize more often in order to provide what for an infant? A)
language input
B)
appropriate level of stimulation
C)
a calm internal state
D)
input for visual memory
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5. When a parent and child engage in turn‐taking using gaze and vocalizations, this is known as a A)
protodeclarative.
B)
protoconversation.
C)
protoimperative.
D)
baby talk.
6.
What increases a child’s motivation to communicate?
A)
delayed positive parental responsiveness
B)
offers of toys
C)
immediate positive parental responsiveness
A)
D)
offers of food
7. In play, there is correlation between the mother’s stimulation in a sensory modality and her infant’s responses in that same modality. A)
a negative
B)
not a
C)
a positive
D)
a tentative
8.
In the first stage of gestural development, the child
A)
requests objects.
B)
gives objects.
C)
shows herself/himself.
D)
points to others.
9.
During the locutionary stage of development of intentionality, the child
A)
gestures only.
B)
vocalizes only.
C)
gestures and vocalizes.
D)
gestures and verbalizes.
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10. language.
The manner in which mothers and infants interact is the best way to learn
A)
American
B)
Japanese
C)
African‐American
D)
none of the above
11.
Initially,
A)
gestures appear with vocalizations
B)
vocalizations appear alone
C)
gestures appear without vocalizations
D)
none of the above
12.
Caregiver‐infant gazing
A)
may last for as long as 30 seconds.
B)
may occur 70% of the time in games.
C)
is a good predictor of conversational topic.
D)
is all of the above.
13.
In general, when Japanese and American mothers are compared,
A)
American mothers are more information oriented.
B)
Japanese mothers use fewer questions.
C)
Japanese mothers use more nonsense sounds, baby talk, and baby’s names.
D)
Japanese mothers vocalize less with three‐month olds.
E)
is all of the above
.
14. In general, which of the following characterizes the infant socialization environment of minority and/or lower socioeconomic households in the U.S.? A)
more maternal questions and fewer directives
B)
greater input to the child by siblings and peers
C)
caregivers who are more verbal
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D)
more responsiveness to infant vocalizations
E)
none of the above
15. is how old?
A mother will typically not introduce objects to interest her infant until the baby
A)
2 weeks old
B)
4 to 6 weeks old
C)
2 months old
D)
3 months old
16.
The initial phase of development of joint reference is characterized by
A)
intentional communication.
B)
joint vocalization.
C)
joint attending.
D)
verbalizing.
17.
During the second 6 months of life,
A)
social play increases.
B)
face‐to‐face play increases.
C)
symbolic play decreases.
D)
object play increases.
18.
The most frequent mother‐child situation/location occurs
A)
in the playpen.
B)
on mother’s lap.
C)
in the crib or bed.
D)
in the jumper or swing.
19.
presupposes that two or more individuals share a common focus on one
entity. A)
Joint reference
B)
Attention
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C)
Encoding
D)
Linguistic processing
20.
Which of the following are characteristics of baby talk?
A)
short, simple sentences
B)
small core vocabulary
C)
communication rituals
D)
A and B
E)
all of the above
True/False 1.
Parents have no trouble relating to infants with poor or absent eye contact.
2. Although newborns show a range of facial expressions including fear and joy, most experts do not attribute these actual emotional states to the infant.
3.
A baby’s preference for faces decreases in the second month of life.
4. During the perlocutionary stage of development of intentions, the infant demonstrates a requesting gesture.
5.
Pointing is an example of a protodeclarative.
6.
For the child, phonetically consistent forms function as words.
7. The mother of a 3‐month‐old treats the child’s burps, sneezes, coughs, and vocalizations as meaningful communication.
8.
The rising pitch contour found in the speech of American caregivers is universal.
9.
By 6 weeks, the infant has adopted a true role in game‐playing.
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10. learning.
Maternal imitation demonstrates the mother’s goals or agenda for infant
Short Answer 1.
2.
gaze is directed at persons.
Mutual gaze is thought to be important for the formation of
.
3.
is exhibited when a child begins to encode a message for someone else.
4.
Bracketing and clustering are techniques used after 6 months in order to aid with
.
5.
Before infants comprehend language, they respond to
6. Parents who speak than do parents in other languages.
7. presence.
patterns
tend to have more extreme modifications in their speech
is the ability to differentiate one entity from many and to note its
8. Terms such as here, there, before, you, me are often found during the context of joint references and are examples of the use of .
9. .
Infant‐caregiver games often begin with and are maintained through the use of
10. Infant‐caregiver games are important for communication development because play has a role structure similar to .
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Essay 1. Explain the way in which the newborn appears to be “prewired” for communication.
2.
Describe the sequence of development of intentionality.
3.
Describe the sequence of social play. Include a discussion of episodes.
4. You call a friend and describe some new shoes you just purchased. How would you describe the same information in motherese or baby talk? In addition to providing examples of the text for each conversation, use technical terms to explain what the specific differences are.
5. You see a mother and baby playing “peek‐a‐boo” or some other type of game and comment on how wonderful it is. Your companion is skeptical that there is any real value to such interactions. Try to explain the value of game playing to social and communicative development using “peek‐a‐boo” as an example.
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Chapter 6: Language‐Learning and Teaching Processes and Young Children Multiple Choice 1.
Which toy would a child who produces no words be more likely to play with?
A)
dolls
B)
figurines for a farm play set
C)
blocks
D)
Spiderman figure
2. precedes
In early phonological development,
of speech‐sound differences greatly
. A)
perception, production
B)
knowledge, perception
C)
perception, knowledge
D)
production, perception
3.
Which of the following is an example of an interrogative utterance?
A)
The parent says, “That’s a kittie.” Child follows with “Kittie.”
B)
The child says “Doggie” when she sees a cat.
C)
The child says “Doggie?” when she sees a cat.
D)
The child says “Wassat?” when she sees a cat.
4.
Which of the following is an example of hypothesis testing?
A)
The parent says, “That’s a kittie.” Child follows with “Kittie.”
B)
The child says “Doggie” when she sees a cat.
C)
The child says “Doggie?” when she sees a cat.
D)
The child says “Wassat?” when she sees a cat.
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5.
Which of the following is an example of selective imitation?
A)
The parent says, “That’s a kittie.” Child follows with “Kittie.”
B)
The child says “Doggie” when she sees a cat.
C)
The child says “Doggie?” when she sees a cat.
D)
The child says “Wassat?” when she sees a cat.
6. complexity
The usefulness of imitation as a language‐learning strategy .
A)
increases, increases
B)
increases, decreases
A)
C)
D)
decreases, decreases
7.
The use of maternal yes/no interrogatives correlates with
A)
children’s use of interrogatives later in development
B)
the ability to correctly answer questions
C)
syntactic complexity in young language‐learning children
D)
maternal education
as language
decreases, increases
.
8. Which of the following are ways in which adult‐to‐child speech differs from adult‐to‐adult speech? A)
More contextual support
B)
Increased lexical complexity
C)
Decreased pitch range
D)
Less repetition
9.
Three types of prompts are:
A)
demands, questions, wait time
B)
fill‐ins, elicited imitations, questions
C)
silence, fill‐ins, and repetition
D)
none of the above
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10.
A(n)
acknowledges a child’s utterance and requires a response.
A)
extension
B)
expansion
C)
request
D)
turnabout
11.
In social play, language is used explicitly to
A)
direct others
B)
convey meaning
C)
talk to oneself
D)
convince others
12.
Expansions
A)
are a more mature version of the child’s speech.
.
B) are used less frequently after the child’s average utterance length increases beyond two words. C)
maintain the child’s word order.
D) may be imitated by the child in a more linguistically correct form than her/his original utterance. E)
are all of the above.
13. A child says “Ella cry.” Her mother responds, “Yes, Ella is sad.” The mother’s response is an example of A)
recasting.
B)
expansion.
A)
C)
D)
prompting.
14.
Turnabouts
A)
fill the mother’s turn and require a turn of the child.
B)
respond to the previous child utterance and, in turn, require a response.
C)
are a variant of the questioning technique.
extension.
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D)
are all of the above.
15. , or the ability to trace a process backward, is strongly related to acquisition of before and after, because, and why. A)
Reversibility
B)
Referencing
C)
Bootstrapping
D)
none of the above
16.
Decentered play with reference to others is typical of a child at what age?
A)
below 12 months
B)
12 to 15 months
C)
15 to 21 months
D)
24 to 26 months
17.
are statements that a child makes naming entities.
A)
Semantic utterances
B)
Expansions
C)
Evocative utterances
D)
Extensions
18.
Approximately of what toddlers say is an imitation of other speakers.
A)
5%
B) 20% C) 40% D) 60%
19.
seems to be most highly correlated to language acquisition.
A)
Marriage status of the parents
B)
Maternal education
C)
Number of siblings
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D)
Literacy in the home
20.
Twins who talk to each other a lot may have
A)
more advanced language
B)
atypical pragmatics
C)
higher vocabularies
D)
multiple phonological errors
.
True/False 1. Initial comprehension of single words is holistic rather than being keyed to specific sounds and sequences.
2.
Comprehension always precedes production.
3. In general, children acquire linguistic markers that occur at the beginnings of words before those that occur at the ends.
4. In general, a child will first produce a question like “What are you eating?” as “What you are eating?”
5.
In general, children will learn “asked” before “ate.”
6. Children as young as 4 years make speech and language modifications when addressing younger language‐learning children.
7. child’s sex.
Parents communicate with their children in the same manner, regardless of the
8. In general, nonverbal behavior is more important in the child‐caregiver interaction in Japan than in the United States.
9. Children of single parents tend to have better language and communication skills than do children with married, working parents.
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10. At about the time that children begin to combine symbols, they begin to play symbolically.
Short Answer 1. Here is a summary of a comprehension procedure: After a mother labels an entity, a child forms about its nature. Then, the mother the child’s output to check for accuracy. Finally, the mother improves the child’s accuracy by providing evaluative . age
2. .
Use of imitation as a language‐learning strategy decreases dramatically after
3.
Some toddlers use a routine or an unanalyzed chunk of language called a
.
4. The ability to use the linguistic skills you have to decode syntax or figure out word meanings is known as .
5.
A parent’s use of a lower MLU after 6 months of age is positively correlated with language skills at age 18 months.
have
6. In general, fathers are successful at communicating with toddlers. They tend to _____ communicative breakdown than mothers.
7.
Prompting has been shown to be effective for children with
.
8. The caregiver’s more mature version of the child’s utterance that preserves the child’s word order is called ________.
9. Although a parent may intend a reformulation as a tool to understand a child’s utterance, children seem to perceive reformulations as .
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10.
A semantically related comment on the child’s topic is an
.
Essay 1. Name and explain briefly three operating principles children seem to use to learn initial word meanings.
2. Explain the ‘less is more’ hypothesis and how it applies to language development.
3. A parent and her small child are together in a waiting room. The mother is looking at a magazine and the child is looking at a book. The child points to a picture in the book and says “car.” The mother does not respond. The child tugs on the mother’s sleeve and says “car.” The mother looks and says, “No, that’s not a car.” If this mother asked for ways to improve her communication with her child, what three pieces of advice could you give her? Please relate the advice to this specific interaction.
4. Explain why play is an ideal vehicle for language acquisition and how types of play change with different levels of play development.
5. Explain at least three factors that lead to varying parent‐child interactional patterns found in different socioeconomic and cultural groups. Make sure to provide specific examples of cultural differences.
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Chapter 7: First Words and Word Combinations in Toddler Talk Multiple Choice 1.
The order of appearance of a child’s first consonants in word use:
A)
can be explained by the frequency of use in the native language.
B)
is different for every child.
C)
begins with the sounds that are in their name.
D)
none of the above
2.
Most extensions and overextensions of meaning seem to be based on
A)
phonological similarities
B)
ease of articulation
C)
perceptual similarities
D)
family‐specific usage
3.
By age two intentional communication is characterized by
A)
isomorphic forms.
B)
multiple intentions.
C)
use accompanying only action.
D)
only three broad pragmatic functions.
4. children?
Which of the following syllabic patterns is found least in the first words of
A)
CVCV‐reduplicated
B)
CVCV
C)
CV
D)
CVC
5.
Which word is LEAST likely to be part of a child’s first 50 words?
A)
me
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B)
doll
C)
water
D)
kitty
6. Which of the following is the most plausible explanation for the high proportion of nouns in the first lexicons of children? A)
perceptual/conceptual distinctiveness
B)
frequency of adult use
C)
adult word order
D)
adult teaching patterns
7. Which of the following methods of concept formation is based exclusively on static attributes? A)
semantic‐feature hypothesis
B)
functional‐core hypothesis
C)
associative complex
D)
prototypic complex
8. If a child defined “ball” as “something you play with” it would be likely that he/she was using which of the following concept formation hypotheses? A)
semantic features
B)
functional core
C)
associative
D)
prototypical complex
9.
consonants predominate in the first words of children.
A)
Retroflex
B)
Labiodental
C)
Front
D)
Back
10.
Babbling
.
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A)
ceases after first words appear
B)
continues throughout life
C)
does not occur in hearing impaired children
D)
none of the above
11. known as.
When a child first forms a link between a referent and a name this process is
A)
inversion
B)
association
C)
fast mapping
D)
all of the above
12.
First words
A)
begin with superordinate categorical words
B)
usually apply to a midlevel of generality
C)
are usually very specific words within categories
D)
none of the above
.
13. Children who have overdependence on the strategy of “swallowing language whole” or using memorized formulas: A)
may be at a disadvantage in learning language.
B)
learn language more quickly than children who use other strategies.
C)
have advanced literacy skills.
D)
are typically children of single parents.
14. following?
Linguistic processing of lexical items is influenced by all but which of the
A)
frequency of use
B)
noun or verb nature of word
C)
neighborhood density
D)
phonotactic probability
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15. Which of the following vowels is LEAST likely to be established early in a child’s phonemic repertoire? A)
/a/
B)
/i/
C)
/e/
D)
/u/
16.
Open syllables
A)
end in a consonant.
B)
end in a consonant cluster.
C)
end in a vowel.
D)
begin only with vowels.
17.
Words develop a
A)
set of features
B)
confirmed core
C)
conceptual map
D)
none of the above
18.
At about
A)
9 months
B)
12 months
C)
18 months
D)
24 months
19.
Syllabic phonological processes decrease rapidly just prior to age
A)
1
B)
2
C)
3
D)
4
and a peripheral area of potential generalization.
, many children combine words or holophrases.
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20.
Factors that may affect early language acquisition include:
A)
otitis media
B)
international adoption
C)
exposure to TV
D)
A and C only
E)
A, B, and C
True/False 1. Children express their early intentions through a combination of gestures, vocalizations, and verbalizations called primitive speech acts.
2. The first few words of Spanish‐speaking children have significantly different characteristics than the first few words of English‐speaking children.
3. According to the functional‐core hypothesis of concept development, early definitions are based on object use.
4. Overly restricted meanings that contain fewer exemplars than the adult meaning are called overextensions.
5.
Words are overextended more in comprehension than in production.
6.
Up to 30% of a child’s first 75 words may be overextended.
7.
Protoverbs such as up, down, and off develop after true verbs.
8. The terms “here” and “there” are usually first used to accompany action sequences, and not to mark location.
9.
Children comprehend multiword utterances when they begin to produce them.
10. Once a child can use two‐word phrases, listeners no longer need to rely on stress patterns to interpret meaning. richard@qwconsultancy.com
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Short Answer 1.
A child’s personal dictionary is known as his or her
.
2.
There is a strong relationship between a child’s first words and the frequency of
of these words.
3.
is the speaker’s assumptions about the listener’s knowledge.
4. The three most frequent categories of words found in the first ten words of children are usually , , and .
5. Although there is considerable individual variation, nouns account for about % of the first 50 words of children.
6.
7. category.
Calling all men “daddy” is an example of
.
Action, location, and attribution types of words are examples of the semantic
8.
The number of possible words that differ by one phoneme is called ___
9.
The likelihood of a sound pattern occurring is called .
10. known as
.
A child who says /ti/ for “tree” and /tar/ for “star” is using the phonological rule
.
Essay 1.
Explain what is needed for a toddler’s first “word” to be considered a true word.
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2. Support and defend one of the three explanations of concept development discussed in the text.
3. Cross‐language adoptions are a unique case in terms of language acquisition. Explain potential complicating factors, as well as the typical developmental pattern for language development in these children.
4.
Explain the concept and process of simultaneous language acquisition.
5. Explain what phonological processes are, how they are useful to a young, language‐learning child, and give examples of at least two types. Hypothesize as to how you might use information from phonological processes to determine whether a child is developing language atypically.
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Chapter 8: Preschool Pragmatic and Semantic Development Multiple Choice 1.
The requests for clarification of the preschool child are:
A)
clear and specific.
B)
rather general and nonspecific.
C)
always understood.
D)
none of the above
2. Initially, a young child can introduce a topic of interest and can sustain that topic for how many turns? A)
1–2
B)
2–4
C)
5–6
D)
>7
3.
A child’s ability to discuss decontextualized language begins to emerge around
A)
18 to 24 months.
B)
24 to 30 months.
C)
30 to 36 months.
D)
36 to 48 months.
4.
When the meaning of a temporal term is unknown, a preschooler will rely on
A)
the order of mention.
B)
the word alone.
C)
what other children are doing.
D)
none of the above
5.
By age 3, most children
A)
are able to comprehend words such as “believe.”
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B)
are able to adjust answers based on the amount of information the listener
C)
cannot distinguish between definite and indefinite articles.
D)
use indirect requests about 60% of the time.
needs.
6. Which of the following is an example of ellipsis? Father asks his 5‐year‐old “Who wants to help me wash the car?” The child responds A)
Don’t let Jeremy wash the car!
B)
I want to help you wash the car.
C)
Maybe tomorrow I can help you wash the car. . . .
D)
I do.
7.
The process of interpreting words with reference to the position of the speaker is
A)
contingent queries.
B)
epenthesis.
C)
deixis.
D)
ellipsis.
8.
Conversations are
A)
monologues; decontextualized monologues
B)
dialogues; decontextualized monologues
C)
decontextualized dialogues; monologues
D)
decontextualized dialogues; dialogues
9.
Which of the following is characteristic of a conversation?
A)
topic relates to people or animals engaged in events
B)
is a decontextualized monologue
C)
topic generally relates to activities in the immediate context
D)
events are linked to one another in a predictable, explicit manner
called
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10. Children only begin to realize that indirect requests are more polite than direct requests around: A)
age three.
B)
age five.
C)
early school‐age.
D)
middle school.
11.
Causal narrative chains are rare until about age
A)
2 years.
B)
4 years.
C)
5 to 7 years.
D)
10 to 12 years.
12.
Preschool children rely heavily on
A)
contextual
B)
the order of
C)
repetitions of
D)
all of the above
13.
As a child’s lexicon expands, which of the following are true?
A)
There is a need for better cognitive organization.
B)
Semantic networks are formed.
C)
Children stop making lexical errors (e.g., spoon for fork).
D)
Both A and B.
14.
Most of a preschooler’s conversations occur:
A)
with peers.
B)
in the mother‐child interaction.
C)
at school.
D)
with the teacher.
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15. The ability to make same/different judgments seems to be related to the development of. A)
visual pathways
B)
the occipital lobes
C)
conservation
D)
object permanence
16.
Even more than conversations, narratives reflect the speaker’s
A)
culture
B)
biases
C)
stereotypes
D)
genderlect
17.
When all else fails, the child relies on for interpretation of temporal terms.
A)
semantics
B)
syntax
C)
the main clause
D)
real‐life sequences
18.
Narrative or event descriptions are based on underlying
A)
story grammar
B)
event scripts
C)
causal chains
D)
narrative outlines
19.
Pronouns provide
A)
contrast
B)
cohesion
C)
dissonance
D)
none of the above
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.
.
between old and new information.
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20. Which of the following is NOT a strong factor in the success of successive second language learning? A)
age of the preadolescent child
B)
attitude toward the users of the second language
C)
identification with the users of the second language
D)
need to develop and use the second language
True/False 1. Preschool turn‐taking with adults is very difficult and is characterized by frequent interrupting.
2.
Two‐year‐olds are successful at specifying the referents in their conversation.
3. Even 5‐year‐olds use repetition frequently to acknowledge their partner’s utterance, to provide cohesion, and to fill turns.
4. The control and representational illocutionary functions account for about 65% of children’s utterances.
5. The narratives of 2‐year‐olds are generally sets of unrelated statements about a central focus.
6.
Preschool verb definitions differ from those of older children.
7.
The acquisition of relational terms is a simple process.
8.
More specific relational terms are usually learned first.
9. learned first.
The negative member of a relational pair, such as little in big/little, is usually
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10.
Initially, kinship terms are treated by the child as a portion of a person’s name.
Short Answer 1. months.
In terms of conversation, there is an overall increase in
at around 36
2.
Competence with different registers varies with
.
3.
The most common clarification or self‐correction strategy of preschoolers is .
and
4. Recounting personal experiences, retelling movies, and telling familiar tales are all examples of .
5.
6. months.
Two strategies used to organize narratives are and
.
The child may add as many as words per day to his lexicon between age 18 to 72
7. is a strategy that enables the child to infer a connection between a word and its referent after only one exposure.
8.
is the assumption that every form contrasts to every other in meaning.
9. type questions may be particularly difficult for children because of the reverse order thinking required in the response.
10.
Children’s rules for interpreting locational words are often based on the
rather than on the prepositions
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Essay 1. Despite her/his limitations, the preschooler is a fairly effective conversationalist. Please discuss.
2. Explain what the term “register” means. Why might children have a difficult time using different registers? Explain what is needed in terms of form, content, and use.
3. Discuss the skills needed to create a successful narrative. What are the milestones young children meet along the way?
4. Explain the stages of successive second language learning, including the use of relevant vocabulary terms.
5. Explain factors related to language development delays and also those factors that lead to a good prognosis. Explain how late language emergence can affect a child later in life.
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Chapter 9: Preschool Development of Language Form Multiple Choice 1.
In general, what is considered an appropriate number of utterances one needs to calculate MLU? A)
10–20
B)
30–40
C)
40–50
D)
> 50
2.
Which of the following utterances would count as 2 morphemes?
A)
Mama’s
B)
ate
C)
SpongeBob Squarepants
D)
mice
3. Five‐year‐olds still depend on linguistic and contextual information to understand language. However, at age 3, is a reliable interpretive tool. A)
word order
B)
syntactic structure
C)
semantic feature analysis
D)
pragmatic use
4.
The present progressive verb form may be mastered relatively quickly because
A)
there are no irregular forms.
B)
the present progressive can be used on all action verbs.
C)
the present progressive does not appear on state verbs.
D)
the present progressive is initially acquired without the auxiliary verb.
E)
all of the above
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5.
Which of the following words do NOT contain a sibilant?
A)
copula
B)
epenthesis
C)
chapter
D)
acquisition
6. irregular?
In general, what is the relationship of the plural and past tense, regular and
A)
The irregular is mastered before the regular in both.
B)
The regular is mastered before the irregular in both.
C) The regular plural is mastered before the irregular, while a few irregular past tense verbs are mastered before the regular past tense. D) The irregular of a few plurals is mastered before the regular, while regular past is mastered before irregular past tense verbs.
7.
As opposed to the copula, the auxiliary verb is followed by a/an
A)
verb.
B)
noun.
C)
adverb.
D)
adjective.
E)
B, C, and D only
8.
A clause contains a
A)
subject, predicate
B)
noun, pronoun
C)
subjunctive, nominal
D)
noun, adverb
and a .
9. Early entities marked by the possessive are as body parts. A)
entities rather than entities such
inalienable
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B)
alienable
C)
transitive
D)
intransitive
10.
When the child says “You’re interring upt me,” she/he is exhibiting
A)
undersegmentation.
B)
oversegmentation.
C)
miscategorization.
D)
undercategorization.
11.
A(n)
A)
objective
B)
passive
C)
compound
D)
complex
12.
Morphological learning is characterized by
A)
U‐shaped
B)
idiosyncratic
C)
constant
D)
linear
13.
sentence is made up of two or more main clauses joined as equals.
relate(s) the speech time to the event time.
A)
Bridging inferences
B)
Pronominal use
A)
C)
D)
Aspect
14.
developmental growth.
Tense
refers to the event’s completion, repetition, or continuing duration.
A)
Bridging inferences
B)
Pronominal use
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C)
Tense
D)
Aspect
15.
Infinitives
A)
are learned initially with a large set of verbs.
B)
are acquired in their adult form by age 30 months.
C)
initially occur at the ends of sentences.
D)
initially occur with nouns other than the subject.
16.
Most English‐speaking children possess basic sentence types by age
A)
5
B)
6
C)
7
D)
8
17.
The phonological acquisition process is typically completed by:
A)
toddler age.
B)
preschool age.
C)
early school age.
D)
middle school.
.
18. When the child inserts a vowel in a word where there is none in the adult pronunciation, this is called A)
epenthesis.
B)
assimilation.
C)
stopping.
D)
deixis.
19.
Final consonant processes usually disappear by age .
A)
3
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B)
5
C)
7
D)
9
20.
Phonological processes involve substitutions of
A)
individual sounds
B)
classes of sounds
C)
words
D)
none of the above
.
True/False 1. When counting morphemes in preschool language, irregular past tense verbs count as two morphemes.
2.
The present progressive verb form is acquired initially with the auxiliary verb.
3. The semantic distinction of plural is easier for children to learn than the phonological distinction.
4.
If a noun ends in a sibilant, the phonological rule states that the plural /z/ is
5.
The possessive is originally marked with word order and stress.
6.
Children who speak different languages treat morphemes differently.
7.
Postnoun modifiers appear at about the same time as prenoun modifiers.
used.
8. The roles of function and frequency in speech sound development are the same across cultures.
9. A phonological process in which a plosive is substituted for target sounds is called stopping. richard@qwconsultancy.com
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10. size units.
In general, preschool children perceive spoken language to contain phoneme‐
Short Answer 1.
MLU stands for
.
2. The words was, is, were, are, am when they function as a main verb, are examples of the .
3.
Auxiliary verbs that express moods or attitudes are called
.
4.
In typical wh‐ question formation, the subject and verb are
.
5. variation of
6.
Children at the one‐word level are able to ask questions through the use of , a ________, or through a __________________.
The specific negative terms a child uses tend to reflect
with the child.
7. A is a group of unrelated words that does not include a subject or predicate and is used as a noun substitute or as a noun or verb modifier.
8. The conjunctions because and so are initially used to mark than physical causality.
9.
The word
causality rather
serves as an all‐purpose conjunction for young children.
10. There is individual variability in speech‐sound production. The age of acquisition for some sounds may vary by as many as . richard@qwconsultancy.com
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Essay 1. MLU is one way of measuring a child’s syntactic complexity. What are some of the limitations of this tool? Be specific. What sorts of factors might produce different outcomes?
2. Explain how the ways in which adults use questions with children facilitates their later use of question forms.
3. The preschool child seems to resist changing the basic subject‐verb‐object sentence format. Discuss this strategy as it applies to the development of negative and interrogative sentences and to embedding.
4. Explain what tag questions are and how they develop. How do you think use of tag questions varies among language/dialect groups?
5. Explain why the utterance “Eat cookie” may not be a true imperative sentence. Include a discussion of cognitive processes.
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Chapter 10: Early SchoolAge Language Development Multiple Choice 1. The early school years are characterized by growth in which of the following aspects of language? A)
semantics
B)
morphology
C)
phonology
D)
pragmatics
E)
all of the above
2.
A child is typically able to produce all elements of story grammar by age
A)
5.
B)
6.
C)
7.
D)
8.
E)
9.
3.
A first grader has an expressive vocabulary of roughly
A)
1,600 words.
B)
2,600 words.
C)
5,200 words.
D) 8,000‐10,000 words.
4.
is the ability to take the perspective of another person.
A)
Decentration
B)
Metalinguistics
C)
Chunking
D)
Nonegocentrism
5.
A recount is a form of narration in which the speaker
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A)
explains an anticipated event.
B)
shares an experience in which the listener did not participate, observe, or read
C)
shares an experience in which the listener also participated, observed, or read
D)
presents a fictionalized story.
6.
The following are all forms of narration EXCEPT
A)
nonegocentrism.
B)
account.
C)
eventcast.
D)
stories.
about. about.
7. About 60% of the utterances are effective in a peer‐to‐peer conversation between young school‐aged children. A)
20%
B)
40%
C)
60%
D)
80%
8.
The following are all components of story grammar EXCEPT
A)
internal plan.
B)
reaction.
C)
complete episodes.
D)
attempt.
E)
initiating event.
9. A narrative that contains the following elements: Setting, Initiating Event or Internal Response and Direct consequence is best described as a(an) A)
Action Sequence.
B)
Abbreviated Episode.
C)
Complete Episode.
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D)
Reaction Sequence.
10.
Narratives characterized as reaction sequences consist of
A)
a series of setting statements.
B)
events that cause actions but with no goal.
C)
complex episodes.
D)
interactive episodes.
11. In terms of style‐switching, children demonstrate which of the following with parents as compared to peers? A)
more nonlinguistic noises
B)
less whining
C)
more demands
D)
more exact repetitions
12. requests?
Which of the following is NOT true concerning the development of indirect
A) does not.
Polarity that differs from the literal meaning is more difficult than that which
B)
Negative forms are more difficult to interpret than positive.
C)
Declarative forms are more difficult to interpret than interrogative.
D)
All of the above.
13.
During the school years, the child’s definitions become
A)
more experiential.
B)
more socially shared.
C)
more concrete.
D)
less exclusionary.
14.
Vocabulary size is highly influenced by
A)
culture
B)
experience
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C)
age
D)
all of the above
15.
Figurative language includes all but which of the following?
A)
gerunds
B)
metaphors
C)
idioms
D)
similes
16. Some theorists have called the preschool years the for language development, assuming that the brain is less plastic and less capable of learning after these years. A)
critical period
B)
essential period
C)
plastic period
D)
none of the above
17. The primary conjunction used to link the sentences in narratives of young school‐aged children is A)
because.
B)
and.
C)
so.
D)
if.
18.
The brain is nearly adult in size by age , but development is not complete.
A)
3
B)
5
C)
8
D)
12
19. .
Children do not comprehend some forms of passive sentences until about age
A)
3½
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B)
5½
C)
7½
D)
10
20.
By age , full adult stress and accent is acquired.
A)
7
B)
10
C)
12
D)
15
True/False 1.
A story grammar consists of a setting and episode structure.
2.
The typical features of children’s narratives are largely similar across cultures.
3. Adults still have a large amount of control over conversations with early school‐ aged children.
4. A school‐aged child produces and understands indirect requests at the same level as an adult.
5. An indirect request is a statement that does not refer directly to what the speaker wants.
6. When making conversational repair, 6‐year‐olds are capable of addressing the perceived source of the breakdown.
7. During the school years, there is a shift away from deictic terms to more specific terms such as “left” and “right.”
8.
Development of comprehension of proverbs may continue into adulthood.
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9. Passive sentences tend to be easy to produce and comprehend for English‐ speaking children.
10. During metalinguistic analysis, a child reflects on language as a decontextualized object.
Short Answer 1. During the early school years, although children develop in all aspects of language, the most notable growth occurs in and .
2. The process of moving from rigid, one‐dimensional descriptions of objects to coordinated, multiattributional descriptions is known as .
3.
The internal organization of a story can be described as a
4.
Abbreviated episodes contain an
5.
Around age
.
.
the child has all elements of the conventional definition.
6. Around age 7, the child changes her/his word associations from syntactically‐ based to semantically‐based. This change is called the ‐ .
7. During the early school years, in terms of linguistic processing, children shift from relying on strategies to relying on
8.
strategies.
are verbs that fill a noun function.
9.
Causal. temporal, disjunctive, and conditional are all types of
10.
Comprehension of embedded sentences seems to be based on the and
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of the embedding.
Essay 1. The early school years are a time of huge social growth. Explain some of the developments that take place using specific examples of pragmatic language skills.
2. Explain the phenomenon of code switching, and discuss the positives and negatives associated with its use.
3. The conversational abilities of school‐age children are demonstrated in the development of indirect requests. Describe this development, relating it to overall conversational development of the child.
4. Dialect use can have an effect on the way we are perceived. Explain the ways in which those who speak African American English are affected.
5. Describe the narrative differences one might see in children who are language impaired as compared to children who speak a minority dialect.
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Chapter 11: SchoolAge Literacy Development Multiple Choice 1. reading.
Mature readers use individual graphemes as the basic units for analysis in
A)
sound out every word.
B)
use their finger for tracking.
C)
use individual graphemes as the basic unit of analysis.
D)
none of the above
2. All of the following are DIFFERENCES between oral language and reading and writing EXCEPT which of the following? Reading and writing: A)
have an explicit set of rules.
B)
is more permanent.
C)
lacks the give‐and‐take of conversation.
D)
lacks paralinguistic features.
3.
Comprehension emerges from
A)
a reader’s prior knowledge.
B)
word meaning.
C)
grammatical processes.
D)
sound meaning.
E)
all of the above.
4.
What types of language skills are essential for decoding?
A)
semantic
B)
pragmatic
C)
phonological
D)
syntactic
E)
morphological
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5.
Phonological awareness consists of all but which of the following?
A)
phoneme‐grapheme relationship
B)
phonemic segmentation
C)
rhyming
D)
syllable identification
6.
Skilled readers take less than a quarter of a second to process a written word.
A)
less than a quarter of a second
B)
around a half a second
C)
one second
D)
more than one second
7. Place the following levels of comprehension in order from earliest developing to latest developing: 1. dynamic literacy 2. decoding 3. critical literacy. A)
1, 2, 3
B)
2, 3, 1
C)
3, 2, 1
D)
2, 1, 3
8.
The self‐regulatory aspect of reading and writing is called
A)
phonics.
B)
text construction.
C)
phonological awareness.
D)
executive function.
9.
A reader’s mental dictionary is known as
A)
orthography.
B)
graphemes.
C)
vocabulary.
D)
the lexicon.
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10.
A history of speech and language problems has
.
A)
little to no effect on reading skills.
B)
a detrimental effect on physical coordination.
C)
no impact later in life.
D)
none of the above
11.
Reading development via book sharing typically begins around what age?
A)
6 months
B)
1 year
C)
18 months
D)
4 years
12. Through book‐sharing, children gain knowledge of the direction in which reading precedes across the page and learns to recognize some letters. This is called A)
phonological awareness.
B)
print awareness.
C)
phonics.
D)
reading.
13.
Reading is
A)
a language‐based skill
B)
not related to language
C)
not important because of other modes of communication
D)
inherent; it does not need to be explicitly taught.
14.
.
are most important to early reading success.
1.
A)
Early exposure to reading
B)
A literate atmosphere
C)
none of the above
D)
A and B
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15.
How many words are children explicitly taught to spell in elementary school? A)
1,000 B) 4,000 C) 7,000 D) 10,000 E) 15,000
16. Phonological skills are required for decoding, whereas syntax, morphology, semantics, and pragmatics are vital for . A)
writing
B)
reading
C)
comprehension
D)
inferencing
17.
Efficient readers use
A)
prediction
B)
self‐regulation
C)
anticipation
D)
all of the above
, such as slowing down for more difficult text.
18. In pre‐reading, a child becomes aware of print and sounds while gradually making associations. A)
pre‐reading
B)
critical literacy
C)
emergent literacy
D)
print associations
19.
Poor or inexperienced spellers produce
A)
comparable first drafts
B)
poorer quality texts
C)
shorter texts
D)
B and C
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20.
By
, teens are capable of revising all aspects of writing.
A)
early elementary school
B)
late elementary school
C)
junior high
D)
high school
True/False 1.
Reading and writing are simply speech in print.
2.
There is only one level of text comprehension.
3. There is not a good one‐to‐one correspondence between English letters and speech sounds.
4. instruction.
5.
Prereading in our culture is acquired through social interaction, and not formal
Grammar and meaning are not important in learning to read multisyllabic words.
6. There are more complex subjects in the writing of 9‐year‐olds than in the speech of some adults.
7.
Learning to spell is memorizing words.
8. Inventive spelling demonstrates that the child does not have knowledge of the alphabetic system.
9.
The 6‐year‐old pays little attention to format, spacing, spelling, and punctuation.
10. Once children produce true spelling, even if it is unconventional, they begin to generate text. richard@qwconsultancy.com
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Short Answer 1.
is the use of visual modes of communication, specifically reading and
writing.
2.
Better phonological awareness is related to
3.
The best predictor of spelling ability in elementary school is .
4. The ‐ phonemic processing.
5. meaning.
.
theory of reading emphasizes lower‐level perceptual and
The top‐down processing theory of reading emphasizes the of deriving
6. .
When children are introduced to sound‐letter correspondence it is known as
7.
When a child’s reading becomes automatic, he or she is said to be a reader.
8. In both writing and speaking, one must consider the audience. However, writing requires more than speaking does.
9.
Early compositions usually lack
and use structures
.
10. It is not until that most writers develop the cognitive processes and executive functions needed for mature writing.
Essay 1.
Explain the spelling process of a mature speller.
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2. Explain if and how dialectal structures are used in writing for both children who use a standard dialect as well as other dialects. Also discuss whether using dialectal features in writing is a positive or negative and why or why not.
3. Children who are learning to write often do not take into account the needs of their reader. Explain what this means and give examples of ways in which children do this.
4. The chapter states that writing is more abstract than speech and more decontextualized than conversation. Why? Give some examples to support your case.
5. You and a friend see a child’s early writing sample, which contains invented spelling, punctuation errors, and nontraditional format. Your friend comments on the poor quality of the text. You, on the other hand, are impressed. Explain to your friend the developmental trajectory of writing, and why you think this young writer is on the right track.
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Chapter 12: Adolescent and Adult Language Multiple Choice 1.
Which of the following do teens RARELY exhibit in conversations with peers?
A)
showing negative emotions
B)
turning away
C)
requesting clarification
D)
all of the above
2.
What aspect of adult language is likely to improve up until the 70s?
A)
understanding syntactically complex sentences
B)
inferencing
C)
narrative abilities
D)
written language comprehension
E)
all of the above
3.
Gender differences in conversation can be noted in:
A)
vocabulary use
B)
regional dialect use
C)
conversational styles
D)
A and C
4.
In relation to women, men
A)
talk more.
B)
use less coarse language.
C)
interrupt less.
D)
maintain more eye contact.
E)
discuss more about their feelings.
5.
Myelination is complete in early adulthood and dendritic pruning
A)
is also complete at this time
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B)
continues into adolescence
C)
continues into middle age
D)
is never complete
6. references.
Adult definitions are more abstract, descriptive, and have concrete terms and
A)
are more abstract
B)
are more descriptive
A)
C)
D)
all of the above
7.
Which of the following parent‐child behaviors are NOT seen based on gender?
have concrete terms and references
A) Mothers call their sons “honey” and “sweetie,” but don’t use the same terms with their daughters. B)
Fathers use the diminutive form more with their daughters than with their sons.
C)
Fathers interrupt their daughters more often than their sons.
D)
Mothers talk to their daughters longer than they talk to their sons.
8.
Which of the following is NOT a typical topic for a kindergarten boy?
A)
self
B)
physical movement
C)
sports
D)
school
9. In terms of semantic development, we’d expect typical older adults to have some deficits in all of the following areas EXCEPT A)
accuracy of word retrieval.
B)
loss of lexical items.
C)
speed of word retrieval.
D)
naming.
10.
Much of the increase in language complexity into adulthood is in the use of
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A)
independent clauses.
B)
embedding.
C)
dependent clauses.
D)
conjoining.
11.
Idioms and proverbs that are
A)
familiar
B)
supported by context
C)
transparent
D)
all of the above
12.
The ability to interpret proverbs is related to
A)
overall education
B)
maternal mental health
C)
intelligence
D)
all of the above
13.
Increase in complexity is generally in use of dependent clauses.
A)
compound sentences
B)
complex sentences
C)
dependent clauses
D)
independent clauses
14.
More complex sentences are used to than in conversation.
A)
talk to children
B
explain procedures
C)
write a letter
D)
none of the above
15.
Complex thought drives use of
A)
complicated syntactical structures
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B)
story grammar
C)
interactional style
D)
complex language
16. ____________ comment on or convey the speaker’s attitude toward the content of the connected sentence (e.g., “To be honest…”). A)
Adverbial conjuncts
B)
Adverbial disjuncts
C)
Adverbial phrases
D)
none of the above
17.
signal a logical relation between sentences (e.g., “As a result of…”).
A)
Adverbial conjuncts
B)
Adverbial disjuncts
C)
Adverbial phrases
D)
none of the above
18.
Children with larger vocabularies have better .
A)
syntactical skills
B)
social interactions
C)
phonological skills
D)
grades
19.
The biggest change in adolescence and adulthood is the ability to
A)
engage with print and read and write with purpose
B)
converse more effectively
C)
understand figurative language
D)
use language creatively
.
20. Non‐native listeners rely on social cues more than grammatical analysis to determine meaning. A)
phonological cues
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B)
social cues
C)
semantic features
D)
all of the above
True/False 1.
Development typically stops in adulthood.
2. The rather restricted environments of adults result in a reduction in the number of special registers or styles of speech.
3.
With aging there is a decline in both oral and written language comprehension.
4.
It is possible to detect political orientation based solely on an adult’s choice of
terms.
5. Some 17‐year‐olds still have difficulty offering and supporting their opinions in a logical, well‐ formed manner.
6.
Women tend to have shorter conversations than men.
7.
It is possible to separate conversational behaviors from cultures.
8. Children begin to demonstrate gender differences in the topics they discuss as early as age 4.
9.
Adverbial conjuncts may be concordant or discordant.
10. There is a generational difference in terms of the amount of reading adolescents and adults do.
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Short Answer 1.
As a language user, an adult gains increasing .
2.
The specific terminology found in many jobs is known as
.
3. Adults effectively use , or modifying the topic, as a means of moving from one topic to another while maintaining continuity in the conversation.
4.
use a fuller range of color terms in their language.
5.
Lexical differences between genders tend to be
rather than
.
6.
The collective stylistic characteristics of men and women is called
.
7.
Supplying word definitions is a
8.
In older adults, the ease of interpreting proverbs is related to their overall
skill.
. 9. When sounds that will be produced later in an utterance are anticipated and reflected in the mouth position of an earlier sound, this is known as .
10.
Genderlect is well established by
.
Essay 1. Explain how first‐graders know whether the speaker is a man or woman based only on words spoken.
2. Kindergarten boys and girls tend to talk about different things. Explain the differences and why you think this may be the case.
3. Briefly describe the differences in conversational styles between the genders. What is likely to motivate these differences?
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4. What are some of the semantic language deficits associated with typical aging? What seems to cause these deficits?
5.
Briefly describe the characteristics of adult phonological knowledge.
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Test Bank Answer Key Chapter 1 Multiple Choice Answers: 1.
E
2.
B
3.
B
4.
D
5.
C
6.
D
7.
D
8.
A
9.
B
10.
A
11.
C
12.
B
13.
D
14.
C
15.
D
16.
D
17.
B
18.
B
19.
B
20.
C
True/False Answers:
1.
FALSE
2.
FALSE
3.
TRUE
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4.
TRUE
5.
FALSE
6.
FALSE
7.
FALSE
8.
TRUE
9.
FALSE
10.
TRUE
Short Answers:
1.
phonemes
2.
communicative competence
3.
suprasegmental devices
4.
metalinguistic
5.
syntax, morphology, phonology, semantics, pragmatics
6.
noun phrases, verb phrases
7.
prefixes, suffixes
8.
Word
9.
semantic
10.
pragmatics
Essay Answers: 1.
Page Ref: 5‐15
2.
Page Ref: 5‐15
3.
Page Ref: 6‐7
4.
Page Ref: 9
5.
Page Ref: 29
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Chapter 2 Multiple Choice Answers: 1.
A
2.
C
3.
B
4.
A
5.
A
6.
C
7.
C
8.
A
9.
A
10.
A
11.
B
12.
A
13.
A
14.
B
15.
C
16.
D
17.
C
18.
B
19.
D
20.
E
True/False Answers: 1.
FALSE
2.
TRUE
3.
TRUE
4.
FALSE
5.
FALSE
6.
FALSE
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7.
FALSE
8.
FALSE
9.
TRUE
10.
FALSE
Short Answers: 1.
word‐order
2.
first
3.
speech act
4.
joint action, joint reference
5.
working memory
6.
purpose, theoretical predisposition
7.
more advanced
8.
home or school, a parent or sibling or teacher
9.
child directed speech (CDS)
10.
on-line tasks
Essay Answers: 1.
Page Ref: 38‐44
2.
Page Ref: 38‐44
3.
Page Ref: 51‐52
4.
Page Ref : 45‐48
5.
Page Ref : 50
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Chapter 3 Multiple Choice Answers : 1.
B
2.
A
3.
A
4.
B
5.
C
6.
D
7.
A
8.
C
9.
A
10.
D
11.
B
12.
C
13.
A
14.
D
15.
C
16.
C
17.
B
18.
B
19.
B
20.
A
True/False Answers: 1.
FALSE
2.
TRUE
3.
FALSE
4.
FALSE
5.
TRUE
6.
FALSE
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7.
TRUE
8.
FALSE
9.
FALSE
10.
FALSE
Short Answers: 1.
the study of the manner and location of the processing of linguistic information
2.
brain, spinal cord
3.
peripheral nervous system
4.
neuron
5.
cortex
6.
98
7.
dominant
8.
myelination
9.
conceptually, data
10.
metacognition
Essay Answers: 1.
Page Ref: 63‐64
2.
Page Ref: 75‐76
3.
Page Ref: 62‐63
4.
Page Ref: 65‐67
5.
Page Ref: 68‐69
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Chapter 4 Multiple Choice Answers: 1.
B
2.
B
3.
B
4.
B
5.
D
6.
B
7.
C
8.
C
9.
A
10.
D
11.
D
12.
B
13.
A
14.
C
15.
E
16.
C
17.
A
18.
A
19.
A
20.
D
True/False Answers: 1.
FALSE
2.
TRUE
3.
FALSE
4.
TRUE
5.
FALSE
6.
TRUE
7.
TRUE
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8.
TRUE
9.
TRUE
10.
TRUE
Short Answers: 1.
organization
2.
touch
3.
attention
4.
synaptogenesis
5.
reflexive
6.
reduplicated, variegated
7.
vowels
8.
rehearsal
9.
accommodation
10.
quasi‐resonant nuclei
Essay Answers: 1.
Page ref: 84‐97
2.
Page ref: 89‐94
3.
Page ref: 102
4.
Page ref: 104‐107
5.
Page ref: 100‐101
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Chapter 5 Multiple Choice Answers: 1.
D
2.
A
3.
B
4.
B
5.
B
6.
C
7.
C
8.
C
9.
D
10.
D
11.
C
12.
D
13.
E
14.
B
15.
B
16.
C
17.
D
18.
B
19.
A
20.
E
True/False Answers: 1.
FALSE
2.
TRUE
3.
FALSE
4.
FALSE
5.
TRUE
6.
TRUE
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7.
TRUE
8.
FALSE
9.
FALSE
10.
TRUE
Short Answers: 1.
mutual
2.
attachment or bonding
3.
intentionality
4.
comprehension
5.
intonation
6.
American English
7.
referencing
8.
deixis
9.
gaze
10.
conversation
Essay Answers: 1. Page Ref: 113‐116 2. Page Ref: 121‐126 3. Page Reg: 140‐142 4. Page Ref: 129‐133 5. Page Ref :139‐140
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Chapter 6 Multiple Choice Answers: 1.
C
2.
A
3.
D
4.
C
5.
A
6.
C
7.
C
8.
A
9.
B
10.
D
11.
B
12.
E
13.
C
14.
D
15.
A
16.
C
17.
C
18.
B
19.
B
20.
D
True/False Answers: 1.
TRUE
2.
FALSE
3.
FALSE
4.
TRUE
5.
TRUE
6.
TRUE
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7.
FALSE
8.
TRUE
9.
TRUE
10.
TRUE
Short Answers: 1.
hypotheses, monitors, feedback
2.
two
3.
formula
4.
bootstrapping
5.
receptive
6.
less; more
7.
language disorders
8.
expansion
9.
corrections
10.
exceptions
Essay Answers: 1. Page Ref: 153‐154 2. Page Ref: 152 3. Page Ref: 165‐168 4. Page Ref: 175‐177 5. Page Ref: 177‐183
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Chapter 7 Multiple Choice Answers: 1.
D
2.
C
3.
B
4.
D
5.
A
6.
A
7.
A
8.
B
9.
C
10.
D
11.
C
12.
B
13.
A
14.
B
15.
C
16.
C
17.
B
18.
C
19.
B
20.
E
True/False Answers: 1.
TRUE
2.
FALSE
3.
TRUE
4.
FALSE
5.
FALSE
6.
TRUE
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7.
FALSE
8.
TRUE
9.
FALSE
10.
FALSE
Short Answers: 1.
Lexicon
2.
maternal use
3.
presupposition
4.
animals, toys, food 5. 60‐65
6.
overextension
7.
relational
8.
neighborhood density
9.
phonotactic probability
10.
cluster reduction
Essay Answers: 1. Page Ref: 191‐192 2. Page Ref: 205‐206 3. Page Ref: 223 4. Page Ref: 221‐223 5. Page Ref: 216‐218
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Chapter 8 Multiple Choice Answers: 1.
B
2.
A
3.
A
4.
A
5.
B
6.
D
7.
C
8.
B
9.
C
10.
B
11.
C
12.
A
13.
D
14.
B
15.
C
16.
A
17.
D
18.
B
19.
B
20.
A
True/False Answers: 1.
FALSE
2.
FALSE
3.
TRUE
4.
TRUE
5.
TRUE
6.
TRUE
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7.
FALSE
8.
FALSE
9.
FALSE
10.
TRUE
Short Answers: 1.
talkativeness
2.
age, experience
3.
repetition
4.
narratives
5.
centering, chaining
6.
five
7.
fast mapping
8.
contrast
9.
causal
10.
objects mentioned
Essay Answers: 1. Page Ref: 229‐234 2. Page Ref: 234‐235 3. Page Ref: 244‐251 4. Page Ref: 261‐264 5. Page Ref: 265
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Chapter 9 Multiple Choice Answers: 1.
D
2.
A
3.
A
4.
E
5.
A
6.
C
7.
A
8.
A
9.
B
10.
B
11.
C
12.
A
13.
C
14.
D
15.
C
16.
A
17.
C
18.
A
19.
A
20.
B
True False Answers: 1.
FALSE
2.
FALSE
3.
TRUE
4.
FALSE
5.
TRUE
6.
TRUE
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7.
FALSE
8.
FALSE
9.
TRUE
10.
FALSE
Short Answers: 1.
mean length of utterance
2.
copula
3.
modals
4.
inverted
5.
rising intonation, what, phonetically consistent form
6.
parental usage
7.
phrase
8.
psychological
9.
and
10.
three years
Essay Answers: 1. Page Ref: 271‐272 2. Page Ref: 289‐295 3. Page Ref: 289‐298 4. Page Ref : 295 5. Page Ref : 295
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Chapter 10 Multiple Choice: 1.
E
2.
E
3.
B
4.
D
5.
C
6.
A
7.
C
8.
C
9.
B
10.
B
11.
C
12.
C
13.
B
14.
D
15.
A
16.
A
17.
B
18.
C
19.
B
20.
C
True/False Answers: 1.
TRUE
2.
FALSE
3.
TRUE
4.
FALSE
5.
TRUE
6.
FALSE
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7.
TRUE
8.
TRUE
9.
FALSE
10.
TRUE
Short Answers: 1.
semantics; pragmatics
2.
decentration
3.
story grammar
4.
implicit (explicit) goal
5.
eleven
6.
syntagmatic‐paradigmatic shift
7.
surface, deep
8.
gerunds
9.
conjuncutions
10.
place, manner
Essay Answers: 1. Page Ref: 319‐331 2. Page Ref: 252-254 3. Page Ref: 330 4. Page Ref: 354‐355 5. Page Ref: 325‐328
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Chapter 11 Multiple Choice: 1.
D
2.
A
3.
E
4.
C
5.
A
6.
A
7.
B
8.
D
9.
D
10.
D
11.
B
12.
B
13.
A
14.
D
15.
B
16.
C
17.
B
18.
A
19.
D
20.
C
True/False Answers: 1.
FALSE
2.
FALSE
3.
TRUE
4.
TRUE
5.
FALSE
6.
TRUE
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7.
FALSE
8.
FALSE
9.
TRUE
10.
TRUE
Short Answers: 1.
literacy
2.
better reading
3.
phonological awareness
4.
bottom‐up
5.
cognitive task
6.
phonics
7.
fluent
8.
cognitive resources
9.
cohesion repeatedly
10.
early adulthood
Essay Answers: 1. Page Ref: 372 2. Page Ref: 371‐372 3. Page Ref: 376 4. Page Ref : 360, 371 5. Page Ref : 372‐375
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Chapter 12 Multiple Choice Answers: 1.
D
2.
C
3.
D
4.
A
5.
B
6.
D
7.
A
8.
D
9.
B
10.
C
11.
D
12.
A
13.
C
14.
B
15.
D
16.
B
17.
A
18.
C
19.
A
20.
B
True/False Answers: 1.
FALSE
2.
FALSE
3.
TRUE
4.
TRUE
5.
TRUE
6.
TRUE
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7.
FALSE
8.
TRUE
9.
TRUE
10.
TRUE
Short Answers: 1.
flexibility
2.
jargon
3.
shading
4.
women
5.
quantitative, qualitative
6.
genderlect
7.
metalinguistic
8.
level of education
9.
coarticulation
10.
mid‐adolescence
Essay Answers: 1.
Page Ref: 386
2.
Page Ref: 388
3.
Page Ref: 386‐387
4.
Page Ref : 389
5.
Page Ref : 391‐392
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