Language development€¦ · word production •Some sounds are harder to pronounce than other...
Transcript of Language development€¦ · word production •Some sounds are harder to pronounce than other...
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Language development
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Child language studies•Herodotus is a Greek historian called the father of history,
lived around 484 – 425 BCE
•In his book History, he relates the story of Psammetichus-
an ancient Egyptian king
•The king wanted to prove that the Egyptians were the
original human race and asked a shepherd to raise two
children, carrying for their needs but not to speak to them.
The king believed that the children will develop the language
of the oldest group of humans all by themselves
•This is a version of an innatist theory of language
development: babies are born with a specific language wired
in their brains
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Cont'
•The first word pronounced by the children was “becos”
•Because the word was not known in their language, the king
found out that becos meant bread in Phrygian language and
accepted the second place after Phrygians.
•The systematic study of children’s language is relatively new to
our time; Noam Chomsky (1957)- provided new models of
language to be explored by researchers; B.F. Skinner ( 1957)
inspired investigators to test learning theory;1980-1990 studies
include phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics;
cross-cultural language studies ( helpful in helping adopted
children)
•Research can be cross-sectional or longitudinal in design,
observational and/or experimental; techniques:imitation,
elicitation, interview, high amplitude sucking
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Biological bases for language
•Language is unique to humans and very similar in all
humans ( Lenneberg, 1976; Paabo, 2003)
•Researchers concluded that language is species specific
and species uniform
•Animals posses communication systems and are able to
communicate to some levels but very limited ( bees,
chimpanzees, cats, dogs, parrots, etc)
•Human language enables its users to communicate and to
describe experiences using past, present and future tense
and to imagine..
•Communication systems studied in animals do not meet
these criteria of language
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Language and the brain
•Infants show interest in human faces and there is evidence that
the infant brain contains neurons that are specialized in identifying
human faces and recognizing emotions in faces ( Locke, 1993)
•Paabo discovered recently (2003) that gene FOXP2 is related to
language
•Language areas in the brain: Broca's area is involved in the
programming of speech for production; Wernicke's area is
involved in the comprehension of language we hear. In order to
repeat a word we hear, we process it first in Wernicke's area then
a representation of it is sent via the Arcuate fasciculus to Broca's
area where its spoken form is organized
•Humans poses specialized structures in the brain and in the
neurological system that are language specific
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The development of Language
•Research shows that newborns prefer to listen the language
they heard while in utero
•During the first months infants acquire the communicative
skills necessary to develop language later on
•It starts socially: they show attention to emotional speakers,
gaze into the eyes of parents, caregiver, take turn in
conversation, respond to social motivation, etc
•Physiologically, infants are able to process incoming speech
signals and to make fine distinctions
•Around 6 months, babies start to categorize the sounds of
their spoken/exposure language/s
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The prelinguistic period
There are two categories:
•Reflexive vocalization- cries, coughs, involuntary sounds,
burping, sneezing, vowel-like sounds may occur
•Nonreflexive vocalization- cooing, babbling- nonautomatic
responses, productions, containing phonetic features found
in adult languages.
Engage infants and toddlers in vocal play, use facial
gestures, puppets, felt board, concrete materials
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Cont'•By 11 months, most babies understand 50 + words
•They point to the right person when are asked
•Around the time infants start walking they start pronouncing
first words
•This word production happens in all cultures and languages
around the world
•Infants begin to babble, playing with sounds-this is
considered by researchers early speech
•Language development seems to have universal
characteristics
•Infants start with concrete words, simple in pronunciation,
use props (mental images, focal colours- blue and red)
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Cont'
•Some constraints consist in child's comprehension and
word production
•Some sounds are harder to pronounce than other
•Combinations of consonants may be problematic to
pronounce for some infants, even preschoolers
•In terms of semantic development, there are limits;their
vocabulary reflects their interests, names of objects they
use, meaningful people in their life, etc
•Later on in preschool years children gain metalinguistic
awareness.
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Emergence in responses to sound and speech in the
first year
•Newborn--> alerted by loud noises; turns head to look in the
direction of sound; is calmed by a familiar voice; prefers
familiar voice over a stranger's; discriminates many of the
sounds used in speech
•1-2 months → smiles when spoken to
•3-7 months → responds differently to different intonations
•8-12 months → responds to name, “no”; recognizes games
and brings objects; follows routine; recognizes some words
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Intentional communication
This criteria often applies:
•The child makes eye contact with the partner while
gesturing, vocalizing
•Consistent and ritualized gestures and vocalization
•Waiting for a response
•Persisting if not understood
this criteria will emerge in children between 8-10 months
( Carpenter, Nagell, Tomasello, 1998; Lagerstee & Barillas,
2003)
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Imperative communication
•Rejection when the child pushes away a toy meaning” I
want something else, I am done!”
•Request- “ I need help!” in acquiring a goal
→ request for social interaction;
→ request for an object;
→ request for action
(Wetherby, Cain, Yonclas, &Walker, 1988)
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Declarative communicative Function
•Gestures and vocalization are used to capture joint attention
the baby points not to obtain the object but to direct the
partner's attention to that object
•Pointing is important when reading to infants and toddlers,
this is related to beginning to understand words ( Butterworth
& Morissette, 1996)
•Vocalization is view as the link between prelinguistic
communication and speech; consistent sound patterns in
vocalization = protowords ( “bubu” used for bottle)
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Baby talk
Class discussion
•What is your view in regards to baby talk?
•What strategies should we use?
•How adult speech influences children's semantic
development?
•Why is the social cognitive development important for
language development?
•Research brings into attention depression and the
impact it has on speech- please discuss!
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Speech
•Conversation “Talk to me!”--> short, simple, concrete,
meaningful, interactive, adult to child speech very important,
going to influence language development
•Attention “ Look at me!” → joint attention is based on
responsive, positive, affectionate relationship between the
infant and caregiver
•Child initiated interactions are very important, follow their
direction and cues to enrich their experience, label for them,
give them enough time to respond, model pronunciation in a
natural way, avoid correction in special with toddlers. WHY?
•Make sure you embrace a responsive, sensitive
interactional style
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Early words 1-20 months
•Sound effects: baa, moo, ouch, meow, yum
•Food and drink: apple, banana, milk, juice, cracker, water
•Animals: bear, bunny, dog, cat, bird, cow, pig, fish, puppy
•Body parts and clothing: diaper, ear, eye, foot, hair, hat,
mouth, nose, toe, tooth, shoe
•House and outdoors: blanket, chair, cup, door, flower, keys,
outside, spoon, tree, tv
•People: baby, daddy, mommy, gramma, grampa, names
•Toys: ball, baloon, bike, boat, book, bubbles, plane, truck,
toy
•Actions: down, eat, go, sit, up
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•Games and routines: bath, bye, hi, night-night, no,
peekaboo, please, shhh, thank you, yes
•Adjectives and descriptives:all gone, cold, dirty, hot
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•By 3 years, most children can produce all the vowel sounds
and nearly all the consonant sounds but may not be 100%
accurate but correct at least in a few words
•Stress out the importance of parental role in language
development; reading for pleasure, make it interactive, helps
with attention span and focus
•Prepare workshops for parents
•Ideas for workshops?