HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1 PSYCHOLOGY 3050: Language Development Ch 11

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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1PSYCHOLOGY 3050Language
Development (Ch 11)

• Dr. Jamie Drover
• SN-3094, 737-8383
• e-mail jrdrover_at_mun.ca
• Winter Semester 2009

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Language Development

• Universally, children acquire language with no
  formal instruction.
• Language is strongly influenced by human
  biological inheritance and the uniqueness of
  ones environment.

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Early Language Development

• Earliest vocalizations are cries, but they coo
  and babble between 2 and 4 months of age.
• Earliest words usually refer to family members.
• At 18 to 24 months, children know a few dozen
  words and put the into short sentences.
• These words are important to them
• Actions, possession, location, recurrence,
  naming, and non-existence.

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Early Language Development

• Words can be accompanied with gestures and
  intonations.
• By the time they speak their first words, they
  probably understand 100.
• Productive Language language children can
  produce.
• Receptive Language language children can
  understand.
• Children understand more than they can produce.
• See Hirsch-Pasek Golinkoff (1991) on p 301.

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Early Language Development

• Children move beyond two word phrases by omitting
  small words.
• Telegraphic speech
• From 2 5, speech becomes adult-like.

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Phonological Development

• Phonology The sounds of language.
• Age-related changes in the tongue, mouth, and
  position of the larynx allow for phonological
  development.
• See Table 11.1
• Cooing and laughing start at 2-4 months and
  increase until one-word utterances begin.
• Babbling sounds change with age and may be based
  on the language they hear.

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Phonological Development

• May be a way to socially relate with family
  members before they can appreciate language.
• The intonation of babbling approximates the
  conventions of speech
• Take turns, match speakers tone of voice, pause
  between syllables, use inflections.
• Holowka and Petitto (2002) investigated the
  speech-like nature of babbling (p 302).

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Phonological Development

• If babbling is linguistic in nature, left
  hemispheric specialization should be reflected by
  right mouth asymmetry while babbling.
• If it is motoric, there should be equal mouth
  opening.
• Babies were videotaped while babbling between the
  ages of 5 and 12 months.
• Infants showed right mout asymmetry.
• It is linguistic in nature.

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Morphological Development

• Morphology the structure of words.
• Morpheme the smallest unit of meaning in a
  language.
• Free morpheme can stand alone.
• Bound morphemes can not stand alone.
• There may be a common order of morpheme
  development (see Table 11-2, p. 304).

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Morphological Development

• Children learn word endings but show
  overregulation.
• The apply rules for regular words to irregular
  words.
• Eg. Drinked, runned, feets, mices.

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Syntactic Development

• Syntax rules for how words are combined into
  sentences.
• By understanding sentences, we can change
  sentences into negatives, questions, or into the
  passive form.
• We may know these rules implicitly.
• All languages have rules of syntax.

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Syntactic Development

• Negatives
• During toddlerhood, children add n words to the
  beginning or ending of positive sentences.
• No drink milkNot bath MommyDrink milk no
• Later they attach the negative term to the verb.
• I no do itShe no go
• Questions
• Children start with wh questions at age 3.

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Syntactic Development

• They later show increasing ability to handle wh
  questions.
• Relating Events in Sequence
• At age 3 children can connect two ideas by using
  the word and.
• By school age, the grammatical structure of
  children is very similar to that of adults.
• Many propose that the development of syntax is
  innate.

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Last Class

• Misleading Questions
• Childrens memory is altered (Goodman
  Clarke-Stewart, 1991).
• Fuzzy Trace Theory
• Source Monitoring
• False Memory Creation (Ceci, 1994)
• Early language development
• Speak at 10-12 months
• Receptive language gt Productive language
• Phonological Development
• Babbling is linguistic in nature (Howlowka
  Petitto, 2002)
• Morphological Development
• May be a common pattern (Brown, 1973)

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Last Class

• Syntactic Development
• Negatives
• Questions

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Semantic Development

• Semantics meaning, the meaning of language and
  terms.
• Includes concepts as well as words.
• The Word Spurt
• After children start speaking, they learn words
  at a rate of 8-11 per month.
• At 18 months, they show a spurt where they start
  to learn 22-37 words per months.

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Semantic Development

• Most of these words are nouns.
• From 12 to 17 months, children show increases in
  receptive vocabulary which probably precedes the
  word spurt.
• Children may show fast mapping.
• Learn new words based on very little input.

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Semantic Development

• Mervis and Bertrand (1994) showed 16- to
  20-month-olds sets of objects, one of which was
  unfamiliar.
• They were asked to pick out items and a nonsense
  word was used for the unfamiliar item.
• Children with large vocabularies learned the new
  words with only a few exposures.
• The other children later went through a word
  spurt and could show fast mapping.

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Semantic Development

• Overextensions and Underextensions
• Children make error when using language.
• Overextensions stretching a familiar word beyond
  its correct meaning.
• Overextension may prompt adults to provide
  corrections.
• Underextensions restricting a the use of a term.

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Semantic Development

• The Development of Word Meanings
• Feature List Models language concepts (words)
  can be defined by lists of characteristics or
  features.
• Children must learn these features.
• Children must pick up and organize features.
• See Schwanenflugel et al. (1986) p 309-310.
• Sometimes young children place too much emphasis
  on characteristic features and not enough on
  defining features (see Keil Batterman, 1984 p
  310).

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Semantic Development

• The Development of Natural Language Categories
• Meaningful objects can be referred to as
  belonging to one or more categories.
• Natural language categories categorical terms
  that a language uses to describe and group a
  large number of words and concepts.
• Children have to learn what characteristics an
  object must have to be in a category.

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Semantic Development

• 2- and 3-year-olds have some basic understanding
  of some categories.
• Young children have basic level categories that
  includes objects with similar configurations.
• Rosch et al. (1976) showed that 3-year-olds can
  categorize sets of objects at a basic level, but
  few could organize items according to more
  superordinate categories.
• See pp 310-311.

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Semantic Development

• Children appear to be aware of basic-level
  categories even before that have language for the
  concepts.
• See Gopnik and Meltzoff (1992) p. 311.
• According to Anglin (1977), children form
  category prototypes.
• They abstract the features possessed by most
  category members and ignore more unusual
  features.
• They develop from experience with typical
  category members

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Semantic Development

• Category typicality is important.
• Some members are more representative of a
  category than others.
• When children are asked to select pictures or
  words from a specific category, they choose
  members that adults judge to be typical of the
  category.
• The dont include members that adults consider
  less typical (Anglin, 1977).

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Semantic Development

• Children are sensitive to differences in category
  typicality at a very young age.
• Bauer et al. (1995) found that 13-month-olds will
  more likely group sets of prototypical items
  together than items consisting of less typical
  members.
• 12-month-olds look at typical members, but not
  atypical members when given a category name.
• Children include fewer items as appropriate
  members than adults.

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Pragmatics

• Knowledge of how language can be used and
  adjusted to fit different circumstances.
• Children have to learn that messages need the
  right quantity of information, or be at the
  proper level of description.
• Children must also learn that messages should be
  relevant.
• They must also learn to take turns during
  conversations.

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Pragmatics

• Toddlers learn to watch their listeners to make
  sure theyre understood.
• They can clarify their speech if theyre not
  understood.
• The know to talk louder at long distances.
• Toddlers provide non-verbal and verbal cues so
  the speaker knows the message is understood.
• They also understand rhetorical questions.

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Communication and Egocentrism

• Young childrens speech is egocentric and
  presocial.
• They try to communicate socially, but their
  egocentric view often prevents the message from
  getting across.
• Theyre often unaware that theyre not being
  comprehended.
• Pre-schoolers often talk with each other, but not
  to each other.