1. Chapter 10 Development of Language and Communication Skills

2. FIVE COMPONENTS OF LANGUAGE
Phonology – knowledge of language’s sound system (phonetics)
Morphology – rules specifying how words are formed from sounds
Semantics – meanings expressed in words
Free morphemes – stand alone words
Bound morphemes – cannot stand alone, change meaning of free morphemes when added

3. FIVE COMPONENTS OF LANGUAGE
Syntax – rules specifying how words are combined to produce sentences
Pragmatics – principles governing how language is used in different social situations
Also requires interpretation of nonverbal signals

4. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
The Learning (Empiricist) Perspective
Imitation, reinforcement and correction are responsible for learning language
Evaluation of Learning Perspective
Imitation and reinforcement are important
Syntax (grammatical correctness) not reinforced

5. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
The Nativist Perspective
Humans are biologically programmed to acquire language
Language acquisition device – activated by verbal input (Chomsky)
Universal grammar – common set of rules
Language-Making Capacity (Slobin)

6. Figure 10.1 A model of language acquisition proposed by nativists.

7. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Support for the Nativist Perspective
Presence of linguistic universals
Language is species specific
Brain Specialization and Language
Broca’s area – speech production
Wernicke’s area – speech comprehension
Sensitive-Period Hypothesis – language most easily acquired - birth to puberty

8. Figure 10.2 As shown here, there is a clear relationship between the age at which immigrants arrived in the United States and their eventual adult performance in English grammar. Those who arrived early in childhood end up performing like native speakers of English, whereas those who arrived as teenagers or adults perform much more poorly.

9. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Problems with the Nativist Approach
Other species show auditory discrimination early in life
Doesn’t explain language development
Overlooked the role of the environment

10. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
The Interactionist Perspective
Biological and Cognitive Contributors
Biologically prepared to acquire language
Gradually maturing nervous system, develop similar ideas at same age
Biological maturation affects cognitive development, affecting language

11. Figure 10.3 Grammatical complexity increases as a function of the size of children’s productive vocabulary.

12. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Environmental Supports
Language is a means of communicating
Lessons from Joint Activities
Conversations require taking turns
Lessons from Child-Directed Speech
Short, simple sentences (motherese)
Becomes more complex with language development

13. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Environmental Supports, continued
Lessons from Negative Evidence
Respond to ungrammatical speech
Expansion – corrected and enriched version
Recast – new grammatical forms
Importance of Conversation
Must be involved in using language, exposure to speech is not sufficient

14. Figure 10.4 An overview of the interactionist perspective on language development.

15. BEFORE LANGUAGE: THE PRELINGUSITC PERIOD
Early Reactions to Speech
3 days old, prefer mother’s voice
Can distinguish phonemes adults cannot
The Importance of Intonational Cues
Sensitive to cues from birth
7 months sensitive to phrase units

16. BEFORE LANGUAGE: THE PRELINGUSITC PERIOD
Producing Sounds: Prelinguistic Vocalizations
2 months – cooing (vowel sounds)
4-6 months – babbling (vowel + consonant)
10-12 months – vocables – reserving sounds for particular situations

17. BEFORE LANGUAGE: THE PRELINGUSITC PERIOD
What Do Prelinguistic Infants Know about Language and Communication?
7-8 months, vocal turn taking
Gestures and Nonverbal Communication
8-10 months
Declarative – directing attention
Imperative – alter others’ behavior

18. BEFORE LANGUAGE: THE PRELINGUSITC PERIOD
Do Preverbal Infants Understand the Meaning of Words?
12-13 months – yes
Receptive language (understanding) develops earlier than productive language (expression)

19. ONE WORD AT A TIME: THE HOLOPHRASE PERIOD
Holophrase – one word “sentences”
Early Semantics: Building a Vocabulary
Vocabulary grows one word at a time
Naming explosion – months
Talk most about manipulable objects
Multimodel motherese – exaggerated sentences by an adult accompanied by an action explaining the words

20. Table 10.1 Types of Words Used by Children with Productive Vocabularies of 50 Words. SOURCE: Adapted from Nelson, 1973.

21. ONE WORD AT A TIME: THE HOLOPHRASE PERIOD
Individual and Cultural Variations
Referential style – word refer to people or objects (Western cultures)
Expressive style – personal/social words (Eastern cultures)
Birth order influences language style

22. ONE WORD AT A TIME: THE HOLOPHRASE PERIOD
Attaching Meaning to Words
Fast-mapping – quickly acquiring a word after hearing it applied a few times
Good at months, better for understanding, difficult retrieving words from memory

23. ONE WORD AT A TIME: THE HOLOPHRASE PERIOD
Common Errors in Word Use
Overextension – overgeneralization
Underextension – using word for small range of objects
Strategies for Inferring Word Meanings
Use of social and contextual cues
Processing constraints
Object scope; Mutual exclusivity; lexical constraint

24. Table 10.2 Some Processing Strategies, or Constraints, That Guide Young Children’s Inferences about the Meaning of New Words.

25. ONE WORD AT A TIME: THE HOLOPHRASE PERIOD
Syntactical Clues to Word Meaning
Syntactical bootstrapping – learning meaning from sentence structure
Noun – object
Adjective – characteristic of object
Causation – action word

26. THE TELEGRAHPIC PERIOD: FROM HOLOPHRASES TO SIMPLE SENTENCES
Telegraphic speech – months
Simple sentences, containing only critical words (no grammatical markers)
More common in languages where word order is more important than grammatical markers
A Semantic Analysis of Telegraphic Speech

27. Table 10.3 Similarities in Children’s Spontaneous Two-Word Sentences in Four Languages. SOURCE: Adapted from Slobin, 1979.

28. THE TELEGRAHPIC PERIOD: FROM HOLOPHRASES TO SIMPLE SENTENCES
A Semantic Analysis of Telegraphic Speech
Follows some grammatical rules
Context is also vital for understanding meaning
The Pragmatics of Early Speech
2 year olds – good at vocal turn-taking
Prefer to talk about unshared information
Monitor responses to clarify meaning
Understanding need to be polite

29. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL PERIOD
Preschool period (2 ½-5) sentences become complex and adultlike
Grammatical Development
Development of Grammatical Morphemes
Grammatical morphemes – modifiers give more precise meaning to sentences
‘s’ for plurality; ‘ed’ for past tense
‘ing’ for present progressive

30. Table 10.4 Samples of One Boy’s Speech at Three Ages.

31. Table 10.5 Order of Acquisition of English Grammatical Morphemes.

32. Figure 10.5 A linguistic puzzle used to determine young children’s understanding of the rule for forming plurals in English.

33. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL PERIOD
Grammatical Morphemes - continued
Acquired in a specific order
Overregularization – overextend new grammatical morphemes
Relatively rare

34. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL PERIOD
Mastering Transformational Rules
Transformation grammar – rules for creating variations of declarative sentences
Asking questions
Yes/no – rising intonation
Wh- questions (who, what, where, when, why)
Moving auxiliary verb

35. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL PERIOD
Producing Negative Sentences
Negative before sentence
Move negative inside sentence
Combine negative with auxiliary verb
Producing Complex Sentences
Age 3 - clauses, conjunctions first, embedded sentences next
5-6 good grammar

36. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL PERIOD
Semantic Development
2-5 understand and express relational contrasts
Big/little; tall/short; in/on; here/there
Frequently misinterpret passives

37. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL PERIOD
Development of Pragmatics and Communication Skills
3 year olds – illocutionary intent – real meaning may be different than literal meaning of words
3-5 – must tailor messages to communicate effectively

38. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL PERIOD
Referential Communication
Ability to detect ambiguities in others’ speech and ask for clarification
Preschool – fail to detect linguistic ambiguities
Generally successfully guess
Assume own uninformative sentences are clear
Better in natural environment than lab

39. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING MIDDLE CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE
Later Syntactical Development
Middle childhood – syntactical refinement
Subtle rules, complex structures
Semantic and Metalinguistic Awareness
Rapid vocabulary growth –
Morphological knowledge – meaning of morphemes to determine new words
Add abstract words
9 to 11 – recognize and make inferences

40. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL PERIOD
Metalinguistic awareness
Thinking about language and comment on properties
Grammatical awareness
Phonological awareness – linked to reading achievement

41. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL PERIOD
Further Development of Communication Skills
Dramatic improvement in referential communication skills by 6 or 7
Less egocentric, more role-taking
years old – more clarification for ambiguous information

42. Table 10.6 Typical Idiosyncratic Descriptions Offered by Preschool Children When Talking about Unfamiliar Graphic Designs in the Krauss and Glucksberg Communication Game.

43. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL PERIOD
What Role Do Siblings Play in the Growth of Communication Skills?
Promotes effective communication
Siblings less likely to adjust speech, but then more likely to monitor and fix ambiguous messages
Less likely to interpret ambiguous message from younger sibling – forcing them to adjust

44. Table 10.7 Important Milestones in Language Development.

45. Bilingualism: Challenges and Consequences of Learning Two Languages
Exposure to 2 languages prior to age 3, proficient in both
Preschool children, often learn second language to proficiency in 1 year
Cognitive advantages
Score higher on IQ tests, metalinguistic awareness, better selective attention

46. Bilingualism: Challenges and Consequences of Learning Two Languages
English-only instruction
Causes LEP children to struggle academically
Do not acquire sufficient level of skill in English

47. Bilingualism: Challenges and Consequences of Learning Two Languages
Two-way bilingual education
Half day in English, half in second language
Beneficial for both students with limited English proficiency and students fluent in English