Embedded Files
First Language Acquisition: The process through which infants and young children learn their native language, typically occurring rapidly and without formal instruction.
Innate Predisposition: The inherent ability or capacity in human infants to acquire language, suggesting that language learning is a natural instinct.
Self-expression and Communication: The ability to convey thoughts, desires, and emotions through language, which develops significantly in children before formal education begins.
ACQUISITION
ACQUISITION
Language Acquisition: The process through which individuals, particularly children, learn to speak and understand a language. This involves exposure to language and interaction with other language users.
Cultural Transmission: The process of learning language through the cultural and language-using environment rather than through genetic inheritance.
Interaction: Communication with other language users, which is essential for learning a language.
Phonetic Capability: The physical ability of a child to produce sound signals necessary for speech, which is contingent on their hearing ability.
American Sign Language (ASL): A visual language used by the deaf community, which involves hand signs, facial expressions, and gestures.
INPUT
Caregiver Speech (Motherese/Child-directed speech): A simplified and exaggerated style of speech used by adults when interacting with infants and young children.
Input: The language samples provided by older children and adults, which play a crucial role in the infant's language development.
CAREGIVER SPEECH
Conversational Structure: The way in which dialogue is organized between participants, even in the presence of non-verbal cues from young children.
Interactive Role: The engagement and participation of children in conversations, highlighting their contributions through actions and vocalizations.
Features of caregiver speech
-frequent questions
-exaggerated intonation
-extra loudness
-shower tempo
-longer pauses
-treating actions and vocalizations as conversational turns
-baby talk
-simple sentence structures
-a lot of repetition
Four typical features of caregiver speech :
-Simplified sentences: Short, simple sentences like "Look!" make language easier for the child to understand.
-Repetition and paraphrasing: Caregivers frequently repeat and rephrase words to reinforce meaning.
-Exaggerated intonation: Caregivers use a lively tone to highlight important words and engage the child.
-Interactive turn-taking: Caregivers treat the child’s sounds and gestures as conversational turns, encouraging interaction.
E.g.,
M O T H E R : Look!
C H I L D : (touches pictures)
M O T H E R : What are those?
C H I L D : (vocalizes a babble string and smiles)
M O T H E R : Yes, there are rabbits.
C H I L D : (vocalizes, smiles, looks up at mother)
M O T H E R : (laughs) Yes, rabbit.
C H I L D : (vocalizes, smiles)
M O T H E R : Yes. (laughs)
THE ACQUISITION SCHEDULE
THE ACQUISITION SCHEDULE
Language Development: The process through which children acquire the ability to understand and use language, typically occurring in a predictable timeline.
Biologically Determined Development: Growth patterns and skill acquisition governed by biological and neurological maturation processes.
Linguistic Input: The verbal stimuli that children are exposed to, which they analyze and process to develop language skills.
Sucking Behavior: A natural reflex in infants used to measure their attention and response to auditory stimuli, indicating their interest in sound patterns.
COOING (0-5 months)
Cooing: The earliest form of speech-like sounds produced by infants, characterized by vowel-like sequences.
Vowel-like Sounds: Sounds that resemble vowels, particularly those that are high in pitch, such as [i] and [u].
Velar Consonants: Consonant sounds produced with the back of the tongue against the soft palate, represented by [k] and [ɡ].
Speech Perception: The ability to hear and differentiate between various speech sounds, including vowels and syllable formations.
For example: A 4-month-old baby makes “ooo” and “aaa” sounds, especially when seeing their parent’s face. They smile and coo in response to their parent’s expressions.
BABBLING (6-10 months)
Babbling: The production of various vowel and consonant sounds by infants, typically beginning around six to eight months. This includes the repetition of sounds (e.g., "ba-ba-ba").
Intonation Patterns: The variation in pitch and tone that can be discerned in vocalizations, developing around nine to ten months, helping make speech sound more communicative.
Pre-Language: The stage in which a child uses vocalizations to express emotions or emphasis before the formation of structured language.
Linguistic Variation: The acknowledgment that individual children may develop language skills at different ages, emphasizing the variability in language development.
For example: An 8-month-old sits up and starts babbling sounds like “ba-ba-ba” and “da-da-da.” They play with their sounds, often giggling as they vary the combinations, like “ma-ma-ma.”
THE ONE-WORD STAGE (12-18 months)
One-word stage: A developmental phase in children (between 12-18 months) characterized by the production of single recognizable utterances.
Holophrastic speech: A single word that conveys a complete idea or function as a phrase/sentence, used to express various meanings or concepts.
Single-unit utterance: An expression consisting of a single term, often used to refer to specific objects or entities but can represent broader meanings.
For example: A 15-month-old points at their bottle and says, “milk.” They also say “dog” when they see the family pet, using single words to label things around them.
THE TWO-WORD STAGE (18-24 months)
Two-word Stage: A developmental phase in early childhood where children begin combining two distinct words to form utterances.
Vocabulary: The range of words a child understands and uses; increases significantly by age two.
Functional Consequences: The real-world effects and interactions that result from the child’s utterances, which help confirm their communicative value.
For example: A 20-month-old sees their favorite toy and says, “big truck,” or holds their cup up and says, “more juice.” The parent interprets “big truck” as admiration and “more juice” as a request, responding appropriately.
TELEGRAPHIC SPEECH (2-2.5 months)
Multiple-word speech: Refers to the stage where children start producing utterances consisting of multiple words, characterized by increased variation in word forms rather than just word count.
Telegraphic speech: A developmental stage in young children’s speech characterized by short phrases or sentences that contain only essential words (lexical morphemes), omitting smaller grammatical elements.
Inflections: Variations in word forms that indicate grammatical features, such as -ing for ongoing actions.
Vocabulary growth: The rapid increase in the number of words a child can understand and use as they develop.
For example: A 2.5-year-old says, “mommy come here” when wanting attention or “me want cookie” to request a snack. They start using simple grammar forms and can combine multiple words in the correct order, although still omitting smaller words like “a” or “is.”
THE ACQUISITION PROCESS
THE ACQUISITION PROCESS
Linguistic repertoire: The set of language skills and vocabulary that a child possesses.
Instruction: Formal teaching or guidance on how to use language.
Imitation: The process through which children replicate words or phrases they hear from adults.
Active construction: The idea that children learn language by creating their own understanding and usage rather than passively receiving information.
Example : A child named Noah invents the verb "to Woodstock," demonstrating their ability to generate new language based on context.
LEARNING THROUGH IMITATION?
Speech Production: The process by which individuals produce spoken language. In this context, it refers to how young children articulate their thoughts and understandings.
Sentence Structures: The grammatical arrangements of words in sentences. The study indicates that children do not replicate these structures accurately, even when they can repeat words or phrases.
Examples:
"The dogs are hungry" → "dog hungry."
"The owl who eats candy runs fast" → "owl eat a candy and he run fast."
LEARNING THROUGH CORRECTION?
Corrections: Refers to attempts by adults to correct children's speech, particularly in grammar and word usage.
Sound and Word Combinations: The ways in which children create and experiment with sounds and phrases, contributing to their language development.
Telegraphic Stage: A phase in child language development characterized by the use of short, simple phrases that typically convey essential meaning, often leaving out less critical words.
DEVELOPING MORPHOLOGY
DEVELOPING MORPHOLOGY
Overgeneralization: Child applies a grammatical rule too broadly, leading to incorrect forms (e.g., “foots” instead of “feet”).
Sequence of Morphological Development:
-ing (e.g., "cat sitting")
Prepositions in/on (interchangeable order)
Plural -s (e.g., "cats"), with overgeneralization like "foots"
Irregular past tense (e.g., "went"), sometimes overgeneralized ("wented")
Possessive -’s (e.g., "Karen’s bed")
Verb "to be" (is/are)
Articles a/the
Past tense -ed (e.g., "walked")
Present tense -s (e.g., "comes")
DEVELOPING SYNTAX
DEVELOPING SYNTAX
Stages of Development: Refers to the identifiable phases children go through in acquiring language skills, particularly in forming questions and using negatives.
Questions and Negatives: Elements of speech where questions inquire information and negatives express denial or the absence of something.
FORMING QUESTIONS
Wh-forms: Question words such as "Who," "What," "Where," "When," "Why," and "How" used to form questions.
Rising Intonation: A speech pattern where the pitch of the voice rises at the end of a statement or question, often indicating a question in children’s speech.
Inversion: The change in the position of the auxiliary verb and the subject in a question, e.g., changing "I can have" to "Can I have."
Stage 1 (18-26 months)
Method: Simple addition of wh-forms or rising intonation.
Examples:
“Where mommy?”
“Go park?”
Stage 2 (22-30 months)
Method: More complex expressions with continued rising intonation; introduction of more wh-forms (What, Why).
Examples:
“You want play?”
“What that noise?”
Stage 3 (24-40 months)
Method: Use of inversion for auxiliary verbs; still some non-adult forms present.
Examples:
“Can I go outside?”
“Why is the sky blue?” (non-adult form: “Why dog can’t jump?”)
FORMING NEGATIVES
Negatives: Refers to words that negate the meaning of a sentence, commonly including "no," "not," "don’t," and "can’t."
Stage 1: Initial phase of negative usage where children place "No" or "Not" at the beginning of utterances.
Stage 2: The phase where children use “don’t” and “can’t” with increasingly more complex sentence structures, often attaching negatives before verbs.
Stage 3: Advanced phase where children incorporate other auxiliary verbs (e.g., “didn’t,” “won’t”) in their negative constructions, often moving away from Stage 1 structures.
Non-adult forms: These are constructions that children create that may not conform to standard adult grammatical forms.
Stage 1 (18-26 months)
Method: Use of "No" or "Not" at the beginning of the sentence; can attach to nouns and verbs.
Examples:
“No juice”
“Not a dog”
Stage 2 (22-30 months)
Method: Placement of negatives (no, not) in front of verbs; introduction of "don’t" and "can’t."
Examples:
“He no hit me”
“That not funny
Stage 3 (24-40 months)
Method: Incorporation of additional auxiliary forms (didn’t, won’t) while earlier forms may persist.
Examples:
“She didn’t saw it”
“I won’t eat that” (non-adult form: “This not mine”)
DEVELOPING SEMANTICS
DEVELOPING SEMANTICS
Holophrastic Stage: The early stage of language development in children where they use single words to express whole ideas or meanings.
Overextension: A phenomenon where children apply a word too broadly, using it to refer to a variety of unrelated objects based on perceived similarities.
Example: A child might call everything shiny "bow-wow" because it has something in common with a dog (maybe shiny eyes or fur).
LATER DEVELOPMENTS
Antonymous Relations: The relationship between words that have opposite meanings (e.g., "more" vs. "less").
Complex Structures: Advanced grammatical forms and extended discourse, typically developed later in childhood.
STUDY QUESTIONS
STUDY QUESTIONS
1 Can you describe four typical features of caregiver speech?
- **Simplified vocabulary and grammar**: Caregivers often use short, simple sentences with basic vocabulary.
- **Higher pitch and exaggerated intonation**: Caregivers use a higher pitch and more expressive intonation to capture the infant’s attention.
- **Repetition**: Words and phrases are frequently repeated to reinforce understanding.
- **Clear articulation and slower speech**: Speech is slower, with clear pronunciation, to make it easier for infants to process.
2 At what age is an infant capable of distinguishing between [ba] and [pa]?
- Infants can typically distinguish between sounds like [ba] and [pa] by around **1 month of age**.
3 Why are some of the infant’s first sounds described as “cooing”?
- Infants’ early sounds are called "cooing" because they involve vowel-like sounds that are soft and repetitive, often produced in a relaxed state and reflecting comfort or contentment.
4 During which period do children produce holophrastic speech?
- Holophrastic speech, where a single word conveys an entire phrase or sentence, typically occurs around **12 to 18 months** of age.
5 During which stage do children typically first produce syllable sequences similar to mama and dada and how old are they?
- This typically happens during the **babbling stage**, around **6 to 9 months** of age, when infants produce repeated syllable sequences.
6 At about what age do children typically begin producing varied syllable combinations such as ma-da-ga-ba?
- Around **8 to 10 months**, infants start producing varied syllable combinations in what’s often called “variegated babbling.”
7 Which of these expressions is likely to be used before the others?
mommy books or mommy’s book or mommy reading or mommy goed
- **"Mommy reading"** is likely to be used before the others, as it represents a simple verb-object combination that appears earlier than possessive constructions or complex phrases.
8 Which of these expressions is likely to be used before the others?
What book name? or How that opened? or Where kitty go?
- **"Where kitty go?"** is likely to come first, as children tend to ask questions about location and movement early on.
9 Which of these two utterances was produced by the older child and why?
(a) I not hurt him
(b) No the sun shining
- **(a) "I not hurt him"** is likely produced by the older child because it demonstrates an emerging understanding of sentence structure and the use of "I," which indicates a more advanced development stage than the simpler negation in (b).
10 What is the term used to describe the process involved when a child uses one word like ball to refer to an apple, an egg, a grape and a ball?
- The process of using a word like "ball" to refer to various round objects is known as **overextension**.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse