WK3 Language Development

• What is the main focus of Week 3 in PS218?

  Language development
• What should students be able to describe by the end of the week?

  Features and challenges of language development
• What are the main stages of language development?

  What a child acquires, when, and how
• What is a key question regarding language development?

  Role of nature and nurture
• What are the parts of the lecture structure for language acquisition?

  1. What does language acquisition involve?
  2. Theories of language development
  3. Sounds
  4. Words, vocabulary, and semantics
  5. Sentences, syntax, and morphology
  6. Communicating and pragmatics
• What is language acquisition?

  Process of comprehending and producing language
• What are sounds and word-forms in language?

  They are symbolic systems
• What distinguishes conventional symbols from arbitrary symbols?

  Conventional symbols have shared meanings
• What is sound symbolism?

  Non-arbitrary link between sound and meaning
• How do children learn language rules?

  By learning the rules of their language
• What is the relationship between comprehension and production in children?

  Production lags behind comprehension
• What are the components of language?

  Phonology, lexicon, semantics, morphology, syntax, pragmatics
• What is the nature vs nurture debate in language development?

  • How much language ability is innate?
  • How much is learned through experience?
• What is Chomsky's Language Acquisition Device (LAD)?

  Innate knowledge of language, Universal Grammar
• What does Chomsky argue about the speed of language acquisition?

  Children acquire language quickly and uniformly
• What is the poverty of the stimulus argument?

  Input language is often ungrammatical
• What are the two main approaches to experience-based language development?

  1. Interaction-based learning
  2. Connectionist/statistical-based learning
• What is infant-directed speech also known as?

  Motherese or child-directed speech
• What are characteristics of infant-directed speech?

  Exaggerated intonation, slower production
• How do parents provide indirect feedback to correct errors?

  Through recasting and implicit correction
• What is categorical perception in infants?

  Infants perceive sounds categorically
• What did Eimas et al. (1971) test regarding infants?

  Discrimination of sounds across phoneme boundaries
• What does the sucking rate increase indicate in Eimas et al.'s study?

  Infants perceived sounds categorically
• At what ages did Eimas et al. test categorical perception?

  1 and 4 months old
• What is the significance of categorical perception in infants?

  • Occurs very early in development
  • Suggests innate mechanisms for sound perception
• What is the continuum of possible sounds between /p/ and /b/ based on?

  Voice onset time (VOT)
• How do we perceive sounds like /p/ and /b/?

  We hear them categorically
• What did Eimas et al. (1971) test in infants?

  Categorical perception at 1- and 4-months
• What paradigm did Eimas et al. use to test infants?

  Habituation paradigm
• What sounds did infants habituate to in the study?

  ‘ba’ (VOT = 20) or ‘pa’ (VOT = 60)
• What was the result when sounds crossed the phoneme boundary?

  Sucking rates increased (dishabituation)
• What does the result of the sucking rates indicate about infants?

  They perceived sounds categorically
• Is categorical perception of speech an innate mechanism?

  Yes, it occurs very early
• What do humans and non-humans have in common regarding sound perception?

  Both perceive sounds categorically
• At what ages do infants perceive sounds categorically?

  1- and 4-months old
• What did Werker & Tees (1984) test in infants?

  Cross-language speech perception
• What was the method used by Werker & Tees in their study?

  Conditioned head-turn procedure
• What was the result regarding sensitivity to non-native sounds?

  Sensitivity declines with age
• What does language experience do to infants' sound discrimination?

  Focuses on native language sounds
• What are the stages of speech production from 0-2 months?

  Reflexive vocalization