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Week 6 Language Development
- 1. PSY 375: LIFESPAN DEVELOPMENT LanguageDevelopment Week 6
- 2. What is Language? Languageis a form of communication—whether spoken, written, or signed—based on a system of symbols All human languages have: • Infinite generativity: the ability to produce an endless number of meaningful sentences using a finite set of words and rules • Organizational rules that describe the way language works
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- 4. Biological Influences Although estimatesvary, many experts hold that humans acquired language about 100,000 years ago
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- 7. How Language Develops:Infancy 1 Infants use early vocalizations to practice making sounds, to communicate, and to attract attention • Crying, with different types signaling different things • Cooing, first emerging at 2 to 4 months • Babbling, often around the middle of the first year Infants begin using gestures at about 8 to 12 months • Showing and pointing • Some gestures are symbolic • Pointing is considered an important social aspect of language
- 8. How Language Develops:Infancy Long before they begin to learn words, infants recognize different language sounds • From birth to about 10 months, “citizens of the world,” able to recognize sound changes no matter which language the syllables come from
- 9. How Language Develops:Infancy Between 5 and 12 months, infants indicate their first understanding of words • Understand words before they can speak them • First words usually spoken at 10 to 15 months • Common first words: Names of important people Familiar animals Vehicles and toys Foods and body parts Clothes and household terms Greeting terms
- 10. How Language Develops:Infancy Infants’ spoken vocabulary increases rapidly once their first words are spoken Children often overextend or underextend the meanings of words • Overextension: • Underextension:
- 11. How Language Develops:Infancy Two-word utterances emerge around 18 to 24 months Identification: “See doggie” Location: “Book there” Repetition: “More milk” Nonexistence: “All gone” Possession: “My candy” Attribution: “Big car” Agent-action: “Mama walk” Question: “Where ball?”
- 12. How Language Develops:Infancy
- 13. Typical Age LanguageMilestones Birth Crying 2 to 4 months Cooing begins 5 months Understands first word 6 months Babbling begins 7 to 11 months Change from universal linguist to language-specific listener 8 to 12 months Uses gestures, such as showing and pointing Comprehension of words appears 13 months First word spoken 18 months Vocabulary spurt starts 18 to 24 months Uses two-word utterances Rapid expansion of understanding of words
- 14. How Language Develops: EarlyChildhood By the time children move beyond two-word utterances, they demonstrate knowledge of morphology rules • Using plural and possessive of nouns • Appropriate endings on verbs • Use of prepositions, articles, and various forms of the verb “to be”
- 15. How Language Develops: EarlyChildhood Preschool children also learn and apply rules of syntax • Show a growing mastery of complex rules for word order Gains in semantics also characterize early childhood • Fast mapping: making a connection between a word and its referent after limited exposure to a word
- 16. How Language Develops: EarlyChildhood
- 17. How Language Develops: EarlyChildhood Advances in pragmatics also characterize young children’s language development • Begin to engage in extended discourse • Learn culturally specific rules of conversation and politeness • Become sensitive to the need to adapt their speech in different settings
- 18. How Language Develops: EarlyChildhood Literacy Literacy instruction for preschoolers should be built on what children already know about oral language, reading, and writing • Physical activity aids early literacy • Parents and teachers need to provide a supportive environment Extent to which phonological awareness is linked to learning to read varies across language • Rates of dyslexia also vary
- 19. How Language Develops: EarlyChildhood Literacy Books can be valuable in enhancing children’s communication skills – dialogic reading
- 20. How Language Develops: Middleand Late Childhood
- 21. How Language Develops: Middleand Late Childhood Children begin to organize their mental vocabulary in new ways during middle and late childhood • Learn the alphabetic principle • Categorize words by parts of speech Advances in vocabulary and grammar take place • Accompanied by the development of metalinguistic awareness: knowledge about language, allowing children “to think about their language, understand what words are, and even define them” Children also make progress in pragmatics
- 22. Middle and LateChildhood: Reading
- 23. Middle and LateChildhood: Writing In early childhood, children’s motor skills progress to the point that they can begin printing letters As they begin to write, children often invent spellings, basing them on the sounds of the words they hear Writing skills develop as language and cognitive skills develop
- 24. Second-Language Learning and Bilingualism Arethere sensitive periods in learning a second language? • Sensitive periods likely vary across language systems • For adolescents and adults, new vocabulary is easier to learn than new sounds or grammar
- 25. Second-Language Learning and Bilingualism Differenttype of bilingualism occurs when immigrant children must learn their new language at school • In the U.S., many end up being monolingual speakers of English—called subtractive bilingualism What is the best way to teach English language learners (ELLs)? • Dual-language approach: instruction in both the home language and English
- 26. How Language Develops: Adolescence Adolescentsdevelop greater sophistication in the use of words • Understanding metaphor, an implied comparison between unlike things • Better able to understand satire, or the use of irony, derision, or wit to expose folly or wickedness More advanced logical thinking allows adolescents to understand complex literary works
- 27. How Language Develops: Adulthoodand Aging Vocabulary increases are experienced up until late adulthood Older adults experience difficulty in retrieving words and in understanding language in certain contexts • Often involves the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon • Hearing loss may contribute to these difficulties
- 28. How Language Develops: Adulthoodand Aging Older adults’ speech is typically slower, less precisely articulated, and less fluent • Speech skills are adequate for everyday communication Slower information-processing speeds and declines in working memory may contribute to reduced language efficiency • Bilingualism may delay the onset of Alzheimer disease
Editor's Notes
- #5 Two specific regions of the brain are involved in language abilities: Broca’s area: a region of the left frontal lobe involved in producing words Wernicke’s area: a region of the left hemisphere involved in language comprehension Damage to either area produces aphasia, a loss or impairment of language processing
- #6 Linguist Noam Chomsky proposed that humans are biologically prewired for language Children are born with a language acquisition device (LAD), an endowment that enables detection of certain features and rules of language, including phonology, syntax, and semantics Theoretical—not physical Supported by the uniformity of language milestones across languages and cultures, evidence of creating language even in the absence of appropriate input, and biological foundations Does not explain the entirety of language acquisition Behavioral view of language learning is that language is a result of responses acquired through reinforcement Does not explain the creation of novel sentences Children learn the syntax of their native language even if they are not reinforced Children use social skills to acquire language and learn language in specific contexts For optimal development, parents and teachers provide children with extensive opportunities to talk and be talked with Interactionist view emphasizes that both biology and experience contribute to language development Can be seen in variations in language acquisition Virtually every child benefits from opportunities to talk and be talked with Rich verbal environment results in many positive outcomes Parents and teachers who pay attention to what children try to say, expand on children’s utterances, read to them, and label things in the environment are providing valuable benefits
- #7 Linguist Noam Chomsky proposed that humans are biologically prewired for language Children are born with a language acquisition device (LAD), an endowment that enables detection of certain features and rules of language, including phonology, syntax, and semantics Theoretical—not physical Supported by the uniformity of language milestones across languages and cultures, evidence of creating language even in the absence of appropriate input, and biological foundations Does not explain the entirety of language acquisition Behavioral view of language learning is that language is a result of responses acquired through reinforcement Does not explain the creation of novel sentences Children learn the syntax of their native language even if they are not reinforced Children use social skills to acquire language and learn language in specific contexts For optimal development, parents and teachers provide children with extensive opportunities to talk and be talked with Interactionist view emphasizes that both biology and experience contribute to language development Can be seen in variations in language acquisition Virtually every child benefits from opportunities to talk and be talked with Rich verbal environment results in many positive outcomes Parents and teachers who pay attention to what children try to say, expand on children’s utterances, read to them, and label things in the environment are providing valuable benefits
- #10 Supporting lang dev
- #11 Children often overextend or underextend the meanings of words Overextension: tendency to apply a word to objects that are inappropriate for the word’s meaning Underextension: applying a word too narrowly
- #15 Morphology: formation of words
- #18 the branch of linguistics dealing with language in use and the contexts in which it is used, including such matters as deixis, taking turns in conversation, text organization, presupposition, and implicature.
- #23 Whole-language approach to reading instruction parallels children’s natural language learning Recognize whole words or sentences and use the context of what they are reading to guess the meanings of words Often integrated with other subjects and real-world materials Phonics approach teaches basic rules for translating written symbols into sounds Research suggests children benefit from both approaches, but instruction in phonics needs to be emphasized