PSY Chapter 9

LAD

language acquisition device (LAD), a biological endowment that enables the child to detect certain features and rules of language, including phonology, syntax, and semantics. Children are endowed by nature with the ability to detect the sounds of language, for example, and to follow rules such as how to form plurals and ask questions.

Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker

linguists

bilingualism

linked to more positive outcomes for both children's language and cognitive development

semantics

refers to the meaning of words and sentences. Girl and woman, for example, share many semantic features, but they differ semantically in regard to age.

recasting

rephrasing something the child has said, perhaps turning it into a question or restating the child's immature utterance in the form of a fully grammatical sentence.

expanding

restating, in a linguistically sophisticated form, what a child has said.

phoneme

the basic unit of sound in a language; it is the smallest unit of sound that affects meaning. For example, in English the sound represented by the letter p, as in the words pot and spot, is a phoneme.

TOT phenomenon

the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, in which individuals are confident that they can remember something but just can't quite seem to retrieve it from memory

overextension

using a word too broadly

underextension

using a word too narrowly

creole

when a pidgin language develops into an actual language Full complex language with grammar Produced by children exposed to pidgin Immigrant children Kanzi (bonobo or pygmy chimp)

phonics approach to reading

emphasizes that reading instruction should teach basic rules for translating written symbols into sounds. Early phonics-centered reading instruction should involve simplified materials. Only after children have learned correspondence rules that relate spoken phonemes to the alphabet letters that are used to represent them should they be given complex reading materials such as books and poems

labelling

identifying the names of objects.

under what conditions do older adults have trouble understanding speech?

in less-than-ideal listening conditions

syntax

involves the way words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences

second language

Also, adults tend to learn a second language faster than children, but their final level of second-language attainment is not as high as children's. And the way children and adults learn a second language differs somewhat. Compared with adults, children are less sensitive to feedback, less likely to use explicit strategies, and more likely to learn a second language from large amounts of input

what aspects of speech are different from younger adults?

Older adults' speech is typically lower in volume, slower, less precisely articulated, and less fluent (more pauses, fillers, repetition, and corrections).

Goldstien, King, and West

One study focused on two groups of mothers and their 8-month-old infants (Goldstein, King, & West, 2003). One group of mothers was instructed to smile and touch their infants immediately after the babies cooed and babbled; the other group was also told to smile and touch their infants but in a random manner, unconnected to sounds the infants made. The infants whose mothers immediately responded in positive ways to their babbling subsequently made more complex, speech-like sounds, such as da and gu. The research for this study underscores how important caregivers are in the early development of language.

overregularization/overgeneralization

Over applying rules where proper form is irregular. ex: Mommy, Dolly HITTED me!

In middle & late childhood, how should parents respond to children's early writing?

Parents and teachers should encourage children's early writing but not be overly concerned about the formation of letters or spelling. Printing errors are a natural part of the child's growth. Corrections of spelling and printing should be selective and made in positive ways that do not discourage the child's writing and spontaneity.

motherese/child directed speech

Simple short sentences Spoken slowly High pitched voice Much repetition Exaggerated emphasis

word segmentation

"dress blue" "mom happy"

developmental progression of language

-birth: various cries -3-5 weeks: cooing -4 months: babbling -7 1/2 months: word segmentation -8-10 months: jargoning -1 year: one word (syncretic speech or holophrases) -1 1/2 years: vocabulary development -2 years: two words (telegraphic speech) -2-3 years: language explosion

What six principles did Hirsch-Pasek & Golinkhoff discover about children's language development?

1. Children learn the words they hear most often. 2. Children learn words for things and events that interest them. 3. Children learn words best in responsive and interactive contexts rather than passive contexts. 4. Children learn words best in contexts that are meaningful. 5. Children learn words best when they access clear information about word meaning. 6. Children learn words best when grammar and vocabulary are considered.

arcuate fasciculucs

Broca's area and Wernicke's area are connected by a bundle of nerve fibers called the arcuate fasciculus

what are the rules for using a 'wh' word?

First, a wh- word must be added at the beginning of the sentence. Second, the auxiliary verb must be inverted—that is, exchanged with the subject of the sentence.

sensitive periods

For many years, it was claimed that if individuals did not learn a second language prior to puberty they would never reach native-language speakers' proficiency in the second language. However, recent research indicates a more complex conclusion: Sensitive periods likely vary across different language systems. Thus, for late language learners, such as adolescents and adults, new vocabulary is easier to learn than new sounds or new grammar

what are the brain areas for language?

Two regions involved in language were first discovered in studies of brain-damaged individuals: Broca's area, a region of the left frontal lobe of the brain that is involved in producing words, and Wernicke's area, a region of the brain's left hemisphere that is involved in language comprehension

language

a form of communication—whether spoken, written, or signed—that is based on a system of symbols. Language consists of the words used by a community and the rules for varying and combining them.

pidgin

a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups that do not have a language in common makeshift combination of two languages for practical tasks no grammar no consistent word order no prefixes or suffixes no tense

morpheme

a minimal unit of meaning; it is a word or a part of a word that cannot be broken into smaller meaningful parts. Every word in the English language is made up of one or more morphemes. Some words consist of a single morpheme (for example, help), whereas others are made up of more than one morpheme (for example, helper has two morphemes, help and er, with the morpheme -er meaning "one who"—in this case "one who helps").

whole-language approach

stresses that reading instruction should parallel children's natural language learning. In some whole-language classes, beginning readers are taught to recognize whole words or even entire sentences, and to use the context of what they are reading to guess at the meaning of words. Reading materials that support the whole-language approach are whole and meaningful—that is, children are given material in its complete form, such as stories and poems, so that they learn to understand language's communicative function. Reading is connected with listening and writing skills.

Children who are fluent in two languages, also do well on __________?

test of control of attention, concept formation, analytical reasoning, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, cognitive complexity, and cognitive monitoring more conscious of the structure of spoken and written language and better at noticing errors of grammar and meaning, skills that benefit their reading ability

a 'wug'

test that determined children understand morphological rules

infinite generativity

the ability to produce an endless number of meaningful sentences using a finite set of words and rules.

pragmatics

the appropriate use of language in different contexts

metalinguistic awareness

which is knowledge about language, such as knowing what a preposition is or being able to discuss the sounds of a language. Metalinguistic awareness allows children "to think about their language, understand what words are, and even define them". It improves considerably during the elementary school years. Defining words becomes a regular part of classroom discourse, and children increase their knowledge of syntax as they study and talk about the components of sentences, such as subjects and verbs