Language development test 1

Receptive Linguistic processing Broca's area:

(located in the left frontal lobe) Important for auditory working memory, attention to syntax, processing discrete units, and further analysis of the phonological information passed along by Heschl's area.

speech definition

(sound) is a verbal mean of communication

Written input is received in the visual cortex and transferred to the angular gyrus, where it may be integrated with auditory input; it is then transmitted to Wernicke's area for analysis.

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Semantic features

-are aspects of the meaning that characterize the word. Mother- female and parent: Father male and parent -Selection restrictions are based on these specific features and prohibit certain word combinations because they are meaningless or redundant. You would not say, "She is a female mother." -Word Relationships Synonyms: words with identical features Antonyms: words that differ in the opposite value of a single important feature THINK VOCABULARY!!!

Speech is not an essential feature of:

-language. American Sign Language is not a mirror of American English but is a separate language with its own rules for symbol combinations. Approximately 50 sign languages are used worldwide. -Speech and language do not have to coexist

Damage to any of these areas results in a disruption of linguistic production, but with different effects.

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The purpose of a child language study and the researcher's theoretical predisposition will influence the type of data-collection procedure used. Therefore there are many considerations that influence the data gathered through research. Ideally, the linguist would employ both informal and formal approaches, using structured procedures to obtain more-in-depth information on the data collected.

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Goals of Child Language Research

1. Discover and confirm general linguistic principles and patterns of language development. 2. Clarify the relationship of language development to changes in other areas, such as cognition. 3. Provide a theoretical description of language development that helps explain the process

What is the Relationship of the Components of Language??

1Linguists called emergentists stress the similarity and causal relationship between meanings and syntax, suggesting that grammar grows out of semantics. 2. Language is heavily influenced by context; context determines the language user's communication options. 3. All of the components of language are linked in some way. 4. In development, components may also influence another, in that changes in one may modify development of another.

Generative or Nativist approach Basic Theory belief

: In the late 1950s, Noam Chomsky and others tried to identify syntactic rules that applied to all human languages. These rules were assumed to be present in each human at birth in a location of the brain theoretically called the language acquisition device, or LAD.

Naturalness & representativeness of the Data

A conversational sample will be more natural if the participants are free to move about and are uninhibited by the process of sample collection. A representative sample should include as many of the child's everyday experiences as possible. Three potential problems in obtaining natural and representative language data exist: 1. Observer paradox: the absence of an observer may result in uninterpretable data, but the presence of an observer may influence the language obtained, so that it lacks spontaneity and naturalness. 2. A child's physical and emotional state at the time the information is collected. 3. Language depends on the context in which the sample is collected.

Generative or Nativist approach Basic Theory MORE RESEARCH NEEDED:

A group of theorists began to advocate a return to adult syntactic models, a return to linguistic nativism that assumed that throughout our lives, all human beings possess the same basic linguistic competence in the form of universal grammar.

Generative or Nativist approach Language learning Natural languages are characterized by:

A unified set of abstract algebraic rules that are meaningless themselves and insensitive to the meanings of the elements (words) they combine A set of meaningful linguistic elements (words) that serve as variables in the rules THEREFORE to learn a language, each child begins with his or her innate universal grammar to abstract the structure of that language.

Generative or Nativist approach Language learning Acquisition has two components:

Acquiring all the words, idioms, and constructions of that language Linking the core structures of the particular language being learned to the universal grammar Being innate, universal grammar does not develop but is the same throughout a person's life span. In other words, there is a continuity in language acquisition and use. Ex. Child says "I am eating a cookie." Assumption is the child has an adultlike understanding of present progressive verbs and can generate similar form.

Information Processing steps

Attention Discrimination Organization Memory

Interactionalist approach A little background

BF Skinner (behaviorist) theorized that parents model language, young children imitate these models, and parents reinforce children for these imitations. Chomsky countered that children learn language rules by deciphering them from the utterances they hear; they needed to rely on innate structures in the LAD Parents provide poor models when talking to each other Children could not possibly learn all possible constructs by imitation Parents do not reinforce the grammatically correct constructions Sociolinguists countered that language acquisition follows a transactional model of child-caregiver give-and-take in which the child learns to understand the rules of dialogue, not syntax and semantics. Social interaction and relationships provide the framework that enables to child to encode and decode language form and content.

Interactionalist approach

Children figure out the linguistic structures of language based on sufficient information from that language. Constructionists are interested in language structure, but there is less theoretical commitment to language form and to ages of acquisition. To learn language, children rely on the general cognitive mechanisms they possess.

Pragmatics consists of:

Communication intentions and recognized ways of carrying them out Conversational principles or rules Types of discourse, such as narratives and jokes, and their construction

Determining Age of Mastery

Determining Age of Mastery It is difficult to determine when a child or group of children actually knows or has mastered a language feature. Usually, mastery is based on children using a feature in 90% of the obligatory locations or based on 90% of the children using the feature consistently

manner

Each participant should be reasonably direct in manner and avoid vagueness, ambiguity, and wordiness.

SPEECH

Each spoken language has specific sounds or phonemes plus sound combinations that are characteristic of that language Infants spend much of their first year experimenting with their vocal mechanisms and producing a variety of sounds. Working on the "p" sound

Language can grow as culture changes

English (largest # of words (~700,000) and adds ~ 6 words per day. Ex. Selfie, headbanger, sexting, emoji; stoked; tweet Word meanings may change

Nativist

Focuses on language structure Specific neural structures dedicated to language enable us to learn, process, and use language Child learns structure by learning specific language rules Language is innate thus universal language rules exists across languages Child uses language input to deduce rules of language

Constructionalist

Focuses on language use Language form and use result from complex human brains & need to transmit messages in social contexts Child uses form that best accomplished his/her social goals. Through repeated use, child deduces rules Language universals DO NOT exist, but evolve to meet social needs Child & context have a dynamic relationship in which the child's behavior influences child-directed speech tailored to the level required for the child to participate socially

Data Collection Methods Structured Collection Methods

Formal procedures enable researchers to gather data that may not be readily available using conversational or observational techniques. Language and experimental factors must be manipulated with caution. Testing and experimental tasks do not necessarily reflect a child's performance in everyday use. Results can be misread; especially with preschoolers, incorrect responses may indicate lack of attention or interest. Test scores alone tell researchers nothing about performance on individual items. Off-line test tasks such as fill-ins of providing a missing word, measure only the end points of several linguistic processes. On-line tasks attempt to measure operations at various points during processing and describe individual and integrative components.

Weakness of the generative/nativist theory

Generative grammar involves fixed and semi-fixed structures that are not based on abstract grammatical categories but on particular words or fixed expressions, such as "How's it going?" Constructionists would see these language structures as examples that structure emerges from use. A large portion of human linguistic competence involves the mastery of routine expressions and idioms. These expressions are not part of a core grammar that can generate grammatical rules.

Nonlinguistic Cues

Gestures, posture, facial expressions, eye contact related to Language

Weakness of interactionalist theory

If typical language learning is based on the individual input each child receives, how do we account for the similarities of language learning and use accross children??

Brain Variation

In general, almost all right-handers and 60% of left-handers are left-hemisphere dominant for language. About 2% of the population is right-hemisphere dominant for language. A miniscule percentage of humans display bilateral linguistic performance. Women seem to be less strongly left-dominant than men.

Language Processing

In general, the frontal and temporal lobes are more active than other regions in both perception and production There is no evidence that there is a single processing center Linguistic processing, both comprehension and production, depends on your __lexicon (personal dictionary)_____ of stored words and high usage phrases and on your stored _linguistic rules_______. The number and location of activated regions differ across individuals and vary with the task, based on the type of input and output, amount and kind of memory required, the relative level of difficulty and familiarity, attentional demands, and competition from other tasks.

Interactionalist approach pt 2

Interactionalists consider the child to be a contributing member in the learning process. A parent's adapted way of speaking to a child is termed child-directed speech (CDS) and varies in many ways from speech to other adults. According to Emergentism, language is a structure arising from existing interacting patterns in the human brain. BELIEF: A child's language emerges not from stipulated rules found in the LAD but from the interaction of general cognitive mechanisms and the environment.

Paralinguistic Cues

Intonation, pitch, stress, speed, pause Related to speech

Brain maturation

Language development is highly correlated with brain maturation and specialization. Gross brain weight changes most rapidly during the first two years of life, when it triples. Chemical changes also occur and internal pathways become organized, connecting various portions of the brain. By age ___12___, the brain has usually reached its fully mature weight. Most of the increase in functioning is the result of myelination, or the process of sheathing of the nervous system. Myelination is controlled, in part by sex-related hormones such as estrogen, which may explain, in part, the more rapid early neurological development of girls. Sensory and motor tracts undergo myelination before higher-functioning areas, such as those processing language. Microscopic connections are also being made during maturation. It is ___experience________________ that determines pathways. ___use_______ of pathways stimulates and strengthens them, making subsequent use more efficient.

Generative or Nativist approach Basic Theory ARGUMENT AGAINST:

Many linguists concluded after looking at languages across different cultures that no single formal grammar was adequate to account for the acquisition process in all of the world's many languages. Several theorists suggested that a semantic-cognitive basis existed for children's early language, instead of syntax. The Semantic Revolution held that the semantic-syntactic relations apparent in children's early language correspond rather closely to some of the categories of infant and toddler sensorimotor cognition. However, this did not explain all types of utterances and it was difficult to explain

Generative or Nativist approach Basic Theory RESULTS OF THEIR BELIEF:

Models assumed that children used the universal language rules, found in their LADs, to figure out the rules of the language to which they were exposed.

Data Collection Methods Sampling and Observation

Naturalistic studies, such as language samples, may yield very different data than experimental manipulations. The data, however, may be affected by the amount of language, the intelligibility of the child, and the effect of context. Certain linguistic elements may not be exhibited even when they are present in a child's repertoire. Information on the child's production provides only a general estimate of comprehension. Sampling techniques exist along a continuum from unstructured, open-ended situations to more structured, restrictive ones in which the researcher attempts to control or manipulate one or more variables.

Aspects of Communication 3 main Aspects:

Paralinguistic Cues Nonlinguistic Cues Metalinguistic Cues

LANGUAGE PRODUCTION- Processing location

Production processes are located in the same general area of your brain as comprehension functions. The conceptual basis of a message forms in one of the many memory areas of the cortex. The underlying structure of the message is organized in ___Wernicke's________________'s area. The message is transmitted through the ___arcuate fasciculus_______________ to Broca's area in the frontal lobe.

Analysis procedures

Quantitative measures, such as numerical scores and MLU, are inadequate for describing language development in detail. Qualitative research uses a variety of methods within natural situations or contexts to describe and interpret human communication.

Right hemisphere Language related skills include:

Recognition of printed words but struggles with decoding the information using grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules Comprehension and production of speech _prosody and affect Comprehension and production of metaphorical language and semantics Comprehension of complex linguistic and ideational material and of environmental sounds (music, melodies, tones, laughter, clicks, buzzes) __pragmatics_____ including the perception and expression of emotion in language; the ability to understand jokes, irony, and figurative language; and the ability to produce and comprehend coherent discourse (conversation).

Collection Procedures

Several collection techniques exist, such as diary accounts, checklists, and parental reports, as well as direct and digitally recorded observation. Videotaping, while more intrusive, is better than recording audio alone because it enables the researcher to observe the nonlinguistic elements of the situation. The language sample should be transcribed from the recording as soon after it is collected as possible. Caregivers familiar with a child's language should be consulted to determine if the sample is typical of the child's performance. Because transcription offers many opportunities for error, studies should ensure intra- and inter-transcriber reliability.

Left Hemisphere

Specialized for _language______ in all modalities (oral, visual and written), linear order perception, arithmetic calculations, and logical reasoning. is best at step-by-step processing. Adept at perceiving rapidly changing sequential information such as acoustics characteristics of phonemes in speech. (However processing for meaning requires both hemispheres)

Right hemisphere

Specialty is "Holistic Processing" (the big picture) through the simultaneous integration of information Perception/recognition of faces, photographs, pictures Visuospatial processing (depth & orientation in space)

Metalinguistic Cues

The ability to talk & think about language, analyze it, judge it, determine content and context

Constructionism and development

The child's production is based on specific uses heard in the speech of others. At some point, a child discovers the relation between different word sequences and develops more abstract ways to represent these constructions. Constructionist linguistic rules are thought of as meaningful linguistic symbols. Children construct abstractions gradually and in piecemeal fashion through two general cognitive processes: -Intention-reading, by which they attempt to understand the communicative significance of an utterance -Pattern-finding, by which they create the more abstract dimensions. Linguistic input is crucial to this process

Symbol (word)-Referent (picture in mind) Relationship

The concept that is formed from the common elements of past experiences. When the referent is experienced, it is interpreted in terms of the concept and the appropriate symbol is applied.

Form: Syntax

The form or structure of a sentence is governed by the rules of syntax. These rules specify word, phrase, and clause order; sentence organization; and the relationships among words, word classes, and other sentence elements. Sentences are organized according to their overall function; declaratives, for example, make statements, and interrogatives form questions. Certain word classes combine in predictable patterns. Ex. Article a, an, the appear before nouns and adverbs modify verbs (slowly walked) Some words may function in more than one word class. (ex. Dance) Spoken language is much more informal than written language and less constrained. THINK GRAMMAR!

Sample Size and variability size:

The number of children or subjects should be large enough to allow for individual differences and to enable group conclusions to be drawn. The overall design of the study will influence the number of subjects considered to be adequate. It may be appropriate to follow a few children for a period of time, called a longitudinal study, but inappropriate to administer a one-time-only test to the same limited number of children. In longitudinal studies, as many as 30% of the children may be lost because of family mobility, illness, or unwillingness to continue over the length of the study.

Sample Size and variability variability

The sample of children should accurately reflect the diversity of the larger population from which they were drawn. Some variables, such as SES, may be difficult to determine, although parental education and employment seem to be important contributing factors. Research on the development of spoken language has focused largely on middle-class preschool children. Characteristics of the tester, experimenter, or conversational partner are also important. Reliable age-independent measures of development, such as level of cognitive development, may be a better gauge of real developmental differences and may allow more appropriate comparisons of children's language development.

Why would an SLP have synonyms and antonyms as a language goal for a patient?

To expand language and vocabulary

Consider the Amount of Language Collected

Usually at least 100 utterances are needed in order to have an adequate sample, although the sample size depends on the purpose for which it is collected. Pragmatic aspects of language, which vary with the context, may require the inclusion of several contexts to provide an adequately varied sample.

While held in working memory, incoming information undergoes linguistic analysis in...

___Wernicke's area________________, located in your left temporal

NATURE

a natural and inherent part of being human

Bound morphemes

are grammatical markers that cannot function independently. They must be attached to free morphemes or other bound morphemes. Include prefixes and suffixes Ex. -s, -est, un-, -ly

Free morphemes

are independent and can stand alone. They form words or parts of words. Ex. Dog, happy, mom

Dialects

are subcategories of the parent language that use similar but not identical rules. examples: North vs South; East vs West: various in NC

Inflectional morphemes

are suffixes only that change the state or increase the precision of the free morpheme. Ex. Tense markers -ed, possessives 's, third person singular "walks"

Pragmatic Rules Intentions

are what a speaker hopes to accomplish by speaking.

The angular gyrus and the supramarginal gyrus:

assist in linguistic processing, integrating visual, auditory, and tactile input with linguistic information.

Generative or Nativist approach

assumes that children are able to acquire language because they are born with innate rules or principles related to the structures of human languages.

Language learning and use are determined by the intervention of:

biological, cognitive, psychological, and environmental factors.

Injury to Wernicke's area usually disrupts:

both ___expressive___________ and ____receptive__ language abilities.

The speech-language pathologist

concentrates on disordered communication including the causes (etiology)of disorder, the evaluation of the extent (severity)of the disorder, and the remediation process.

Use: Pragmatics

concentrates on language as a communication tool that is used to achieve social ends. When we go beyond individual isolated sentences to look at how a set of utterances is used to convey a message, we are in the realm of discourse. Successful pragmatics requires understanding of the culture and of individuals. THINK CONVERSATION

Form: Morphology

concerned with the internal organization of words. THINK WORDS!!!

processing

function (posterior cortical areas)controls information analysis, coding, and storage.

nonspeech

gestures, facial expressions, body posture may carry up to 60% of the information exchanged.

Pragmatic Rules govern a number of conversational interactions: sequential organization and coherence of conversations, repair of errors, role, and intentions.

govern a number of conversational interactions: sequential organization and coherence of conversations, repair of errors, role, and intentions.

LANGUAGE PRODUCTION- Processing broca's Area:

has the responsibility of preparing and coordinating the motor program for verbalizing the message. Signals are then passes to the regions of the motor cortex for speech, including respiration, phonation, resonation, and articulation.

Pragmatic Rules roll skills

include establishing and maintaining a role and switching linguistic codes for each role. Roles in a conversation influence the choice of vocabulary and language form.

Pragmatic Rules repair

includes giving and receiving feedback and correcting conversational errors.

Language processing definition

is a complex process performed by many different interconnected areas of your brain rather than a single area.

LANGUAGE

is a socially shared code or conventional system for representing concepts through the use of arbitrary symbols (words) and rule-governed combinations of those symbols change and evolve. Interactions between languages naturally occur in bilingual communities resulting in language mixing to form new dialects/languages.

content: semantics

is a system of rules governing the meaning or content of words and word combinations. Concept development- word meaning contain 2 or more elements

Constructionism and development language structure emerges from language use.  -Constructionist approach

is a usage-based approach that sees language as composed of constructions or symbol units that combine the form and meaning of language through the use of morphemes, words, idioms, and sentence frames.

Right hemisphere. pt 2

is also involved in interpretation of _figurative_____________ and __abstract_______ language processing in areas roughly corresponding to Broca's and Wernicke's areas. Limited word-recognition and semantic decoding also occurs, in addition to paralinguistic processing. may also work to suppress ambiguous or incompatible interpretations. Pragmatic analysis involves the frontal lobe and integration of paralinguistic information from the right hemisphere.

ASHA: Language Defined

is complex and dynamic system of conventional symbols that is used in various modes for thought and communication evolves and changes within specific historical, social, and cultural contexts Effective use of language for communication requires a broad understanding of human interaction including such associated factors as nonverbal cues, motivation, and sociocultural roles.

Quality

is governed by truthfulness and based on sufficient evidence

The psycholinguist

is interested in the psychological processes and constructs underlying language. The psychological mechanisms that let language users produce and comprehend language are of particular concern.

__supramarginal____ gyrus :

is involved in processing longer syntactic units such as sentences.

The linguist

is primarily concerned with describing language symbols and stating the rules these symbols follow to form language structures.

LANGUAGE PRODUCTION- Processing exners area:

is responsible for the activation of the muscles for writing. (just above Broca's area)

regulation

is responsible for the energy level and for the overall tone of the cortex; it enables you to monitor, evaluate, and flexibly adjust behavior for successful performance.

Communicative competence

is the degree to which a speaker is successful in communicating, measured by the appropriateness and effectiveness of the message.

Communication

is the exchange of information and ideas, needs and desires, between two or more individuals. It is an active process that involves encoding, transmitting, and decoding the intended message. It requires a sender and receiver, and each must be alert to the informational needs of the other.

The behavioral psychologist

minimizes language form and emphasizes the behavioral context of language, such as how certain responses are elicited and how the number of these responses is increased or decreased.

NURTURE

nurturance and learning from the environment.

Language, as a rule-governed behavior, is described by at least 5 parameters:

phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic.

Components of Language form:

phonology, morphology, syntax

referent

picture in mind

Components of Language use

pragmatics

formulation

process (frontal lobes) is responsible for the formation of intentions and programs for behavior.

Pragmatic Rules Conversation is governed by the "cooperation principle." The four maxims of the cooperation principle relate to:

quantity, quality, relation, and manner.

Language comprehension heschl's area____ (gyrus):

receives auditory signals and filters incoming information, differentiating significant __linguistic_______ information from nonlinguistic noise. Linguistic information is sent for further processing to the _left___ temporal lobe Paralinguistic input (rhythm, stress, intonation, rate) is sent to the _right____ temporal lobe.

The 3 basic brain functions are:

regulation, processing, and formulation

Components of Language content

semantics

If damage occurs to the ___arcuate fasciculus______________, :

speech is unaffected except for repetitive movements, but the resultant speech may not make sense.

Damage to __broca's________ area results in

speech________ difficulties, but writing and language comprehension may be relatively unaffected.

Relation

states that a contribution should be relevant to the topic of conversation.

The sociolinguist

studies language rules and use as a function of role, socioeconomic level, and linguistic or cultural context. Dialectal differences and social-communicative interaction are important.

Pragmatic Rules Organization and coherence of conversations include

taking turns; opening, maintaining, and closing a conversation; establishing and maintaining a topic; making relevant contributions to the conversation.

Form: Phonology

the aspect of language concerned with the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables. The human speech mechanism can make approximately 600 possible speech sounds. THINK SOUNDS!!

Interactionalist approach emphasizes

the combination of biological and environmental influences.

Quantity

the informativeness of each participant's contribution

Morpheme

the smallest grammatical unit and is indivisible without violating the meaning or producing meaningless units.

phonemes

the smallest linguistic unit of sound that can signal a difference in meaning. families of very similar sounds. Allophones are individual members of these families that differ slightly but not enough to sound like a different phoneme Bath- 3 phonemes and dog 3 phonemes English has approximately 43 phonemes.

Speech involves:

voice quality (raspy, shaky), intonation, and rate.

symbol

word

The ____angular__ gyrus aids:

word recall