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1PSYC355 Final Exam Study GuideCore Concepts Frameworks:1. Nature through Nurture2. Sociocultural Context3. Self-Regulation4. Children Actively Shape Their Own Development5. Human Relationships Provide Building Blocks6. How Do Children Become So Different From Each Other?7. Continuity vs. Discontinuity8. How Vulnerabilities and Resilience Contribute to Development9. The Importance of Timing10. How can Research Promote Children’s Well-beingLanguage Development- Language: a capacity for thinking and communicating through the manipulation of symbols (letters, words, etc.)Is Language Special?- Chomsky (1972) “language organ” and “universal grammar”- MacWhinney (2002): neural, cognitive and social factors that have evolved- Universality: all humans establish- Self-motivating: examples of “private speech” and that children do not have to be forced- Relation to disorders that affect thinking in general (Ex: Down Syndrome domain general deficit in IQ)Language Development- A stunning achievement, unmatched by any other species: Language is a system with complex structure at several levels- Routinely acquired by human infants and young children, requiring no explicit instruction - Babies are better than adults at acquiring language- Nature:o Unique to humanso Resilient and universal in humans o Critical periods- Nurture:o We need language model to learn it o Strong role of the richness in the environment in children’s linguistic skillBiological Basis- Localizationo Brochus area; by motor cortex to produce language o Wernick’s area; for language comprehensiono Language typically in left hemisphere; 1/3 of left handers on the other side- Plasticity –brain will modify damage if early enough in lifeCommunication- Language is first and foremost a tool for communication- Prelinguistic communication lays the foundation for it (pointing, babbling)2- Parents and infants each contribute to communication Prelinguistic Communication - What the baby provides:o Social signals (crying, smiling)o Intense interest in social partners o Intentional attempts to communicate (gaze alteration, gestures, pointing)- What the parent provides:o Infant-directed speech (exaggerated pitch)—is observed across many cultureso Enforcement of turn-taking structure (protodialogue)o Strong motivation to communicate and treat infants actions as intentional/meaningful o Engagement and support of joint attentionLessons from Deaf Children- Infant-directed signing similar to IDT (does not have to do with auditory aspect)- Deaf infants prefer watching infant-directed signing than adult-directed signing (exaggerated emotions, actions, facial expressions, slower, etc.)- Babbling –mystery of what is its biological basis? o One hypothesis argues it is a non-linguistic motoric activitity driven by baby’s emerging control over mouth and jawo Another hypothesis argues it is reflective of babies early sensitivity to specific phoneme patternso Study of deaf babies babbling on hands supports important linguistic funtion hypothesisPhonology- Sounds of language carry information at several levels simultaneouslyo Prosody: pitch, loudness, rhythm (the “melody” of lang)  Emotion Speaker identity Speech acts (question, statement, command)o Statistical regularities Which units occur together reliably as words (where words begin and end)  Which sound units can be combined (st- vs. sb- in English)o Phonemic structure Sound units that build words (bit vs. pit, bit vs. bat, bit vs. bid)- Infants listen to and learn about these channels of information even before birthInborn Structure for Phoneme Perception- Beyond just liking speech, infants are born ready to perceive critical structure w/in it- Phonemes: discrete units in perception that allow us to build wordso They are the minimal difference in sound that produces a difference in meaningo They are discrete to hear but not physically discrete- Time relative to the “stop” when the vocal chords begin to vibrate (voice onset time)—early for “bah”, late for “pah”- For adults there is no middle ground, speech sounds are perceived categorically (like color)3- Languages vary in the phonemic contrasts they use—adults can’t hear contrasts not in native languageBabies are Better Listeners- 6-8 mo. old infants succeed for both native and non-native contrasts (universal listeners)- 10-12 mo. olds fail non-native contrasts (like adults)Words (packaging communicative intent in linguistic forms)- Symbolic: words stand for their referents; they’re not just associated with them (smoke with fire)- Arbitrary: words don’t resemble what they mean; they are paired arbitrarily with their referents- Conventional: words are shared by the group of language users, otherwise they would be useless- First words at about 12 months; 40,000 by late childhoodFirst Words- Babies at first communicate via single words or stock phrases (usually nouns)- Small vocabularies (10-20 words) for a few months, than rapid accumulation of hundreds of words by 2nd birthday- Babies comprehend much more than they sayWord Errors- Overextension: using a word to refer not only to the standard referent but to others as well (ex: “doggie” to refer to all 4 legged animals)- Underextensions: limiting the use of a word to only a subset of its standard referents (ex: “bottle” refers to only child’s bottle, not any other ones)- Overlaps: overextending a term in some ways and underextending in others (ex: “brella” not applying to folded umbrella, but overextended to kite or a leaf that keeps rain off monkey in book)- Although overextensions are more noticeable, underextensions are more common. Word Learning - What the baby provides:o Insight into symbolic, conventional nature of wordso Assumptions about likely meaning of new words (to whole, not parts)o Ability to recruit knowledge about people, the world, and the language system to make sense of new words- What the parent provides:o The words to be learnedo The more parents talk, the bigger the child’s vocabularies areo Help make babies make the “right connections” (child’s focus of attention, culturally valued kinds of words—in U.S. we stress nouns)Morphology & Syntax- Two distinct rule systems, both acquired beginning around 2 years of age, with prolonged development into later childhood - Morphology: rules that govern building complex words from smaller units of meaning (morphemes)o Boy, boys, boyish –built


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UMD PSYC 355 - Final Exam Study Guide

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