PSYC 4220 1st Edition Lecture 14 Outline of Last Lecture I II III IV V VI VII VIII Assessing Infant Perceptual Abilities Infant Vision Infant visual preferences Infant depth perception Infant hearing Infant speech perception Infant taste Infant smell Outline of Current Lecture I Language Development A Pre linguistic stage B Holophrase Stage C Naming Language Explosion D Telegraphic Period II Theories of Language Development Current Lecture Language Development prelinguistic Stage 8 10 months begin using gestures to communicate Often combined with sound Can come to represent complete action Use gestures increase with age complexity of speech Babies want to talk Don t just want to gesture No need to worry that they will only gesture and not talk Babies will continue to use them after they begin talking And gestures will become more complex and frequent as they learn to speak more 10 12 months begin using specific sound for certain actions things Usually indicates they will speak first word soon Comprehension precedes production infants can understand more than they say Language Development Holophrase Period Begins around 10 14 months Use holophrases single words that convey many things Different distinctions for when first word counts Have to say it consistently and to mean the same thing dada for dad only in every location Constrained by sounds they can produce Sounds that they begin with consonants and end with vowels are easiest Ending with a vowel is easier than ending with a consonant and d is easer to say than m It is hard to understand what they say due to immature vocal tract lack of experience with speaking Language acquisition slow at first one word at a time 10 words 3 4 months after 1st word Language Development Naming Language Explosion 16 24 months vocabulary spurt when vocab expands rapidly By 2 year can produce 300 400 words They are learning insanely fast after having begun slowly with first word Common errors Overextension use word too broadly any 4 legged animal is a dog underextension use word too narrowly only their dog is a dog the other 4 legged canines are something else Learning to categorize things is part of the distinction between these things Language Development Telegraphic Period 18 24 months Begin using telegraphic speech combine 2 3 words into simple sentences Contain only important words leave out words that aren t critical to meaning Use some grammatical rules Is language development primarily nature or nurture Babies can only learn as much as their bodies will physically keep up with no matter how hard you push them nature Babies will get ahead the more you talk with them nurture Theories of Language Development Pure Nurture the behavioral learning approach Language is learned through reinforcements punishments modeling and imitation Skinner learning occurs through operant conditioning language abilities slowly shaped Bandura learn language through observation imitation Support Children learn langue spoken to and around them and pick up accents Children learn names of things quicker if rewarded by getting object they name Children whose parents speak to them more often encourage them to talk are more advanced in language development Pure nurture the behavioral learning approach Problems with theory can t explain why kids learn rules of grammar Mothers more likely to reinforce a true statement rather than a grammatically correct one Tend to reinforce children for speaking incorrectly if a child calls it hangaburger instead of hamburger parents will often call it that because they think it is cute Children create novel communication it isn t about hearing it and applying but rather learning on their own how to create past tense Pure nativist the nativist perspective humans biologically programmed to learn language Chomsky language acquisition device LAD proposed neural system that hypothesized to allow understand production of language Our brain is set up to listen to speech and pull out parts of it Allows children to infer rules of speech from just hearing speech and then use rules to produce novel speech Contains universal grammar basic rules that characterize all human language Pure Nature The Nativist Perspective Supporting evidence similar stages of development across all cultures Left hemisphere of brain is specialized for language and activated by speech right after birth Sensitive period hypothesis sensitive period for language development before puberty Brains before puberty specially prepared to learn language Yes example of girl locked in back room till age of 14 Non english speaking immigrants will learn to speak English at the same level as a native speaker Brain patterns support the idea that you speak the language of your native land and English at the same ability Problems Not an explanation more of a description Mere exposure not enough can t just turn on Spanish channel and absorb everything Is it uniquely human There is more and more evidence to support that there are dolphins and apes whose signing abilities and echolocation are more complex than our language abilities Both nature and nurture The Integrationist perspective Infants biologically predisposed to learn language because of slowly maturing brain and drive to communicate