DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS

1. Chapter 10
Development of Language
and Communication Skills

2. FIVE COMPONENTS OF LANGUAGE
Phonology – knowledge of language’s sound system
(phonetics)
Morphology – rules specifying how words are formed from
sounds
Semantics – meanings expressed in words
Free morphemes – stand alone words
Bound morphemes – cannot stand alone, change meaning of
free morphemes when added

3. FIVE COMPONENTS OF LANGUAGE
Syntax – rules specifying how words are combined to
produce sentences
Pragmatics – principles governing how language is used in
different social situations
Also requires interpretation of nonverbal signals

4. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
The Learning (Empiricist) Perspective
Imitation, reinforcement and correction are responsible for
learning language
Evaluation of Learning Perspective
Imitation and reinforcement are important
Syntax (grammatical correctness) not reinforced

5. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
The Nativist Perspective
Humans are biologically programmed to acquire language
Language acquisition device – activated by verbal input (Chomsky)
Universal grammar – common set of rules
Language-Making Capacity (Slobin)

6.  Figure 10.1 A model of language acquisition proposed by nativists.

7. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Support for the Nativist Perspective
Presence of linguistic universals
Language is species specific
Brain Specialization and Language
Broca’s area – speech production
Wernicke’s area – speech comprehension
Sensitive-Period Hypothesis – language most easily acquired - birth to
puberty

8.  Figure 10.2 As shown here, there is a clear relationship between the age at which immigrants arrived in the United States
and their eventual adult performance in English grammar. Those who arrived early in childhood end up performing like
native speakers of English, whereas those who arrived as teenagers or adults perform much more poorly.

9. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Problems with the Nativist Approach
Other species show auditory discrimination early in life
Doesn’t explain language development
Overlooked the role of the environment

10. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
The Interactionist Perspective
Biological and Cognitive Contributors
Biologically prepared to acquire language
Gradually maturing nervous system, develop similar ideas at same age
Biological maturation affects cognitive development, affecting
language

11.  Figure 10.3 Grammatical complexity increases as a function of the size of children’s productive vocabulary.

12. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Environmental Supports
Language is a means of communicating
Lessons from Joint Activities
Conversations require taking turns
Lessons from Child-Directed Speech
Short, simple sentences (motherese)
Becomes more complex with language development

13. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Environmental Supports, continued
Lessons from Negative Evidence
Respond to ungrammatical speech
o Expansion – corrected and enriched version
o Recast – new grammatical forms
Importance of Conversation
Must be involved in using language, exposure to speech is not
sufficient

14.  Figure 10.4 An overview of the interactionist perspective on language development.

15. BEFORE LANGUAGE:
THE PRELINGUSITC PERIOD
Early Reactions to Speech
3 days old, prefer mother’s voice
Can distinguish phonemes adults cannot
The Importance of Intonational Cues
Sensitive to cues from birth
7 months sensitive to phrase units

16. BEFORE LANGUAGE:
THE PRELINGUSITC PERIOD
Producing Sounds: Prelinguistic Vocalizations
2 months – cooing (vowel sounds)
4-6 months – babbling (vowel + consonant)
10-12 months – vocables – reserving sounds for particular
situations

17. BEFORE LANGUAGE:
THE PRELINGUSITC PERIOD
What Do Prelinguistic Infants Know about Language and
Communication?
7-8 months, vocal turn taking
Gestures and Nonverbal Communication
8-10 months
Declarative – directing attention
Imperative – alter others’ behavior

18. BEFORE LANGUAGE:
THE PRELINGUSITC PERIOD
Do Preverbal Infants Understand the Meaning of Words?
12-13 months – yes
Receptive language (understanding) develops earlier than productive
language (expression)

19. ONE WORD AT A TIME:
THE HOLOPHRASE PERIOD
Holophrase – one word “sentences”
Early Semantics: Building a Vocabulary
Vocabulary grows one word at a time
Naming explosion – 18-24 months
Talk most about manipulable objects
Multimodel motherese – exaggerated sentences by an adult
accompanied by an action explaining the words

20.  Table 10.1 Types of Words Used by Children with Productive Vocabularies of 50 Words. SOURCE:
Adapted from Nelson, 1973.

21. ONE WORD AT A TIME:
THE HOLOPHRASE PERIOD
Individual and Cultural Variations
Referential style – word refer to people or objects (Western cultures)
Expressive style – personal/social words (Eastern cultures)
Birth order influences language style

22. ONE WORD AT A TIME:
THE HOLOPHRASE PERIOD
Attaching Meaning to Words
Fast-mapping – quickly acquiring a word after hearing it
applied a few times
Good at 13-15 months, better for understanding, difficult
retrieving words from memory

23. ONE WORD AT A TIME:
THE HOLOPHRASE PERIOD
Common Errors in Word Use
Overextension – overgeneralization
Underextension – using word for small range of objects
Strategies for Inferring Word Meanings
Use of social and contextual cues
Processing constraints
Object scope; Mutual exclusivity; lexical constraint

24.  Table 10.2 Some Processing Strategies, or Constraints, That Guide Young Children’s Inferences about the
Meaning of New Words.

25. ONE WORD AT A TIME:
THE HOLOPHRASE PERIOD
Syntactical Clues to Word Meaning
Syntactical bootstrapping – learning meaning from sentence structure
o Noun – object
o Adjective – characteristic of object
o Causation – action word

26. THE TELEGRAHPIC PERIOD: FROM HOLOPHRASES
TO SIMPLE SENTENCES
Telegraphic speech – 18-24 months
Simple sentences, containing only critical words (no
grammatical markers)
More common in languages where word order is more
important than grammatical markers
A Semantic Analysis of Telegraphic Speech

27.  Table 10.3 Similarities in Children’s Spontaneous Two-Word Sentences in Four Languages. SOURCE:
Adapted from Slobin, 1979.

28. THE TELEGRAHPIC PERIOD: FROM HOLOPHRASES
TO SIMPLE SENTENCES
A Semantic Analysis of Telegraphic Speech
Follows some grammatical rules
Context is also vital for understanding meaning
The Pragmatics of Early Speech
2 year olds – good at vocal turn-taking
Prefer to talk about unshared information
Monitor responses to clarify meaning
Understanding need to be polite

29. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL
PERIOD
Preschool period (2 ½-5) sentences become complex and
adultlike
Grammatical Development
Development of Grammatical Morphemes
Grammatical morphemes – modifiers give more precise meaning to
sentences
‘s’ for plurality; ‘ed’ for past tense
‘ing’ for present progressive

30.  Table 10.4 Samples of One Boy’s Speech at Three Ages.

31.  Table 10.5 Order of Acquisition of English Grammatical Morphemes.

32.  Figure 10.5 A linguistic puzzle used to determine young children’s understanding of the rule for forming plurals in English.

33. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL
PERIOD
Grammatical Morphemes - continued
Acquired in a specific order
Overregularization – overextend new grammatical morphemes
o Relatively rare

34. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL
PERIOD
Mastering Transformational Rules
Transformation grammar – rules for creating variations of declarative
sentences
Asking questions
o Yes/no – rising intonation
o Wh- questions (who, what, where, when, why)
o Moving auxiliary verb

35. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL
PERIOD
Producing Negative Sentences
o Negative before sentence
o Move negative inside sentence
o Combine negative with auxiliary verb
Producing Complex Sentences
o Age 3 - clauses, conjunctions first, embedded sentences next
o 5-6 good grammar

36. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL
PERIOD
Semantic Development
2-5 understand and express relational contrasts
Big/little; tall/short; in/on; here/there
Frequently misinterpret passives

37. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL
PERIOD
Development of Pragmatics and Communication Skills
3 year olds – illocutionary intent – real meaning may be
different than literal meaning of words
3-5 – must tailor messages to communicate effectively

38. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL
PERIOD
Referential Communication
Ability to detect ambiguities in others’ speech and ask for clarification
Preschool – fail to detect linguistic ambiguities
o Generally successfully guess
Assume own uninformative sentences are clear
Better in natural environment than lab

39. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING MIDDLE
CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE
Later Syntactical Development
Middle childhood – syntactical refinement
Subtle rules, complex structures
Semantic and Metalinguistic Awareness
Rapid vocabulary growth –
Morphological knowledge – meaning of morphemes to determine new
words
Add abstract words
9 to 11 – recognize and make inferences

40. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL
PERIOD
Metalinguistic awareness
Thinking about language and comment on properties
Grammatical awareness
Phonological awareness – linked to reading achievement

41. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL
PERIOD
Further Development of Communication Skills
Dramatic improvement in referential communication skills by
6 or 7
Less egocentric, more role-taking
9 - 10 years old – more clarification for ambiguous information

42.  Table 10.6 Typical Idiosyncratic Descriptions Offered by Preschool Children When Talking about Unfamiliar Graphic
Designs in the Krauss and Glucksberg Communication Game.

43. LANGUAGE LEARNING DURING THE PRESCHOOL
PERIOD
What Role Do Siblings Play in the Growth of
Communication Skills?
Promotes effective communication
Siblings less likely to adjust speech, but then more likely to monitor and
fix ambiguous messages
Less likely to interpret ambiguous message from younger sibling –
forcing them to adjust

44.  Table 10.7 Important Milestones in Language Development.

45. Bilingualism: Challenges and Consequences of
Learning Two Languages
Exposure to 2 languages prior to age 3, proficient in both
Preschool children, often learn second language to
proficiency in 1 year
Cognitive advantages
Score higher on IQ tests, metalinguistic awareness, better
selective attention

46. Bilingualism: Challenges and Consequences of
Learning Two Languages
English-only instruction
Causes LEP children to struggle academically
Do not acquire sufficient level of skill in English

47. Bilingualism: Challenges and Consequences of
Learning Two Languages
Two-way bilingual education
Half day in English, half in second language
Beneficial for both students with limited English proficiency
and students fluent in English