Language and Communication

• Communication involves exchanging messages or information.
• Language is a method for conveying information using sounds and/or symbols.
• Language emphasizes message, thoughts and feelings.
• Language is species-specific and species-uniform.
• Language is representative in nature.
• Language is a generative system, creating new utterances and sentences.
• Language is rule-governed and organized around non-arbitrary rules.
• Language includes interchangeability and creativity.
• Apes share 98.7% of their DNA with humans.
• Apes have complex communication systems including vocal cries.
• Gea and Viki (1930s, 1940s) could not speak.
• Washoe (1966) learned over 100 signs and combined utterances.
• Nim Chimpsky (1980) learned to sign early but did not learn grammar.
• An example of Nim Chimpsky signs: “Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange”.

Pragmatics

• Pragmatics puts it all together.
• Gricean Cooperation Principles includes quantity, quality, relevance and manner.

Development of Hearing and Vision

• Sensitivity to sound develops early (8 weeks), with hearing functional at birth.
• Newborns can only see 8-15 inches ahead.
• Human face bias is present at birth.
• Allure of stripes/edges.
• Infants segment continuous flow of visual information.

Motor Development

• At 2 months, oral muscles allow infants to voluntarily stop/start movements.
• By 3 months, infants vocalize in response to others' speech.
• By 4 months, infants engage in non-nutritive sucking of fingers/objects.
• From 1-12 months infants go from lying on their back to walking unaided.

Attention and Memory

• Newborns can't selectively attend or break free from captured attention.
• Habituation is an infant's stable decrease in attention to a stimulus that is constantly repeated.
• Memories form early but are fragile.
• Memories transition from context-dependent to context-free.
• Cognitive development gives the ability to discriminate contrasts.
• Elements that move together are seen as a group.
• Principle of Common Fate.
• Cognitive skills include object performance.

Object Permanence

• Object permanence is realizing an object exists out of sight.
• Basic understanding of object permanence is between 6 and 8 months.
• Complete/complex understanding of object permanence is between 15-20 months.
• Causal reasoning links cause and effect.
• Language with a goal to communicate needs fundamental ability.
• Language develops from simple (3 months) to complex (18 months).
• At 3 months: action leads to effect.
• At 12 months: physical and psychological development.
• At 18 months: use of objects to influence the world.
• The relationship between cognitive and language development is not unidirectional.
• Cognitive skills must be present for language to develop.
• Linguistic experience shapes cognitive skills.
• Early language coincides with cognitive development.
• Early language coincides with "object permanence."
• Early language coincides with categorization and the naming spurt.
• “Uh-oh”, “hooray” and “I did it” coincide with means-ends/problem-solving".
• Ability to discriminate all sound categories disappears around 6-12 months of age

Preverbal Communication in Infants

• Preverbal communication with infants can be shown through eye contact:
• 4-6 weeks mutual gaze
• 8 weeks: follow an object with their eyes
• 4 months: follow mother's gaze towards an object
• 9 months: joint attention!
• Children learn better when “joint-attention” initiated Baby talk:
• Short utterances, simple syntax, small core vocabulary, prosody
• Object labels pronounced more distinctly
• From very early on, babies prefer to listen to CDS
• Amount of child-directed speech is highly
• Meaning-making occurs within a context of "conversation"
• All turns are interpreted by parents as meaningful
• Turns include at 3 months- smiling, burping, sneezing
• By 7 months- vocalizations
• By 10 months- word-like vocalizations

Consonants

• Consonants are determined by:
• Place of articulation: point of contact between articulators
• Manner of articulation: how air flows
• Voicing: vocal fold vibration
• The place of articulation includes:
• Labial (bilabial): closed lips
• Labiodental: lower lip resting on upper teeth, /f/
• Interdental: tongue touches upper teeth, thin
• Alveolar: front of tongue near/at alveolar ridge
• (Pre-) Palatal: tongue near/at the hard palate
• Velar: back of tongue touches velum
• Glottal: narrowing of glottis, /h/

Manner Of Articulation:

• Stops
• Fricatives
• Stages of Babbling:

1. Reflexive vocalization (0-2 months)

• Crying, coughing, sneezing

2. Cooling (2-4 months)

• Sounds of content

3. Vocal Play (4-6 mo)

Role of Feedback

• People around the infant are external feedback.
• Infants alone are internal feedback.