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What is the primary condition commonly associated with hyperlexia?
Which of the following is NOT a pro of low-tech augmentative and alternative communication devices?
What is a common drawback of high-tech augmentative and alternative communication devices?
Which function of prosody marks syntactic information and helps the listener parse speech?
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What is a common effect of prosody deficits on speech patterns?
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Which Gricean Maxim refers to providing the right amount of information in a conversation?
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What is a potential challenge faced by users of low-tech communication devices?
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Which function of prosody helps convey social information and speaker's intentions?
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What is a distinguishing characteristic of home sign systems developed by deaf individuals?
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Which of the following best describes bound morphemes?
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Which morphological suffix is an example of an inflectional morpheme?
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What does inflection semantics refer to?
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Which of the following elements is typically included in the characteristics of home sign?
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How does derivational morphology differ from inflectional morphology?
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Which of the following morphemes is an example of a derivational morpheme?
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What health impact is linked to the accelerated rate of brain atrophy?
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At what age do children typically begin to exhibit vocalizations mostly when lying down?
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Which of the following describes the early babbling stage, occurring between 6-8 months?
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What characterizes the sophisticated babbling stage for hearing babies between 8-12 months?
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During the one-word stage, children primarily use which type of words?
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What does the two-word stage typically demonstrate in language acquisition?
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How many words does a child typically have by age 6 if they start acquiring words at 18 months?
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What is Lenneberg's Hypothesis primarily concerned with in language acquisition?
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What is indicated by the Critical Period for L1 Acquisition?
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What does the Maxim of Quality emphasize in conversation?
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According to experiments rejecting the Standard Pragmatic View, how are literal and non-literal meanings processed?
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What was the key finding from the 'Indecision is a whirlpool' experiment?
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What aspect does the Maxim of Manner encourage during communication?
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What assumption does the Standard Pragmatic View make regarding non-literal meanings?
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What is a consequence of a good metaphorical meaning, such as 'Keith is a baby'?
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What does the Recognition Problem refer to in the context of semantics?
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Which factor is considered under the Standard of Comparison for Mental Age?
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What is a characteristic of Genie’s language development after being discovered?
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Which of the following children achieved age-appropriate language by the age of 7.5?
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What is one implication of the critical periods in language acquisition?
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How do the first signs of deaf children compare to the first words of hearing children?
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What can be said about the language capabilities of Chelsea after her hearing improved?
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What can be inferred about the impact of early sign language input on deaf children?
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What is a common feature of language acquisition observed in both deaf and hearing children?
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What aspect of children's word acquisition presents challenges for determining meaning?
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Study Notes
Typical L1 Acquisition
- Vocalization in infants starts between 2-5 months, often done while lying down
- Voluntary vocalization leads to "vocal games" where babies manipulate pitch and practice sounds like frictions, murmurs, and bilabials
- First vowels appear during these games
- Deaf babies also engage in these "vocal games"
- Babbling starts around 6-8 months, characterized by repetitive consonant-vowel syllables
- Babbling progresses from single syllables to combinations
- Deaf babies babble vocally in the early stages
- Hearing babies can model their vocalization pitch based on those around them (higher with women, lower with men)
- Babies can still recognize language sounds that are not part of their native language
- Sophisticated babbling starts at 8-12 months
- Deaf children cease vocal babbling and start babbling using the sounds of their native language
- Yoruba babies' babbling primarily consists of V-C-V (vowel-consonant-vowel) syllables because most Yoruba words begin with vowels
- English babies' babbling primarily consists of C-V-C (consonant-vowel-consonant) syllables because most English words begin with consonants
- Hearing babies' sophisticated babbling includes vocalizing sounds of the surrounding language
- The one-word stage begins around 1 year old
- Vocabulary at this stage focuses mostly on concrete nouns and verbs, like "car" and "eat"
- Naming skills precede asking questions during this stage
- Babies can follow simple verbal commands at this stage
- The two-word stage starts around 18 months, where children combine words like "Mommy's sock" (possessor-possessed)
- The "All Hell's Breaking Loose" stage marks rapid vocabulary expansion
- A child typically acquires about 14,000 words by age 6, which equates to approximately one new word every waking hour
Atypical L1 Acquisition
- Lenneberg proposed that language acquisition has a biological foundation, similar to physical development stages like standing (one-word stage), walking (two-word stage), and jumping (3+ words).
- Lenneberg’s theory suggests uniform development as evidence for the Innateness Hypothesis.
- The Critical Period Hypothesis suggests a window of opportunity for language acquisition
- Lenneberg’s case studies highlight the importance of early stimulation and interaction for language development:
- Genie: Discovered at 13, severely deprived, language development stagnated at a 2.5-year-old level.
- Isabelle: Discovered at 6, hidden from birth, cognitive skills of a 2-year-old but achieved normal language development by 7.5 years.
- Chelsea: Born hearing impaired, misdiagnosed, achieved improved hearing at 31, significant vocabulary but limited syntax.
- Sign language acquisition provides further evidence for Critical Period Hypothesis:
- Late learners without neglect and abuse offer numerous test cases.
- Older deaf children/learners acquiring sign language are less likely to sign like native signers.
Sign Language L1 Acquisition
- Most deaf children have hearing parents, leading to a lack of early sign language input.
- Only about 3-7% of deaf signers have ASL as their L1 (first language).
- The absence of early sign language input is generally not associated with neglect or abuse, unlike cases like Genie.
- Late learners without neglect and abuse provide valuable observations on the Critical Period.
- Deaf babies babble with their hands at 6-8 months, similar to hearing babies.
- Deaf children may acquire their first 10 signs before hearing children acquire their first 10 words.
- The timing and order of one-word, two-word stages, and 3+ word utterances are similar for both hearing and deaf children.
- Deaf children start to use individual signs around 8 months old, similar to hearing children who also start making meaningful gestures.
- Definite first signs appear around 12 months.
- Pronoun reversal occurs in both hearing and signing children, reflecting a normal stage of language acquisition.
Word Acquisition
- Determining a child's perceived meaning of a word can be challenging because they often generalize word meanings based on features.
- Increased risk of depression, anxiety, and suicide may result from:
- Brain Atrophy: Accelerates the rate of brain atrophy.
- Dementia: May contribute to the development of dementia.
- Difficulty Walking: Impairs balance due to muted auditory signals.
- Home sign is a form of gestural communication developed by deaf individuals without access to formal sign language:
- Unique to each family or individual.
- Developed in the absence of exposure to established sign language.
- Often used by deaf children with hearing parents.
- Characteristics of Home Sign:
- Contains basic linguistic elements (nouns, verbs, syntax).
- Uses consistent gestures for specific meanings.
- May lack the complexity and structure of established sign languages.
- Development of Home Sign:
- Emerges from the necessity to communicate.
- Evolves over time within the home environment.
Bound and Free Morphemes
- Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in a language.
- Free morphemes can stand alone as words ("cat," "dog," "run," "happy").
- Bound morphemes cannot stand alone and must be attached to other morphemes ("un-", "re-", "-ed", "-ing", "-s").
- Types of bound morphemes:
- Inflectional morphemes modify tense, number, and aspect without changing the word's category ("-s", "-ed").
- Derivational morphemes change the meaning or category of the word ("un-", "-ness").
- Inflectional morphology adds properties without changing the word category. Examples:
- Tense (Past): -ed
- Person (3rd person singular): -s
- Number (singular): -ø
- Plural: -s, -es
- Derivational morphology can change the word category. Examples:
- -ity: passivity
- -ion: communion
- Re-: reread
- Un-: untie
- -ize: privatize
Inflectional Morphology:
- Refers to the meaning changes brought by inflectional morphemes (tense, number, gender, case, etc.)
- Alters the form of words to express different grammatical functions without changing word category.
- Inflection Categories:
- Tense: Past, present, future (e.g., walk → walked).
- Number: Singular, plural (e.g., cat → cats).
- Person: First, second, third (e.g., I run, you run, he/she runs).
- Gender: Masculine, feminine, neuter (e.g., actor → actress).
- Hyperlexia is commonly associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or at least autistic-like features
- Hyperlexia is often reported as one of the savant abilities in autism
Augmentative and Alternative Communication Devices
- Low-Tech devices include picture boards, communication books, and PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System).
- Pros: Inexpensive, easy to use, no batteries required, customizable, accessible.
- Cons: Limited vocabulary options, less efficient for complex communication, bulky and difficult to carry around, reliant on physical handling.
- High-Tech devices include speech-generating devices, tablets with communication apps, and eye-tracking devices.
- Pros: Extensive vocabulary and customization options, accommodate complex communication needs, voice output, portable, adaptable.
- Cons: Expensive, require charging and maintenance, learning curve for users, potential technical issues.
Functions of Prosody
- Prosody marks syntactic information, helping listeners parse speech (Example: Stress on different words changes the meaning).
- Prosody conveys social information beyond the sentence (Example: Tone of voice when asking "My name is Gregory Ward?").
- Prosody also changes register to convey general feelings and emotions (Example: "That can't be true!" with appropriate tone and facial expressions).
Prosody Deficits
- Difficulty with stress, pitch, intonation, loudness, pauses, and pace, leading to challenges with:
- Using prosody to mark syntactic information.
- Conveying social information and speaker’s intentions through prosody.
- Expressing emotions and feelings with an appropriate tone.
- Can affect comprehension and production of language in social interactions.
Gricean Maxims
- The Maxim of Quantity: Provide the right amount of information (not too much, not too little).
- The Maxim of Quality: Be truthful, do not provide false or unsupported information.
- The Maxim of Relation: Be relevant, ensure information is pertinent to the conversation.
- The Maxim of Manner: Be clear and orderly, avoid ambiguity and obscurity.
Literal and Nonliteral Language/Standard Pragmatic View: evidence for and against
- Rejecting the Standard Pragmatic View: Numerous experiments and studies show non-literal meanings are computed as fast as literal meanings.
- "Open the Window" Experiment: Participants read "I would like you to open the window" or "Can you open the window?"
- Results: Judgment times were the same, indicating literal and non-literal expressions were processed simultaneously.
- "Indecision is a whirlpool" Experiment: Participants responded to words related to the metaphorical expression "Indecision is a whirlpool."
- Results: Subjects responded to non-literal target words like "confusion" at the same speed as literal words like "water."
- Good Metaphorical Meaning: When the metaphorical meaning is strong and easily understood, it's difficult for readers to deem it "untrue" in favor of the literal meaning.
- Example: "Keith is an adult who acts immaturely: Keith is a baby." Participants had a hard time identifying the statement as technically false.
- The Standard Pragmatic View assumes:
- Non-literal meanings are only computed after literal meanings.
- Non-literal meanings are optional, considered only when the literal meaning is not available.
- The experimental evidence contradicts these assumptions.
The Recognition Problem
- The recognition problem raises the question of how humans understand figurative language when the literal interpretation is false.
- Studies show that people quickly process non-literal meanings, suggesting figurative language is not always a secondary interpretation.
Lexical semantics vs. Propositional (compositional) semantics
- Lexical semantics deals with the meaning of individual words.
- Propositional semantics focuses on the meaning of sentences and how their meaning is composed of the meaning of individual words.
Standards of Comparison
- Mental Age (MA) is a measurement of a person's cognitive and intellectual abilities, compared to the average performance of people at a certain age.
- It's assumed that nonverbal cognition is approximately equal to language performance.
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Description
This quiz covers the stages of L1 acquisition in infants, focusing on vocalization and babbling patterns. Learn how infants, including those who are deaf, engage in vocal games and the characteristics of their vocal developments from 2 months to 12 months. Explore the impact of environment and language exposure on these early vocalizations.
