Child Development 131 (3):

Language and Learning

Spring 2002

Dr. Weissman

 

 

  
 

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CHDV 131 (3) Syllabus

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Group Responses to Owens’ Questions on Child Development

(as related to language)

 

1.     The diverse development of children exhibits several patterns. What are these patterns, and what do they mean?

        a.     Developmental predictability. There's an orderly sequence of development.

                 For example, a child must learn to utter sounds before she can put them together into words. (babble -> words -> sentences)

b.     Developmental Milestones. There are approximate ages that all normally developing children reach certain skills or abilities. E.g. Most babies can sit up at 4-6 months, and by their first birthday, most children speak their first words.

c.     Developmental Opportunities. A child needs experience and practice to build on their level of maturity and what they've learned, such as grasping or bouncing a ball.

        d.    Developmental Phases or Periods. Children develop in phases or periods. These are stages in which certain areas of development are

                emphasized. During these developmental phases, good nutrition is very important in order to nurture their development.

      e.   Individual Differences. Although there are approximate ages in which phases normally occur, actual ages will vary in development.

               If one child  learns to walk at 12 months and another does so at 14 months, they are both normal.

               Besides individual differences, some other differences that may affect development are socio-economic status, emotional and

               sphysical health, and prenatal care.

 

2.    Explain briefly the four processes in speech production?

        all interrelated:

a.        Physical development – growth and motor control

                The physical development consists of the proximodistal progression of a child; basically the child develops from the center out. 

·         Gross to fine motor control

·         4-5 à adolescence

b.       Cognitive development – intellectual growth

·         Organize store and retrieve information for problem solving and generalization.

·         memory

c.        Socioemotional – perception of self and others

·         The socio-emotional process involves a child becoming less egocentric and more social. 

·         Learn roles, rules, and customs of society

d.       Communicative development

·         The communicative development consists of four processes of speech production: respiration, phonation, resonation, and articulation.

·         Speech requires motor control and neuromuscular control. Body is sound source.

·         Respiration, vocal folds, larynx à phonation

Socioemotional, cognitive, physical development aid in communicative development and language learning.

 

3.     Some of the reflexive behaviors the newborn exhibits are related to oral movement. Describe these oral reflexes and when they disappear.

  • Newborns are unable to control motor behaviors smoothly and voluntarily; they instead consist of twists, jerks and random movements. These involuntary motor patterns are called reflexes. There are two types of reflexes, mass activity and specific activity.

  • Touching and rubbing the gums of a newborn causes oral movement of bite-release mouth pattern (phasic bite reflex)

  • Stroking cheek at corner of mouth causes heads to turn towards side being stroked, mouth begins sucking movement. (Rooting reflex)

  • Inserting finger or nipple into mouth in a rhythmic sucking (sucking reflex)

 

4.   Babbling and reduplicated babbling differ considerably. Describe each form of behavior.

 

Babbling is defined as having single-syllable units of consonant-vowel or vowel-consonant construction. Infant begin babbling at 4-months. It’s often and imitation of what they here. Infants produce babbling noise increasingly, and more complex. Even infants who have hearing impairments babble also . Babbling continues until school age for hearing-impaired infants, although the babbling is slightly different. During babbling stage, infants experiment with sounds. The sounds produced are sometimes not of his or her native language. Babbling however is not reinforced by parents.

 

Reduplicated babbling occurs at 6-7 months when children are still producing single-syllable sounds. Reduplicated babbling is a long string of the same single-syllable sound. Example: ma-ma-ma-ma. Hearing capability is very important in this brief stage of reduplicated babbling. It’s often connected to what infants are holding or seeing, instead of just random babbling.

 

5.     What are the major differences between two-, three, - four, - and five- year- olds, with regards to speech?

Two-year olds-

  • 200-300 word vocabulary

  • Uses short incomplete sentences

  • Can name common everyday objects

  • Uses some prepositions (in, on) and pronouns (I, me, you) but not always in the right order

  • Has their own lexicon, or personal dictionary with words, which reflects with child’s own environment.

   Three Year olds

  • 900-1000 word vocabulary

  • Creates 3-4 word sentences, but often leaves words out

  • Uses sentences with subject and verb, but simple sentence construction

  • Plays with sounds and words

  • Follows two step commands

  • Talks about the present

  • Uses “ ing” and “ed” endings but may over generalize them

  • Imitates adult intonation and swearing.

 Four Year olds

  • 1500-1600 word vocabulary

  • Asks many questions

  • Uses more complex sentence forms

  • Understands most questions about the immediate environment

  • Has some difficulty with answering “how” and “why” questions

  • Relies on word order for interpretation

  • Can carry a role through story play and can tell simple stories

  • Short term memory good

  • Can join sentences together using conjunctions

  • Uses past tense verbs correctly, instead of “ eated” they now can say “ ate”.

Five year olds

  • 2100-2200 word vocabulary

  • Discusses feelings and emotions, teases, tells stories

  • Understands before and after regardless of word order

  • Follows tree step commands

  • Has 90% grammar acquisition

  • Increased memory

  • Uses language to converse and entertain

  • Uses regular and irregular past tenses of common verbs correctly, but still has difficulty with the past tense verb “ to be” (was, were)

  • Has good temporal sense and understands yesterday, today, tomorrow

 

6.     What generalizations can we make about preschoolers’ development of speech sounds?

-          by 3 yrs. old uses an expressive vocabulary of 900 to 1,000 words and  employs in 12,000 individual words per day

-          mastered vowel sounds and consonants /p/, /m/, /n/, /w/, /b/, /k/, /g/, & /d/

-          sentences follow SVO format

-          uses toys in imaginative ways & exhibits much make-believe play often accompanied by sounds & words as he/she explains his/her actions, makes environmental noises.  Or takes various roles.

-          overgeneralize -ed ending to irregular past-tense verbs

       *ex: goed or eated

       *difficulty w/ auxiliary verbs & verb to be

-          at 4 yrs. old ask lots of questions & increase memory/recall

-          begin sentences with and or use and to produce long run-or sentences that tell a story

-          use regular & irregular past-tense verbs

-          at 5 yrs. old temporal notions help child understand explanations of cause & effect & comprehension of temporal terms such as before & after

-          uses correct regular & irregular past tenses trouble w/ verb to be

-          use expressive vocabulary

-          acquire in 80% of syntactic structures he/she will use as an adult

-          develops  many self-help skills

 

7.     Describe the overall changes that occur in the behavior of school-aged children.

·         Height and weight

·         Mental abilities, sensory input, abstract thought

·         Same sex relations becoming very important this is termed “gang relations”

·         Manipulation – influence others through language

·         Refine conversational skill to become better communication

·         Vocabulary grows to reflect systematic development of word formation rules

·         Development of fine and gross motor skills allow better manipulation of objects

·         Better coordination and balance – bike, throw ball

·         Enjoy sports, motor skills, increased self esteem, and increased independence

·         Inferred reality, centration, transform thought, reversible mental operation

 

 

8.     Explain these semantic skills:  divergent and convergent production; figurative language.

 

Divergent production-  the process of listing ideas, words, phrases, sentences on an open ended topic.

Divergent production is a process for creative thinking and language, brainstorming.

 

ie:  The ocean- color, what is in it, where it is, what does it look like, feel like, and texture.

 

Congruent production-  selecting the unique word rule that fits a specific response, closed ended question.

 

ie:  What word can be in the place of John?

John went to the store.

A.      Him

B.       Them

C.       I

D.      He

 

Figurative language-  allows the child to use abstract thoughts not stated in a literal meaning.  Uses idiom, similes, metaphors and proverbs.

 

ie:  Her smile is as bright as the sunshine. 

 

  
 

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