Psych 2aa3 - Child Development Review

Psych 2AA3 Final Exam Review

Language development

What is language?

• Definition: A system that relates sounds (or gestures) to meaning.
• Differs from ‘communication’ in 4 ways:

1. Symbolic, arbitrary units of meaning
2. Structured and meaningful
3. Shows displacement
4. Characterized by generativity

• 1.
• 2. Structured and meaningful (grammar) children start to speak with grammar without needing to learn it in a class
• 3. Shows displacement – we can communicate about things in the past or the future not just in the now
• 4. Characterized by generativity- we have a certain number of words we know, but we can put the words together in countless ways- we can put old words in new ways to convey new type of meanings- they learn individual words and put them together in sentences

[pic 1]

1. phonology- types of sounds that exist in language- tiny unit of sound (sounds of the letter not necessarily the letter itself)
2. Morphology-small unit- but this time its about meaning, dog- single syllable that has meaning, or –ing – all about conveying meaning -Dog- free morphine, and –ing is a bound morphine
3. Semantics-the actual words and their meanings
4. Grammar- how we start to structure our language
5. Pragmatics –looking at how people use language to communicate, knowing how to speak to one type of person vs. another (4 yr old vs. your boss)

Creation of a language

• Hawaiian Pidgin to creole- a system they use to speak to each other but
• In Hawaii there was people in sugar plantations- from all around the world, all these people spoke dif. Languages
• They created this Hawaiian pidgin to help them speak to each other
• As time went on it started to be used outside the plantation- so the children who were born to this generation were taught this language and it started to be taught in schools etc.
• Now this language has a language system and it has pragmatics etc.- the pidgin language that was created became a creole after the second generation children were born into it
• Creole- stable, natural language that was developed
• Nicaraguan sign language
• Before the 1970s there weren’t people who were deaf- so they were isolated
• Many of them were non linguistics- and they couldn’t communicate with families b/c there was no sign language
• Teachers tried their best to try to teach the children as best they could but it wasn’t working
• The children at the school started communicating with each other- combining gestures they use to speak to their parents
• Younger deaf children that are coming in were starting to put more language into it
• They eventually turned it into sophisticated sign language

The infant’s linguistic world

• Discriminating between languages

• Nazzi et al., 1998

• Whether or not infants can distinguish b/w one language and a dif. Language from birth
• Studies done by researches in the 90s to answer this question
• Babies would prefer to listen to their native lang. vs. other languages
• The babies in this study were French and when they heard French they had a clear preference for it (sucked on their pacifier harder)
• They had an experimental group of babies- habituated to a lang. (English for example) and their sucking goes down b/c they get bored of the language
• Infant Directed Speech (aka Motherese)
• The way we talk to a baby differs: we have a higher pitch voice, and a larger pitch range
• We also speak to babies slower than we do with adults
• Some people call this song- like speaking
• why do we do this? In all languages and cultures they do this when they are talking to children
• Even when people who have no experience with children will talk like this with children
• How do babies respond to this? We find that babies that are a few days old prefer this kind of speech rather than adult based speech
• This could be due to the facts that children like to hear higher pitches
• It emphasizes vowels so it helps babies distinguish b/w vowels also
• When we speak to babies in this way, it’s actually helping them learn language
• Phoneme perception-Is categorical

Phoneme Perception

• Phoneme perception undergoes perceptual narrowing
• Perceptual narrowing- when baby is under 6 mos. They discriminate b/w items that are from their native language and their other new language
• Babies are interested in new information- when they hear something they haven’t heard before they seem interested (we can measure this by their sucking etc.)
• The baby can tell the dif. b/w the sounds da and ba- the baby reacted when the sound ba came up and didn’t react to the sounds da
• 12 mos. Old babies have already become specialists in their native language

Infants’ brains “rehearse” speech mechanics

• MEG study with 7- and 11-month-olds (Kuhl et al., 2014)
• Activation in auditory and motor areas measured while listening to native and non-native speech sounds
• MEG- looking into brain to see where the brain activity is occurring
• Kuhl was presenting them with native speech sounds, and then presented them with foreign Spanish sounds and measure it with MEG
• Starting to repeat sounds at these ages, but they aren’t speaking their first words until 1st birthday
• If she presented native and non native speech sounds to 7 mos. Olds they would find activity in the motor areas (brokreas areas) in the brain and in the cerebellum
• She interpreted this by saying that babies brains are interpreting how the baby would say the sounds themselves
• For the 11 mos. Old babies when they are listening to native sounds- there is more activity in the auditory cortex but less motor activity
• When they listen to the non native speech sounds- they see more motor activity and less auditory cortex

[pic 2]

• Presenting a video of a person speaking
• They get the auditory and the visual part of the speech
• Tracked the babies eye gaze while they watched the talking faces on the video
• They recorded a woman speaking both in English and Spanish- and where on the face of the woman the babies looked
• Does that change as they get older? Do they look in dif. Places and does it change when she is speaking the non- native language
• Graph (native speaker English)- Are they looking more at the eyes or at the mouth?
• If the bars are below the line they are watching the mouth more- and if they are above the line they are looking at the eyes more
• The 4 mos. olds are looking more at the eyes
• Graph (non native speaker Spanish)
•  they start with an interest in the eyes
• 8 – 10 mos. Start having a preference for mouth
• At 6 mos. Even though it looks like its more eyes- the red is not that much above the line so it isn’t a significant change
• At 12 mos. They are looking more at the mouth- b/c they haven’t been able to themselves form those sounds b/c Spanish is new to them
• When adults watch other people speaking their non native language (foreign) they spend more time looking at the mouth

[pic 3]

• Cooing- making vowel sounds
• Simple babbling- their taking one speech sound and repeating it
• Complex babbling- combining different speech sounds, babies exposed to sign language will start to babble in sign language by moving their hands repeatedly in sign language motions
• Babbling with intonation-two babies having a discussion by using babbling, they’ve learned about turn taking

Word Comprehension vs. Production

• Word comprehension develops before production
• Children understand 50 words before producing 10
• 5-month gap between producing 50 words and understanding 50 words
• Babies are going to understand more words that are spoken to them then they are going to speak

Early Speech

• Holophrases

• By about 1-year
• E.g. “Ball!”

• Telegraphic Speech

• By about 1.5-years
• E.g. “Give ball!”

• Transition to sentences

• By about 2-years
• E.g. “Can you give me the ball please?”

• Holophrases- single words that convey meaning (they want you to get the ball or give them the ball, it’s the context and gestures that help you understand what they actually want b/c they are only saying that one word)
• Telegraphic speech- now they are combining a couple of words together to get the meaning across-starting to learn new words really fast- maybe 10 words a week- and then even 10 words a day
• Transition to sentences- girls reach this level before boys

How do children learn words and grammar?

• Learning words:

• Fast mapping: learning that helps children narrow down the potential meanings of a new word using context and linguistic information

• Exclusion word learning by dogs!

• Learning grammar:

• Rule learning
• Over-regularization

• Fast mapping: the way children narrow down the meaning of the word
• For ex. in terms of context if parent is pointing at object and looking at object then it’s the label of the object- the children assume it’s the whole object not parts of the object (ex. how do the babies know the mom Is trying to tell them it’s a flower and not the Patel)
• Exclusion word learning- process of elimination, you figure out that it’s a new word plus new object b/c you have never seen/heard of that object before
• Learning grammar:
• Rule learning- adding s for plural, and -ing to make it past tense
• Over regularization- children apply these rules even if it’s not the proper thing to do (he goed to the store, she runned over there)
• Learning grammar is innate
• Textbook- look at theories that psychologists went through on how children learn grammar

Into adolescence

• Understanding metaphor, sarcasm, and irony
• When the statement is really obvious they might not take it to literally- ex. if they the mom tells the boy he’s a fish he might not take in in literal terms
• Children also get better at detecting sarcasm, unless it’s very clearly made to seem like sarcasm then they won’t pick it up
• Understanding non literal meaning is developing more into adolescence

Encouraging Word Learning with TV Programs

• Some programs encourage word learning (e.g. Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer)
• Most have no benefit
• Infant-oriented videos (e.g. Baby Einstein) have no effect on infant word learning
• There are many TV programs that encourage educational learning
• There has been research done that shows Sesame street is helpful with word learning
• Children watching sesame street might do better in high school because they actually like the show
• Most of these programs don’t necessarily have benefits for word learning

Encouraging Word Learning through Reading

• Reading to your child improves vocab
• The WAY you read matters

• Carefully describing pictures
• Asking children questions

Summary:

• Language exposure in the first year of life shapes phoneme perception
• Infants form their first words ~12mo
• They move from holophrases to telegraphic speech to sentences by 2-years-old
• Vocabulary and grammar continue to improve throughout childhood
• Non-literal meanings understood in adolescence

Emotional development

• Temperament and attachment –influences on socio-emotional development

Temperament

• Inborn predisposition to behave in certain ways
• First major classification system (Thomas & Chess, 1977)

• Easy baby
• Difficult baby
• Slow-to-warm-up baby

• Effects of environment
• Correlation with adult personality

• 40% of babies fall into easy baby category
• 10% are difficult
• 15% are slow to warm up
• 35% don’t fit into one of these categories- unclassified
• This does predict adult personality
• Effects of environment:

• If you are predisposed to be a difficult baby- then its more likely that your parent is an angry parent

• If a parent has a difficult baby, it’s not set in stone that they will be like that all their life
• If a parent is understanding that external stimuli is affected on the baby- if the parent is responsive the baby will be less difficult
• Easy babies can also be ruined by terrible parenting- they will not develop optimally if the parent doesn’t parent right

Stability of temperament         

Temperament:

• Surgency/Extraversion
• Negative affect
• Effortful control

• Marshmallow Test

• 3 dimensions a baby can full under

• Surgency/extraversion- happy baby, friendly, social, like new things, enjoy exploring environ. , good mood
• If their low in surgency/ extraversion- their in bad mood , less social
• Negative effect- if a baby is high on negative effect then their more likely to get upset, and it’s difficult to sooth them
• A baby who is high on negative effect- may not get upset easily, and is easily soothed
• Effortful control – the extent to which a child can focus their attention, and not easily distracted- is their high on this then
• The ability to resist temptation- is predictive of long term outcome, they have better outcomes

The big five

• Extraversion
• Neuroticism, Openness (low), Extraversion (low)
• Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Openness

• Mature Marshmallow Test (joke)

• This scale was made up for adults

• Extraversion- being social, talkative, active etc. babies who are high in extraversion as a baby become extravert adults
• Neuroticism- high in negative affect become high in neuroticism and low in openness, willing to seek out new things, more likely to be upset as babies
• Consciousness- tendency to be organized, dependable, prefer planned rather than spontaneous behavior
• Agreeableness-tendency to be compassionate/cooperative, being able to get along with other people
• Openness

Attachment

• Strong bond b/w child and caregiver, this bond is important b/c it allows baby to become close to someone who is going to take care of them and protect them
• From the very beginning the baby is designed to form a bond with someone

Theoretical background