Child Language Acquisition

Front 1

What happens to a child before birth?

Back 1

Learns to recognise its native language, they are better comforted by it.

Front 2

Give an example of child learning before birth

Back 2

Mehler's experiment in 1988 found four day old children sucked thier dummies harder when spoken to in their native tongue

Front 3

6-8 weeks old

Back 3

increased control over vocal chords, e.g. gurgling/mewing/cooing. 'ma', 'da' 'ga' are just noises, not words.

Front 4

6-9 months old

Back 4

babbling begins - combinations of consonants and vowels resemblind adult language. Very noisy stage.

Front 5

Explain phonemic expansion and contraction

Back 5

When a child learns what sounds are unneccesary, it is discarded.

Front 6

at 6-9 months what can a child understand?

Back 6

simple words such as 'yes' , 'no' or 'hello'

Front 7

1 year old

Back 7

First recognisable word spoken around 12 months.

Front 8

Name the four aspects of linguistic development.

Back 8

phonology, lexis and semantics, grammer and pragmatics

Front 9

Where do consonants present most trouble in language acquisition?

Back 9

At the end of words, it is easier to pronounce the 'P' in 'Pig' than in 'tiP'

Front 10

Explain the tool of simplification using deletion

Back 10

Children simplify by deleting sounds: final consonant; unstressed syllable, consonant clusters my be reduced.

Front 11

Eplain the tool of simplification using substitution

Back 11

Children may substitute a sound they find easier to say for a harder one.

Front 12

Explain the tool of simplification using reduplication

Back 12

Children may pronounce different sounds in the same way e.g. 'lellow' instead of 'yellow'

Front 13

Explain the findings of Beko&Brown in 1960

Back 13

Children understand phonological patterns before being able to replicate them. (fish/fis) experiment.

Front 14

Explain underextension

Back 14

A common semantic error, a word is given a narrower meaning than it has in adult language. e.g. 'dog' = family pet, but the child does not relate the word to other dogs

Front 15

Explain overextension

Back 15

A broader meaning or a more general meaning, e.g. 'horse' = any four legged animal

Front 16

At which point does overextension begin to stop/fade?

Back 16

Around 30 months

Front 17

Explain labelling

Back 17

labelling is the first stage; it makes the link between the sound of the words and the object it refers to

Front 18

Explain packaging

Back 18

comes after labelling, where the child begins to understand a word's range of meanings. Over and under extension occurs here.

Front 19

Explain network building

Back 19

Were a child grasps the connection between words. They understnad that some words are opposite in meaning, they understand the connection between hypernyms and hyponyms

Front 20

Who identified the stages of labelling, packaging and network building?

Back 20

Aitchison, 1987

Front 21

At what age will a child speak mainly in single word utterences?

Back 21

12-18 months

Front 22

What can the one word phase also be called?

Back 22

Holophrastic phase

Front 23

Explain the use of familiar sentence frames in CDS

Back 23

Parents introduce new words by using a sentence they know the child understands.
e.g. Child: It's blue!
Parent: Is it LIGHT blue?

Front 24

What happens to vocabulary and constructions in CDS?

Back 24

It is simplified from usual adult constructions and vocabulary

Front 25

What happens to a caregiver's phonology when speaking to a child?

Back 25

Slower, clearer pronunciation. More pauses between sentences and phrases. Higher pitch. Exaggerated intonation and stress.

Front 26

What happens to a caregiver's lexis when speaking to a child?

Back 26

simpler, more restricted vocab. Diminuative forms (doggy, moomoo etc.) Concrete language referring to objects in child's immediate environment

Front 27

What happens to a caregiver's language when speaking to a child?

Back 27

Simpler constructions. Frequent use of imperatives. High degree of repetition. Frequent questions. Use names instead of personal pronouns (?).

Front 28

How can the Social interaction model be linked to CDS?

Back 28

Social interaction model can be linked due to the idea that language is learnt by interaction where the child is an active learner.

Front 29

What does Chompsky suggest about a child's langauge?

Back 29

He observed that a child has something called a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) that allowed a child to understand langague and use it. It doiesn't show that its innate but rather that humans can learn language over animals.