Deck 6: Development of Language and Symbol Use

Question 1

Describe the differences in the ability to differentiate among speech sounds for an infant and a 5-year-old child. What is the evolutionary purpose of the initial ability, and how does the ability change or disappear?

Answer 1

Not Answer

Question 2

At a family gathering, parents are bragging that their 8-month-old daughter seems as if she is getting ready to talk. Her grandparents, however, insist that she has no idea that those around her are even talking and that she certainly is not preparing to speak at this young age. Help the parents and grandparents settle their disagreement by describing what is known about infants' perceptions of speech and what the 8-month-old is probably doing to prepare for speaking.

Answer 2

Not Answer

Question 3

Can nonhuman primates learn language? Provide a brief description of research done on this topic and what the general results have been. Discuss three differences between human and nonhuman communicators.

Answer 3

Not Answer

Question 4

Describe the relative impact of nature and nurture on language development as proposed by Chomsky and Skinner. Provide descriptive examples.

Question 5

Imagine that a family is planning a move to Japan. There are three children in the family-an infant, a 4-year-old, and a 10-year-old. Will the children become more or less proficient in Japanese than the adults in the family? Why? Will all of the children become similarly proficient, or will the children's proficiency differ? If it will differ, how will it differ among the children and why? Describe at least two pieces of evidence from research on language to support your answers.

Question 6

Describe the concepts of intersubjectivity and joint attention and explain how they relate to language development. Provide an example of each one and explain how it will be likely to help the development of language.

Question 7

Imagine a day in the life of a preschooler. Describe the symbols the child encounters in the course of the day. Choose three of the symbols, and for each one, discuss the factors involved in the child's comprehension of its symbolic representation. Be sure to use at least one example of a symbolic artifact.

Question 8

Imagine that a babysitter for a toddler who is in the telegraphic speech stage decides to take the child on an outing, perhaps to the zoo, the beach, the park, or the city. The babysitter and child will probably encounter many sights that will be fascinating to the child. Describe what types of utterances the child is likely to make. Give five examples of "sentences" the child might say, and translate them into expressions an adult would probably use for the same thought.

Question 9

Adults contribute to children's word learning in a number of ways, but children themselves also contribute to their word learning. Describe children's contributions. Be sure to include a description of at least three assumptions that children make about what new words must mean.

Question 10

Give a detailed example of a conversation between an adult and a preschooler in which the adult is providing scaffolding for the child. Explain what the adult is trying to accomplish and how the adult is going about accomplishing it. Discuss whether the adult is likely to be successful, and why or why not.

Question 11

Which comes first-language production or language comprehension? Provide at least two detailed examples to support your answer.

Question 12

Discuss the influence of nurture on children's first spoken words. How might culture affect how quickly children begin to produce words as well as which words children say first?

Question 13

Imagine that someone is trying to program a robot to speak infant-directed speech. Provide a description of four instructions that the person would give the robot.

Question 14

Describe three similarities between the process of language acquisition for children learning a spoken language and the process for children learning a signed language. Why do you think this issue was such a recurrent focus of this chapter?

Question 15

The development of language involves several areas of development-phonological, semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic. Briefly explain what development in each of these areas entails. Give one example of an advancement in each area that is typical of toddler language development and one example of an advancement in each area that is typical of a child who is at a more advanced level of language development.

Question 16

Describe three pieces of evidence supporting the notion of a critical period for language acquisition. What implications does this evidence have for exposing congenitally deaf children to a sign language?

Question 17

Define and provide two examples of (a) overregularization and (b) overextension. For each type of error, describe what a child's errors of this type tell us about her language development.

Question 18

Describe the characteristics of older infants' babbling. Are these characteristics independent of or dependent on experience? Explain, and provide examples to support your position.