PSYC 206 Lifespan Development Bilge Yagmurlu

The Power of Language Language is a symbolic system of enormous scope and power. It permits the expression of abstract ideas, desires, and emotions, and is one of the most significant means of preserving and passing on, and even challenging and transforming, a culture’s knowledge, values, and beliefs. 2

The Power of Language Lexical Approach All important individual differences have become encoded within the natural language Synonym Frequency 3

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Language Development Secondary intersubjectivity Communication about objects and events that are the focus of joint attention Vocabulary spurt and myelination of language-related regions. 5 5

Brain Structures and Processes Broca’s Area An area on the left frontal lobe of the brain Wernicke’s Area An area of the brain that when damaged 6

Brain Structures and Processes Lesions Impact on language processing: Normal or near-normal development is observed if damage occurs early life (e.g., stroke cutting off the blood supply). Plasticity 7

Environmental Key to Language Language Deprived Environments E.g., children in Romanian orphanages Deaf children with parents communicating in sign language vs. Deaf children with parents not communicating in sign language Hearing children reared by deaf parents 8

Environmental Key to Language Home sign: The opportunity to communicate enables basic features of language but does not lead to complex language abilities. 9

Basic Domains of Language Acquisition Phonological development Semantic development Grammar development Pragmatic development

Phonological Development The process of learning how to segment strings of speech sounds into meaningful units. Phoneme: sounds that differ and make a difference in meaning in a particular language Minimal pairs: pat vs. bat; /p/ and /b/ as two phonemes Examples in Turkish: yar vs. kar; al vs. Ar

Semantic Development Semantic development: The process of learning the meanings of words and word combinations, by identifying the word’s referent. Components: Receptive and expressive vocabulary

Semantic Development Vocabulary development: growth spurt in new words Fast mapping

Grammar Development Definition of grammar development: The process of learning the rules of a particular language for sequencing words in a sentence, and word parts within words. Syntactic bootstrapping: use of knowledge of grammar to figure out the meaning of new words

Grammar Development Syntactic bootstrapping: 7 months: Sensitive to ordering of words in simple sentences and can abstract patterns of word usage from such sentences around 2 years Helps figure out whether the new word is noun or verb etc. 15

Pragmatic Development Definition of pragmatic development: The process of learning the social and cultural conventions that govern how language is used in particular contexts. Functions: To use context and social cues to interpret communications

Pragmatic Development Children with autism tend to have problems with pragmatics. Without a good understanding of the pragmatics, children will miss a huge part of communication and have a large amount of trouble learning to express feelings and thoughts. 17

Pragmatic Development Referential communication being able to package the info in a way that takes into account the perceptual and informational status of the listener shows development throughout preschool ages related to children´s developing theory of mind 18

Keys to Language Two keys to the world of language Normal human biological structures and processes Active participation in language-using community With these two keys, young children enter a symbolic universe that is distinctively human.

Explanation of Language Acquisition Three distinctive approaches Biological Social and Cultural Cognitive

Biological Explanations Perspective: Our brains are hard wired to learn language. Biologically programmed sensitivity to language is present at birth, which develops as the child matures Noam Chomsky’s theory: heredity, innate ability Development is triggerred via Language Acquisition Device (LAD). We are programmed to recognize the deep structures that underlie any particular language that we may hear.

Social and Cultural Explanations Perspective: emphasizes the role of environment Social interactions: children acquire language in the process of using language. Bruner’s Language Acquisition Support System (LASS): behaviors and formatted events within which children acquire language. Also Tomasello… Environmental complement to LAD Children become increasingly more successful at communicating

Cognitive Approaches Perspective: Language abilities follow from increasing ability to think and process information E.g., Gopnik Switch from collective monologues to true dialogs. Related to egocentrism. Collective monologue Regardless of age, strong association between vocabulary size, mastery of grammatical structure and the ability to express thoughts.

Biological Prerequisites Chimpanzees After years of hard work, chimpanzees can learn several dozen signs, in combinations similar to a 2-year-old; but children with no special training learn thousands of words in a relatively short time span Down syndrome Restricted vocabulary and simple grammar suggest that normal language development requires normal cognitive function, at least in certain key areas.

Role of the Environment Deaf children whose parents won’t sign and hearing children raised by deaf parents develop basic rudiments of grammar (2- or 3-word phrases), but not more complex ones