Developmental Psychology Pre-verbal Communication
Overview Introduction & Definitions Listening to voices; speech perception Motherese, CDS Speech production Phonetic development Non-verbal communication Establishing joint reference Making sense of faces Early comprehension What do prelinguistic infants know about language? Emerging knowledge that others have minds Summary
Introduction and Definitions What is communication? Signals - perceived - influencing Is language discontinuous or continuous? Bickerton (1984), Shatz (1983) Bloom (1998), Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff (1996) Lock (1999) – preverbal communication
Listening to voices Speech perception DeCasper & Fifer (1980) Butterfield & Siperstein (1972) Mehler et al (1988), Moon et al (1993) Categorical perception Kuhl (2001) Best (1995)
Motherese Child directed speech Cooper & Aslin (1990) Masataka (1996) Why use motherese?
Speech production Crying Cooing Babbling Vihman (1985, 1992) Stages Locke de Boysson-Bardies et al (1992) Pettito & Marentette (1991)
Phonetic development (taken from Harris & Butterworth (2002)
Non-verbal communication Non-symbolic Showing, giving, pointing Gaze Joint reference Protoimperatives Protodeclaritives
Establishing joint reference Butterworth (1998) Pointing Butterworth & Franco (1990) Bates et al (1979) Harris, Barlow-Brown & Chasin (1995) Curcio (1978)
Lempers et al (1977) 3-4 mths adults offer & show 6-7 mths infants reciprocate 7-8 mths adults point 1 year high degree of communicative knowledge; point, check, look in direction of point (not face)
Making sense of faces Emotional expression Ludemann & Nelson (1988) Campos & Sternberg (1981) Social referencing
Early comprehension 8 mths Oviatt (1980) Fenson et al (1994) 50 words Over 150 words
What do pre-linguistic infants know about language? 6 mths 7-8 mths Turn taking
Emerging knowledge that others have minds Joint attention Implications for communication Carpenter et al (1998) < 12 mths 12-13 mths Intention and mapping Mind reading
Summary The importance of the preverbal period to language development Speech perception Speech production Pragmatic functions of gesture Other functions Transition to speech Other sources of evidence e.g. Deaf children
Reading Flom, R. & Pick, A.D. (2003) Verbal encouragement and joint attention in 18-month-old infants. Infant Behaviour & Development, 26, 121-134. Goodwyn, S., Acredolo, L., & Brown, C. (2000) Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 24(2), 81-103. Lock, A. (2004) Preverbal Communication. In. Bremner, G. & Fogel, A. (Eds.) Blackwell Handbook of Infant Development. Blackwell. Morales, M., Mundy, P., Delgado, C.E.F,. Yale, M., Messinger, D., Neal, r., & Schwartz, H.K. (2000) Responding to Joint Attention Across the 6- Through 24-Month Age Period and Early Language Acquisition. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 21 (3), 283-298.