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Language Development - Coggle Diagram
Language Development
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Nativism (Nature)
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The complexity makes language unlearnable from the environment so knowledge of language structure must be innate.
Biological (species specific) aspect to language? Evidence from primate learning studies e.g. Washoe and ASL (Gardener and Gardener, 1975): at age 4 produced about 85 signs from syntactic categories including novel combinations. Certain linguistic events (e.g. exposure to language) must occur for normal language development - Genie case study.
Problems with learning language: limitations of imitation account, language is generative, productive and creative, speed and uniformity of acquisition.
Learned Acquisition
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Use of transformational rules: capture our intuition to know that 2 sentences are linked. Structure of language described by Transformational Generative Grammar, TGG (Chomsky, 1965)
Evidence from English syntax: features of language structure (syntax) which make it difficult to learn
from the input. Hierarchical grouping of elements - phrases within clauses within sentences. (e.g. phrase structure trees) and the complexity of meaning/position relation.
Rules about how to combine elements and how the elements should be related to each other (grammatical relations). Rules for combination are sometimes called recursion.
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Chomsky's view of language development: degenerative input (imperfections in human speech), poverty of the stimulus (spoken vs written), carers correct the truth value rather than grammatical errors in children's speech, non-linear pattern of development e.g. 'I fell' 'I falled' 'I fell'
Neuropsychological evidence: hemispheric differentiation and localisation of function within the brain, from birth speech sounds elicit more electrical activity from LH rather than RH, while music and other non-speech stimuli produce greater activity from RH.
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Behaviourism (Nurture)
Language learning involves general principles of learning (Skinner, 1957).
Operant conditioning, reinforcement, conditional associations
Imitation as a basis for language learning (Bandura, 1971) e.g. accents.
Correlation between the amount mothers talked and later vocab of child (Clarke-Stewart, 1973)
Language Module
Module: a module is a self-contained set of processes. They convert input to output without the influence of external factors (independent processors).
Genetic double dissociation: “The genes of one group of children impair their grammar while sparing their intelligence; the genes of another group of children impair their intelligence while sparing their grammar” (Pinker, 1999, p262).
Genes can play a role in language, genetic inheritance of non-language specific skills can lead to language impairment.
Statistical learning: Increasing the processing demands of language induced SLI-type errors in TD children. The extent to which children are able to make use of language input cues may be a contributing factor to their language impairment.
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Down Syndrome (DS)
Characteristics: a genetic disorder due to extra chromosome, mild to severe learning difficulties particularly in memory and attention.
Language profile: poor language generally relative to mental age, expressive grammatical and syntactic abilities, lexical knowledge often appropriate for mental age.
Williams Syndrome (WS)
Characteristics: rare genetic disorder due to micro-deletion on a chromosome, relatively good language skills and poor spatial abilities.
Language profile: expressive grammatical skills and syntax abilities, lexical knowledge not as developed.
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