Pragmatic Development

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Pragmatic Development
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To remind you.

• Language
• Communication
• Speech

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Another reminder
Form
Use
Content
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Pragmatics-definition

• Rules governing the uses of language in
  context (Bates, 1976)
• Emphasis on functions/ uses of language than on
  structure
• Language context
• Functions

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Outline

• communicative intentions
• Discourse skill
• Theory of mind
• Social Interactionism Theory
• Assessments

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Communicative Intentions

• Perlocutionary Stage 0-8 months
• Babys sounds and movements are primarily
  reflexive
• Illocutionary Stage 8-9 months
• A full range of gestures and vocalizations to
  express a variety of intentions
• Locutionary Stage 9 months and up
• The use of words with first gestures in a
  context.
• (Adopted from Owens, 1998)

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• Which Intentionality Stage?
• Baby cried and parent determined he is hungry and
  brought him milk
• A baby giving a ball to his mommy to ask her to
  throw the ball.
• Baby was crying and parent determined the baby
  was sleepy and put her in bed.
• A child pointing to cookie jar to request a
  cookie.
• A child producing /m/ while standing in front of
  the refrigerator, gazing at his mom , to request
  an ice-cream
• A child extending his hand toward the play
  telephone and makes the vocalization/uh/ to
  request the toy

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• Halliday ( 1975)
• Instrumental
• Regulatory
• Interactional
• Personal
• Imaginative
• Heuristic
• Informative

• Dore (1975) Primitive Speech Acts
• Labeling
• Repeating
• Answering
• Requesting action
• Requesting
• Calling
• Greeting
• Protesting
• Practicing

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• Three year old Sandy uses gestures and
  vocalizations in combination to express
  intentions, demonstrating communication at the
  _____________ stage. During the session, Sandys
  behaviors fulfilled several functions and
  expressed numerous meanings. He used gestures and
  vocalizations for primarily ________ reasons ( he
  grunted and pointed to the plastic hotdogs). He
  also exhibited ____________ functions ( when he
  stopped the facilitator from spinning a top),
  ________ functions ( when he handed the lockbox
  to the facilitator to open for him), and
  ________ functions (when the facilitator asked
  him where his daddy was).
• (Linder ,2001)

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• Three year old Sandy uses gestures and
  vocalizations in combination to express
  intentions, demonstrating communication at the
  _____________ stage. During the session, Sandys
  behaviors fulfilled several functions and
  expressed numerous meanings. He used gestures and
  vocalizations for the following functions
  ___________ ( he grunted and pointed to the
  plastic hotdogs), ________ (he stopped the
  facilitator from spinning a top), ____________(
  he handed the lock box to the facilitator to open
  for him),_______(when the facilitator asked him
  where his daddy was), to _______( when he found a
  toy buried in the sand table and handed it to the
  facilitator), and to _______ (when he wanted the
  facilitator to lift him up onto the climbing gym)
• (Linder ,2001)

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Communicative Intentions- Final Point
Meaning
Functions
Frequency
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Discourse Analysis
Means of Discourse
Topic Maintenance Techniques
Discourse Initiation
Turn taking Rules of TT Role Play
Verbal
Non- Verbal
Substitution
Clarification
Focus operation
Extensions
Questioning
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Discourse Skills

• Age Discourse Skills Content
• By 1 year Initiates a topic by combination of
  Limited to topics that are
• glances,vocalizations
  physically present
  
• 2-3 Years Can introduce topic Topic
  does not have to be
• Engages in short
  dialogue of few turns physically
  present. Uses attention-
• getting words, rising intonation
• Provides descriptive detail
• 3-4 Years Can engage in dialogue beyond a few
  turns Action is a common topic
• More aware of social aspects of
  discourse Verbs go and do
  predominant.
• Acknowledges partners turn,
  can determine Uses direct requests (May I)
• how much information
  listener needs
• 4-5 years Modifies language when talking to
  younger Discusses state, feelings, emotions,
• child attitudes.
• Increases awareness of listeners role
  and Verbs be and do predominant.
• understanding
• 5-6 years Can sustain topic through a dozen
  turns Uses most varieties of English
• Conversation much like adults
  sentences
• (Linder, 2001)

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• Four year old Rosalie, a child with severe
  disabilities, had discourse skills that were
  limited by her physical restrictions. Rosalie
  could maintain discourse if the responses
  required of her were limited to one word. Her
  lack of breath control and difficulty with
  articulation precluded actual conversation. When
  observed in interaction with her mother, she
  initiated interaction by looking at a doll. Her
  mother then picked up the doll and asked, Would
  you like to hold it, Rosalie? Rosalie nodded and
  grunted. Her mother put the doll into her arms
  and Rosalie smiled. Her mother commented thats
  a nice doll, isnt it? Rosalie nodded and looked
  at the baby bottle. Should we feed her? Mother
  asked. Rosalie nodded. Mother held the bottle up
  to the dolls mouth, and rosalie said /Mmm/. This
  sequence of interaction continued through several
  more turns, before Rosalie changed the topic of
  conversation by looking at another toy.

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CommunicationLanguage Separate?

• Normal development
• Children with autism

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Why Chimpanzees don't learn Language?

• Neural basis for language acquisition
• Brain size
• Brain structure
• Corpus-collosum and the communication within and
  between hemispheres.
• The circuity within the language area
• Theory of Mind.
• Geneom based differences.

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Theory of mind (ToM)

• to attribute mental states to oneself and others
• Innate in humans
• SP Developing Selection processor
• Maturation
• Social interactions
• Development in children 3-4 years
• Precursors Joint attention pointing, etc.
• Direct vs. indirect speech acts
• Autism ToM
• Deaf children ToM

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ToM tasks

• Understanding false beliefs (4 years/ 18 months)
• Unexpected Contents tasks
• Displaced Object tasks
• Behavioral reenactment technique (Meltzoff,
  1999)
• Appearance reality task
• Non-verbal Paradigm
• Preferential looking
• False Photograph task
• Unexpected Contents tasks
• Displaced Object tasks
• Behavioral reenactment technique (Meltzoff, (1999

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Social Interactionism Theory

• Structure of human language from languages
  social communicative functions in human
  relations.
• Language Function
• Language development
• Childs role
• Vgotsky vs. Piaget
• Language Cognition
• Use of language internally

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Assessment of pragmatic skills

• General or mixed
• Pragmatic Screening Test (PST) (Prinz weiner,
  1989)
• Test Of Language Competence for Children (TLC-C)
  (wiig Secord, 1987)
• Interpersonal Language Skills Assessment (ILSA)(
  Blagden McConnel, 1985)
• Function
• Lets Talk Inventory for Children (Bray wiig,
  1987)
• Test of Pragmatic Skills Revised (shulman, 1986)
• Context
• Preschool Language Assessment inventory (PLAI)
  (Blank, Rose, Berlin, 1978)
• (Lahey, 1988)

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• Speech sampling Observation
• Functions variety
• Frequency
• Register
• Topic maintenance
• Eye-contact
• Turn-taking
• Coherence
• Adaptation to listener

• - Prosody
• -Linguistic features used
• - Meaning

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Examples
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• Shipley 202