Chapter 8 The Development of Communication

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Chapter 8 The Development of Communication

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• Theresa Garcia, Eva Ruiz, Francesca Zollo

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Structure Versus Function Clashing Theories

• Psycholinguists
• Structuralists
• The Miracle Theory

• Behavioral Psychologists
• Functionalists
• The Impossible Theory

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A Structural Approach Psycholinguistics

• Nativism
• The Child as Linguist
• The Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
• Changes in Emphasis

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Nativism

• Nativism the view that language is a part of the
  biological nature of humans
• Linguistic universals aspects of language shared
  by all member of the human species due to the
  structure of human thought and neurophysiology

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The Child as Linguist

• Psycholinguists suggest that children follow a
  specific process in discovering new language
• Listening to the sounds made and the situations
  in which they are made
• Forming a hypothesis about what the sound means
• Testing this hypothesis by using the sound in a
  situation
• Confirming or discarding the hypothesis

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The Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

• Hypothetical mental construct believed by
  psycholinguist to be responsible for the childs
  acquisition of language.
• Inferred to be part of innate human physiological
  makeup
• language is viewed as a generative process that
  is not merely imitative or rote but characterized
  by an infinite number of grammatical utterances

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Changes in Emphasis

• Surface Structure
• Transformational Rules
• Semantics
• Pragmatics
• Verbal Behavior

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A Functional Approach The Analysis of Verbal
Behavior
Mand
Textual
Autoclitic
Intraverbal
Echoic
Tact
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Higher Order Operants

• Naming
• The basic unit of verbal behavior
• Provides a formal label for an object or event
• It is bi-directional because it requires
• Development of speaker behavior
• Development of listener behavior

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Higher Order Operants

• Relational Frame Theory and Language
• Relational Frame Theory (RFT)
• Relational Responding
• Relational Networks

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Behavioral Systems, Genetics and Language

• Behavioral Systems Perspective
• Verbal behavior develops as a skill
• The Role of Genetics
• A common genetic basis
• The Function of Language
• Main function communication

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Early Stages of Language Development
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Early Stages of Language Development

• Do Prelanguage Sounds Lead to Language?
• Who Shapes Babbling into Words?
• Automatic Reinforcement
• Symbolic Gesturing
• First Words
• The Holophrastic Stage
• The Telegraphic Stage

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Do Prelanguage Sounds Lead to Language

• Psycholinguists
• Prelinguistic sounds are necessary, but they do
  not get shaped into words themselves

• Behavioral Psychologists
• Prelinguistic sounds are shaped into later
  language in a continuous matter

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Who Shapes Babbling Into Words?

• Parents are an agent for shaping babbling, but
  they do not do it at the level required to shape
  all sounds of the language
• The Impossible Theory

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Automatic Reinforcement

• A Five Step Process
• Parents use sound of native language
• Sounds of native language become secondary
  reinforcers themselves
• When the child babbles, by luck, one of these
  sounds is emitted
• The consequence of the response is hearing the
  sound
• The response is automatically reinforced

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Symbolic Gesturing and First Words

• Symbolic Gesturing
• Appears around the beginning of the childs
  second year
• First Words
• Appears around the time of the childs first
  birthday

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The Holophrastic and Telegraphic Stages

• Holophrastic Stage
• Children use single words to stand for entire
  concepts
• Telegraphic Stage
• Two-word utterances that are missing some
  unimportant works

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Language Development as Skill Learning

• Parents intuitively use four behavioral
  characteristics (Moerk)
• High intensity of repetition
• Effects of frequency of repetitions
• Knowledge of results
• Information acquired by the teacher of the
  learners failure or success

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Language Development as Skill Learning

• Language Skill Learning in the Home
• The Role of Imitation
• The Role of Reinforcement in Imitation and
  Communication

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Language Skill Learning in the Home

• Language input to the children
• Quantity vs. Quality
• The effects of exposure on the development of
  language
• All children will learn their language
• Feedback of the child
• Amount of reinforcing and punishing have
  important effects

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The Role of Imitation

• Selective Imitation
• Behavior that matches some part of the models
  utterance
• Overregularization
• Using the regular form of a verb for an irregular
  verb

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The Role of Reinforcement in Imitation and
Communication

• 3 Functional phases in the parent-child language
  teaching interaction
• Becoming Partners
• Staying and Playing
• Practicing