7121 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Elton John (Album), Sign Language, Cerebral Cortex
21 Jun 2018
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CHAPTER 6
GETTING READY TO SPEAK: the cognitive, social and neurological prerequisites for language
- Symbolic representations
oCapacity to use mental categories as substitutes for physical objects or events
oDevelops 2nd year of life
oAdults use other representational devices
Spoken, written, signed, graphic symbols, motoric symbols (recall how to do
something or pretend to do something), gestural symbols (illustrating space
with hands), sensory or iconic ((memory floods the mind with pics, sounds or
smells)
oVygostky – most kids show first symbolic rep as gestures or motoric symbols
oGestural symbols also serve a representational purpose and also a communicative
function
Btw 8-10months; most use gestures for communicational reasons
First ones; waving, shaking head to say no, pointing with index finger
Very important for deaf kids
Bc auditory impairment limits access to sounds etc
Even blind kids use geatures whn explaining ideas
- Sign language and spoken words
oDeaf babies with deaf parents especially open to learn complex new language with hand
gestures for expression
oMost types have similar syntactic structures and equal complexity to spoken languages
- Neuropsychology of sign language and the develpping brain
oUnusually rapid when learning sign language
oSuggestion that symbols in sign language may develop ahead of spoken words because
they don’t rely on development of vocal structures
oBy 16 months; can make sentences using signs unlike speaking children when this
happens at age 2ish
oBrain encodes isgn language in delicate ares; like speech
Left hemispbere of cerebral cortex
Aphasic: unable go express or comprehend language – when damage to left
dominant hemisphere for language
Righ hemispehr also used for deaf; when expressing spatial relations
oMore complex interhemisphereic interaction and communicatioive coordination as a
result o acquiring sign language
Greater resilience after brain injury?
- Cognitive development and pretend play
oBefore or wih spoken or sign language
oBy 2; most are able to use pretence deliberately without confusing the symbol with
reality
LANGUAGE MILESTONES: speech sounds before meaning
- Babies don tlike early sounds with a meaning
oDa and Ma; doesn’t reallymean mum and dad
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oMore noise than language
oImportant pre language skills
Production of noise
Reception – reactions to speech of others
Pseudo conversation
- Producing noises
oCoos, goos and grunts in first year; 2 months – then more sophisticated babbling at 4
months
Both deaf and normal babies
- Listening to others speech
o2 weeks; can discriminate human speech from other similar sounds
o1 months; can tell differnces in speech sounds
oHabituation procedure:one month grew bored after hearing ‘bah’ – when changed to
‘pah’ – renewed interest by sucking
oChanging of movements at word boundaries; ie between words- recognition
oBabies could even tell thee boundaries within other languages where older peoplecould
not
- Pragmatic language and pseudo conversations
oBecome more polite as babies begin to acquire pragmatics
Ie pausing babbling for others, vocal urn taking
Ndding, matching speech sounds may mimic pragmatics of conversation
THE GREATEST DISCOVERY IN LIFE; word meaning
- Awareness of speech sounds – like gestures, body movement and acts of pretence – can be used
to represent concepts – begins roughly in 2nd year of life
- Lenneberg suggested that genuine comprehension of word meaning requires
oConsistent recognition and use of the word in the same context
oAbility to conduct a phonetic analysis hich dissects complete words into the component
phonemes
oA semantic ability which enables children to recognize that all objects have names
oThe abiltty to analysie sentences or phrases to extract words
o24 months – naming explosion; 20 words per week
CULTURE, COGNITION AND THE GROWTH OF WORD MEANING
- Vtgotsky saw discovery of word meaning as significant because of new possibilities for
communication aswell as thought processes getting better
- Even if language has no word for something – concepts come before the name – so there is no
barrier to understand it
- Linguistic creativity: Over extension of word meaning
oCreative adaptation
oOverextension: tendency to have a broader range of referents for a word than the
conventional meaning of that word in the adults vocabulary
Ie bottle – all containers and cups
Decreases as vocab develops
- Underextension of word meaning
oMuch narrower range of referants
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Getting ready to speak: the cognitive, social and neurological prerequisites for language. Symbolic representations: capacity to use mental categories as substitutes for physical objects or events, develops 2nd year of life, adults use other representational devices. Btw 8-10months; most use gestures for communicational reasons. First ones; waving, shaking head to say no, pointing with index finger. Bc auditory impairment limits access to sounds etc. Even blind kids use geatures whn explaining ideas. Sign language and spoken words: deaf babies with deaf parents especially open to learn complex new language with hand gestures for expression, most types have similar syntactic structures and equal complexity to spoken languages. Aphasic: unable go express or comprehend language when damage to left dominant hemisphere for language. Righ hemispehr also used for deaf; when expressing spatial relations: more complex interhemisphereic interaction and communicatioive coordination as a result o acquiring sign language.
