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PubMed1976

The function of imitation in child language.

The use and function of imitation were examined for seven children in the early syntactic period of language acquisition. The use of imitation was determined by the percent of syntactic imitation out of total syntactic output. Based on this measure, the children were divided according to whether they used imitations minimally, moderately, or extensively. The function of imitative repertoires was investigated by examining the lexical, syntactic, semantic, and communicative-interactional aspects of language as they were reflected in imitation. The analyses revealed that degree of imitation interacted with function of imitation in the acquisition process. Management implications are discussed.

Child Language↗
PubMed1995

Functional changes in early child language: the appearance of references to the past and of explanations.

Spontaneous speech samples from children during the period of transition from one word to multi-word utterances in interaction with their French-speaking mothers were explored in order to study the appearance and development of functional changes in their use of language. Two types of such change were noted in the longitudinal records of four children when they were still essentially one-word speakers: the beginnings of references to the past, and the appearance of explanations and justifications, especially in communicative situations of request and refusal. The co-appearance of these behaviours is discussed in relation to two more general developmental changes: a detachment from the immediately perceptible situation linked to a further elaboration of the signifier-signified relation, and a socio-cognitive development leading to a view of the interlocutor as an alter ego, as a person whose psychological states may be different from the child's own.

Child Language↗
PubMed1989

The linguistic marking of agentivity and control in child language.

The present study examines the relationship between linguistic forms and the functions they serve in children's early talk about agentivity and control. The spontaneous linguistic productions of six children ranging between 1;8 and 2;8 served as the data base. Preliminary analyses of who the children referred to and what forms were used in subject position suggest that the children could be divided into two groups. Three children primarily referred to Self and relied on multiple Self reference forms in subject position, while the other children referred to both Self and Other and primarily used the Self reference form, I. A functional analysis was carried out to examine whether the seemingly interchangeable use of Self reference forms could be related to semantic and pragmatic patterns. The findings indicate that at a time before they regularly refer to others, the children systematically employed different Self reference forms to mark distinct perspectives on agency.

Child Language↗
PubMed1990

Syntactic distinctions in child language.

This paper presents a study of young children's understanding of a constraint on English word order, which is that pronouns and proper names cannot be modified by prenominal adjectives. For adults, this is a syntactic constraint: adjectives can only precede nouns, and pronouns and proper names are lexical Noun Phrases (NPs). In two analyses, the spontaneous speech of 14 one- and two-year-old children was studied. These analyses show that even in children's very first word combinations, they almost never say things like big Fred or big he. Some nonsyntactic theories of this phenomenon are discussed and found to have serious descriptive problems, supporting the claim that children understand knowledge of word order through rules that order abstract linguistic categories. A theory is proposed as to how children could use semantic information to draw the noun/NP distinction and to acquire this restriction on English word order.

Child Language↗
PubMed2002

The development of regular and irregular verb inflection in Spanish child language.

We present morphological analyses of verb inflections produced by 15 Spanish-speaking children (age range: 1;7 to 4;7) taken from longitudinal and cross-sectional samples of spontaneous speech and narratives. Our main observation is the existence of a dissociation between regular and irregular processes in the distribution of errors: regular suffixes and unmarked (non-alternating) stems are over-extended to irregulars in children's inflection errors, but not vice versa. We also found that overregularization errors at all ages are only a small minority of the children's irregular verbs, that the period of overregularization is preceded by a stage without errors, and that the onset of over-regularizations is connected to the emergence of obligatory finiteness markings. These findings are explained in terms of the dual-mechanism model of inflection.

Child Language↗
PubMed2006

Perspective-shifts in event descriptions in Tamil child language.

Children are able to take multiple perspectives in talking about entities and events. But the nature of children's sensitivities to the complex patterns of perspective-taking in adult language is unknown. We examine perspective-taking in four- and six-year-old Tamil-speaking children describing placement events, as reflected in the use of a general placement verb (veyyii 'put') versus two fine-grained caused posture expressions specifying orientation, either vertical (nikka veyyii 'make stand') or horizontal (paDka veyyii 'make lie'). We also explore whether animacy systematically promotes shifts to a fine-grained perspective. The results show that four- and six-year-olds switch perspectives as flexibly and systematically as adults do. Animacy influences shifts to a fine-grained perspective similarly across age groups. However, unexpectedly, six-year-olds also display greater overall sensitivity to orientation, preferring the vertical over the horizontal caused posture expression. Despite early flexibility, the factors governing the patterns of perspective-taking on events are undergoing change even in later childhood, reminiscent of U-shaped semantic reorganizations observed in children's lexical knowledge. The present study points to the intriguing possibility that mechanisms that operate at the level of semantics could also influence subtle patterns of lexical choice and perspective-shifts.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Concurrent and predictive validity of parent reports of child language at ages 2 and 3 years.

The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI; Dale, 1996; Fenson et al., 1994), parent reports about language skills, are being used increasingly in studies of theoretical and public health importance. This study (N = 113) correlated scores on the CDI at ages 2 and 3 years with scores at age 3 years on tests of cognition and receptive language and measures from parent-child conversation. Associations indicated reasonable concurrent and predictive validity. The findings suggest that satisfactory vocabulary scores at age 2 are likely to predict normal language skills at age 3, although some children with limited skills at age 3 will have had satisfactory scores at age 2. Many children with poor vocabulary scores at 2 will have normal skills at 3.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Longitudinal influence of prenatal cocaine exposure on child language functioning.

The present study estimates the longitudinal effects of in utero cocaine exposure on language functioning at 3, 5 and 7 years of age in an urban sample of 443 full-term children (236 cocaine-exposed and 207 noncocaine-exposed) participating in the Miami Prenatal Cocaine Study. The sample was enrolled prospectively at birth, with documentation of prenatal drug exposure status through maternal interview and urine and meconium toxicology assays. Language functioning was measured at ages 3 and 5 years using the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Preschool (CELF-P) and at age 7 years using the Core Language Domain of the NEPSY: A Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment. Longitudinal Generalized Linear Model and Generalized Estimating Equations (GLM/GEE) analyses revealed an association between prenatal cocaine exposure and deficits in total language functioning after statistically controlling for child sex, visit age, prenatal exposure to alcohol, marijuana and tobacco and over 20 additional medical and sociodemographic covariates drawn from potentially confounding influences assessed at birth and follow-up visits (D=-0.17; 95% CI=-0.32, -0.03; P=.019). The link from prenatal cocaine exposure to later language deficits does not appear to be mediated by cocaine-associated deficits in birth weight, length or head circumference. Overall, the evidence tends to support an inference of a stable cocaine-specific effect on indicators of language functioning during early childhood through age 7 years.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Parent education project. III: Increasing affection and responsivity in developmentally handicapped mothers: component analysis, generalization, and effects on child language.

We evaluated the effects of a parent training program consisting of verbal instruction, modeling, and feedback on the affection and responsivity of 3 developmentally handicapped mothers towards their children. The results indicated the following: First, the training package increased maternal physical affection, praise, and imitation of child vocalizations. These parenting skills increased to levels found in comparison groups of nonhandicapped mothers. Second, the training package was more effective than verbal instruction alone, the latter being the predominant method presently used by social service workers. Third, most maternal gains were maintained over a 3- to 18-month follow-up period, although one mother required a reinforced maintenance procedure. Fourth, instructing mothers to generalize served to increase the generalization of newly acquired skills from play times (the training context) to child-care tasks (e.g., diapering, feeding). Fifth, teaching the parents to imitate child vocalizations was related to gains in both the frequency and quality of verbal behavior of the two language delayed children as measured by standardized developmental tests and in vivo comparisons with age-matched children (who had nonhandicapped parents). These results show that behavioral instruction can improve important child-rearing skills of developmentally handicapped mothers, with corresponding benefits to their children.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Sound change in child language: a study of inter-world variation.

The goal of this study is to retrace in minute detail a single step forward in the phonological development of a German-speaking child. The sound change under focus is the acquisition of velar stops in word-initial positions. Naturalistic data were collected on a daily basis over a period of approximately one year (3;4.9 - 4;3.20) until the process was nearly completed. Production accuracy was found to be under the influence of four factors--the nature of the velar stop (voiced or voiceless), the subsequent context, lexical stress and the individual word in which the critical consonant appeared. Progress was made not globally but in different subdomains at different points in time. Each phonological constellation gave rise to a distinct acquisitional pattern. While the velar stops were accurately produced before the alveolar nasal, they tended to be omitted before the rhotic and supplanted by the alveolar stops before the lateral. An attempt is made to identify the locus of the changes in a developing processing system consisting of linguistic units (nodes) and their interrelationships (associations). A comparison of the effects of inefficient nodes and those of inefficient associations suggests that learning in this child takes place by strengthening the associations rather than increasing the efficiency of processing on the nodes. Because modifying individual associations is quite a local repair process, it is argued that the acquisition of a new segment does not normally occur across the board. Instead, it is more appropriately conceived of as a gradual spread through the lexicon.

Child Language↗