How Babies Talk

1
How Babies Talk

• Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D.
• University of Delaware

2
Four take-away points

• Children learn language early!
• Infants bring a great deal with them for language
  learning. They are brilliant at it!
• Responsive, sensitive input is critical.
• We all make a difference.

3
Todays talk

• Language - An introduction to the problem space
• What we see when our children learn to talk
• What we dont see
• A revolution in our understanding of the problem
  space
• Implications Applications

4

• Language can
• start wars
• ruin marriages
• allow a workshop

5
(No Transcript)
6
Humans are the only species to have language

• Allows us to share thoughts and feelings
• Transmit knowledge and culture
• Say what we want in our coffee
• Represent our world and talk about it

7
We all take language quite for granted..
Yet, how we learn language has been a great
mystery throughout time
8
Part 1The problem space

• Mapping sounds to meanings
• And meanings to sounds

9
Consider the task that faces the
language-learning child
They hear a sound
10
Or maybe many sounds
Da ist der Hund!
Nun kue sunak nueng tua!
Voici le chien!
There is the dog!
Hay un perro.
Ke da!
Ntsa ke ele!
Ngwa ye yi je.
11
While they see something interesting
12
The infants job????
mapping between
Nun kue sunak nueng tua!
Hay un perro.
Ntsa ke ele!
13
But this task is deceivingly difficult because.

• There are so many ways to divide the sounds we
  hear
• Is it, Lobster or clobster, Do you like
  lobster?
• So may ways to divide the events we see
• When we say bear to a child, is it the whole
  bear or the fur? Or the paws?
• So many ways to map the words and sentences onto
  those parts of the events

14
While this poses a logical problem, children
figure all of this out even before they

• Can tie their shoes
• Can be trusted alone
• Can be taken to fancy restaurants

15
In fact, it is so easy for babies that typically
developing children can learn multiple languages
better than we can!
Nun kue sunak nueng tua!
Voici le chien!
There is the dog!
Ke da!
Hay un perro.
Ntsa ke ele!
Ngwa ye yi je.
Da ist der Hund!
How??????
16
Part II What you seeoriginal theories were
based on production, or what the child could do
that you could see
17
What you see Landmarks in production

• 0-3mo coos
• 3-6 mo coos laughs
• 6-9 mo babbling ma ma da da
• 9-12mo points first words mixing it up -
  bada
• 12-18mo 2 words per week 50 words at
• 18 mo., names for body parts, animals, imitates,
• Social joint attention used for language
• 18-24 mo naming explosion Whas sat?
• Talk about here and now loves stories over and
  over follows simple commands

18
What you see continued

• 2-3 yrs 500 wds asks questions
• past tense Wh- sits 20 minutes WHY? pronounce
  clearly - m, n, f, b, d, h, y uses fuller
  sentences with in, and on. girls might
  appear to stutter
• 3-4 yrs 800 wds contractions - wont
• cant can follow plot in story line time words
  - morning, afternoon adds sounds k, g, r, l may
  still distort some as in birfday - th
  wonderful new made-up words like, Michael wave
  or vampire

19
What you see continued

• 4-5 yrs 2000 words speaks clearly
• can make up stories use complex sentences still
  some mispronounciations.
• 5-7 yrs retells stories with more depth
• participates in discussions learns
  relationships like big/little/happy/sad
• 1st grade 11,000 words
• 3rd grade 20,000 words
• 5th grade 40, 000 words
• YOU 52,000 words

20
(No Transcript)
21
A cautionary note

• Pediatricians have had this chart for a long time
• Different strokes for different folks
• Groups
• Individuals
• Cultures
• There is a lot of variation! These were just
  general guides to the patterns in language
  development

22
Part III What you dont see

• Current theories are based on what you cant see
  with the naked eye.
• The last 50 years A revolution in our
  understanding of how children solve this age-old
  problem

23
The 21st Century Baby
Theres a lot more going on than meets the eye!
24
Carving the sounds of language
We have discovered that..
25
Babies are amazing!
Even in the womb, eavesdropping on every
conversation Mom has!
26
Did you know .

• At birth, babies recognize their mothers voice
  over a strange females?

• Recognize their own language over a foreign
  language?

• Can remember stories and songs they heard while
  in utero?

• Can discriminate between phonemes, e.g., /b/ vs.
  /d/, found in all the worlds languages?

27
Carving up the world of objects and events.
28
Infants can

• Attend to and categorize properties of objects in
  the first year of life, e.g., cups vs. plates.
• Infants have some sense of causality, gravity,
  and spatial aspects of objects all in the first
  year
• Recent research also suggests that they are
  noting properties of events like motion, path of
  motion and manner of motion

29
And what do we know about the??????
mapping between
world
sound
Nun kue sunak nueng tua!
Hay un perro.
Ntsa ke ele!
A LOT!!!!!
30
Mapping sounds to meaning when learning words

• Infants of 10 mo will map a word onto the most
  interesting object they see, regardless of what
  speaker is naming!
• By 19 mo., they notice speaker intent and will
  label even a boring object if a speaker is
  looking at it or touching it (taking the
  speakers point of view)
• By 24 mo., they are word learning experts!!!
  Cant be fooled by an attractive object just use
  speakers intent

31
Mapping sequences of words when learning grammar?

• Babies can map sequences of words to specific
  meanings by 17 months when they are only saying
  as few as 2 words!

Hirsh-Pasek, K. Golinkoff, R.M., (1996) The
Origins of grammar Evidence from comprehension,
Cambridge, MassMIT Press.
32
But you are rightfully incredulous How do we
know all of this about baby competencies?

• A host of new methodologies offers researchers a
  window onto the babys mind!

33
And what a mind it is!
You can just see this mind working behind these
eyes!
34
The High Amplitude Sucking Paradigm
Perception of sounds
35
The Interactive Intermodal Preferential
Looking Paradigm
Mapping of words
Wheres the ball?
36
Do you see the ball? Look at the ball!
37
The Intermodal Preferential Looking Paradigm
Mapping of grammar
38
These new methods fuel the revolution, revealing

• Amazing infant competencies in segmenting the
  sound and the world (perception)
• Infants abilities to map sounds to the meanings
  they stand for -- especially for early object
  names
• Infants ability to use social cues in
  determining sound to word and sound to sentence
  meaning

39
(No Transcript)
40
Part IV Applications
41
Ingredients for best outcomes

• Need interactive, responsive environments
• Need to hear enough language data to do
  statistics on
• Need not only a LOT of language input, but varied
  input

42
Data from parenting with typical children

• Hart and Risley Study

43
Differences in Language Experience
In the US, poverty is associated with less input
44
What doesnt matter...

• Neither
• race
• gender
• ethnic origin
• birth order -- first, second,
• or only child
• What does matter?
• Amount of input

45
We also know how to apply what we have learned
about the importance of input

• Provide stimulating and responsive language input
• Read -- read--read, and then read some more
• Tell stories - dont need a Ph.D.!
• Language play - bababa

46
Yet, we must also be mindful of what to do when
something goes wrong

• If no words at 18 mo.
• Doesnt respond to his own name
• Little eye contact
• Not putting words together by 2 and a half.
• Do not seem to understand simple commands at 18
  months.

CALL a THERAPIST!!!
47
Concluding points for applications

• Children learn language early!
• Responsive, sensitive input is critical
• Input comes many forms
• - in what they hear and see (the perceptual)
• - who they interact with (the social)
• - the full sentences we use to convey what we
  mean (grammatical building blocks)

48
Most frequently asked questions??????????
???

• Do girls learn faster than boys?
• Do first-borns speak earlier?
• Does learning sign language help a child learn
  faster and raise his or her IQ?
• Do children who are bilingual speak later?
• Do twins speak later?
• Do children with ear infections have problems
  learning language?
• Does watching TV hinder language development?

49
Remember that theyre at language learning.
brilliant