Social and Cognitive Development: Vygotsky and Language

1. Social and Cognitive Development: Vygotsky and Language

2. Do Now • Reflecting back (on either your own “memories” or comments made by your parents/guardians), how did you learn to speak? • What setbacks did you suffer? • What did you find easy about learning your native language? • Was learning a foreign language as easy?

3. Early Language Abilities • Infant preference for human speech over other sounds • before 6 months can hear differences used in all languages • Before 6 months, Spanish infants can distinguish between B and V, but after that, it is difficult for them. after 6 months begin to hear only differences used in native language • Better at differentiating human/non-human than adults • After this point, there are two essential questions: • 1) How do children figure out what words mean? • 2) How do they figure out grammar structure?

4. Factors that Help Children Learn Language • Parent’s speech patterns helps language • slow pronunciation • exaggerated intonation • higher than normal frequency • repetition • concrete, here and now vocabulary • simple syntax

5. MONTH Speech Characteristic 2 Cooing (vowel sounds) 4 Babbling (consonant/vowel) 6-8 Babbling (native language sounds) 12 One-word stage 24 Two-word stage (telegraphic speech) 24 + Sentences Language Development ASL babbling: deaf babies will “babble” with sign language

6. Average 16-mo-old has 50 words Average 24-mo-old has 320!!! Average 30-mo-old has 600 Average 1st grader has 10,000 Average 3rd grader has 20,000 Average 5th grader has 40,000 Average college student has 60,000 big gain isn't in root words (basic nouns, verbs, adjectives) or inflections (different tenses, plural), but is in derived words - root base with other piece added (happily, happiness, etc.) Language Explosion

7. Features of Young Children’s Speech • Comprehension precedes production • Associations of “mommy” and “daddy” with particular parents before ability to speak words • After the first year, children start to produce real words, not just “accidental” ones. • Telegraphic Stage - At two years, “telegraphic” sentences appear (As in “daddy chair” or “all-gone cookie). • Overextension - form of mislabeling when children use a specific word to apply to a whole category. (As when a child calls all men “daddy.”) • Underextension - form of mislabeling when children use a categorical word to refer to a specific object. (As when a child believes that his/her mommy is the only mommy.) • After the telegraphic stage, sentences get longer, but complex understanding comes gradually.

8. Children’s Understanding of Language Acquisition • Young kids talk differently to different people • 4-yr-olds use simpler language for 2-year-olds than other 4-yr-olds • first graders more polite to adults and strangers than to friends

9. 3 Theories of Language Acquisition • Learning Theory - We acquire language through rewards and punishments, and observation and imitation (Bandura). • Nativist Theory - Noam Chomsky’s theory. He believes language results from a more complex process than simple learning. • Children produce sentences they have never heard. (over and underextension of words and endings) • Humans have a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) -- we are programmed to recognize the universal rules of language. As children develop, their LAD matures, which explains the increased pace of linguistic development. • Interactionist Theory - emphasizes that language is a social process. We have not only an LAD, but also an LASS (Language Acquisition Support System). • Communication between adults and children through specially formatted games and activities creates an environment for children to learn language. (peekaboo, bedtime routines, etc.) • Maternal communication as LASS • Positive correlations between maternal responsiveness to child vocalizations, the use of motherese and other simplified language, the amount of time talking to the child, and number of different words used with children after age two

10. Class and Language • Middle Class • Belief: child must be taught to speak • Child home alone with mother who converses from birth • Babytalk: language “adaptation” • Rural working class • Belief: children are unteachable • Adult watching many children • Children do not start speaking till they can hold the floor • No evidence of adaptations in talking to child

11. Cultural Variation • Differences • Age at which people speak to child • Amount of speech to child • Nature of speech to child (modifications) • All children • Hear lots of language • Relate words to physical world around them • In meaningful social contexts • Blind children • Limited access to context but no or little delay in developing language, if exposed to it

12. Deprivation of ASL to Blind Children • Most deaf infants are born to hearing parents • Many are not exposed to sign language and cannot hear spoken language • These children communicate to their families with gestural systems • Humans have a natural predilection towards language

13. Development of Language for Isolated Deaf Children • Time of language development • First words/signs = 1 year • Rudimentary sentences = 2 years • Elaborations = 2.5-3 years

14. Creolization of Language • Nicaraguan Sign Language • Until 1970s, Nicaragua had no schools for the deaf or an official sign language • Most children were sent to separate schools and isolated • Children quickly developed own pidgin language with own grammar • New language was taught to incoming children by peers • Younger learners were more fluent, signaling the plasticity of the younger mind • Lessons • When language use is chaotic, a population will create its own grammar • When language is absent, a population will create one to communicate

15. The Critical Period for Language Cases • Chelsea • Born deaf and mistakenly diagnosed as retarded and was never exposed to language • When hearing was restored at age 31, she never developed language beyond rudimentary two-word sentences • Isabelle • Hidden in the attic by her deranged mother and had no exposure to language • When discovered at age six, she was able to develop normal language abilities by age seven • Genie • Isolated for age 20 months onward with no exposure to language • When found at age 13, her language capacity stayed at pidgin level with only basic words and grammar Critical Period • Exposure before seven years seems to result in acquisition • Exposure after 13 does not • The problem with basing such conclusions off of these cases is that these children were deprived in many other ways other than language

16. Vygotsky’s Approach to Cognitive Development • Emphasis on the social environment • Piaget emphasized interactions with the physical environment • Language as a foundation for internalization and connection to social environment • Piaget saw language as a byproduct of developing schemas • For Vygotsky, the word “because” must precede formal operational stage and be applied by other speakers in context to understand its meaning. • Vygotsky saw a child articulating the notion of cause and effect as key in cognitive development • Vygotsky saw the child as the apprentice learning from social and cultural relationships • Piaget considered the child as a scientist interacting with the physical world • Vygotsky’s approach is validated by the fact that different cognitive skills are acquired at different ages across cultures.

17. Vygotsky and Cultural learning/exchange • Culture and intelligence • Contents of thoughts (understanding based on environment) • Means of thinking (ways of thought foreign to certain cultures) • This idea goes along with the Relative Language Theory • Social referencing • EX: child will not proceed on visual cliff if parent seems frightened)

18. Vygotsky and ZPDs • Actual Development Level • What kids can do alone • Potential Development Level • Level of ability that can be reached with help • Scaffolding • Process of social learning • Adjusting expectations to fit child • Focus on child’s attentions • Encourage child to enact skills • After skill transferred, allow child to act alone • Building the bridge between ADL and PDL • Zone of Proximal Development = distance b/t ADL and PDL that needs to be bridged

21. Review: Piaget and Vygotsky