ORAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN
CHILDREN: THE IMPORTANCE OF
SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL PRECURSORS
Kimberly Frazier Baker, PhD, CCC-SLP
University of Arkansas
Intersubjectivity
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In typically developing children, intersubjectivity
emerges in infancy and toddlerhood , as evidenced
by sharing affect, following and initiating joint
attention, imitation, understanding others preferences
and intentions ( Trevarthen & Hubley , 1978; Meltzoff
, 1995; Tomasello , 1998, Hubley, Meltzoff,
Tomasello)
“Self-Other Mapping”
The newborn is not a “social isolate” these skills
provide a bridge connecting self and other.
Intersubjectivity starts with:
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Sharing affect
Joint Attention
Imitation
Shared Affect
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Mother tickles and the infant laughs, mother is
ready to tickle again, waiting for a smile, the infant
smiles, mother tickles and the infant laughs again,
and so on
Joint Attention
Joint Attention is the process of sharing one’s
experience of observing an object or event, by
following gaze or pointing gestures.
It is critical for social development, language
acquisition, cognitive development.
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The infant points to a toy, when looking to mother,
mother takes the toy naming it, and gives it to the
infant, who gives it back, and so on
The infant points to a doll, when looking to mother,
mother takes the doll, saying ‘‘Let’s comb her hair’’,
the infants looks for the comb, gives it to mother,
and so on
Joint Attention
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“If I’m looking at something, I’m thinking about it”
Games such as “I spy”
Imitation
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Impairment in the ability to imitate another person’s
movements
Mirror neurons
Baby imitation studies
Imitation training is an integral part of many
treatment program from ABA to Floortime.
Meltzoff, 1977
“Infants between 12 and 21 days of age can imitate
both facial and manual gestures; this behavior cannot
be explained in terms of either conditioning or innate
releasing mechanisms. Such imitation implies that
human neonates can equate their own unseen
behaviors with gestures they see others perform”
Meltzoff, 1977
Meltzoff – Imitation
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Deficits in imitation keeps the child from developing
the “like-me” sense and thus the child cannot use
imitation as a means for developing internal
self/other correspondences for affect and mind.
Imitation Games
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Infants love imitation games
Reciprocal imitative games provide the infant with
special information about how they are like other
people and how others are like them.
Mirror Neurons
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Mirror neurons are brain cells in the premotor
cortex.
First identified in monkeys in the early 1990s
neurons fire both when a monkey performs an action
itself and when it observes another living creature
perform that same action
Thought to be involved in higher order cognitive
processes such as LANGUAGE
Helps us decode the intentions of others and
develop empathy.
st
1
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Birthday
Video research
TDC will look at others for reassurance when cake is
placed before them
Children later diagnosed with ASD will not
Theory of Mind
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The ability to predict and explain human behavior in terms
of mental states such as intentions, emotions, desires, beliefs
and states of knowledge and ignorance (Astington, 1993)
Cognitive skill that typically develops around age 4-5yrs.
Around ages 3-5 children start making links between the
behavior of others and their beliefs, intentions, and desires.
Understanding of words such as know, forget, remember,
guess
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbQJms8F3x8&feature
=PlayList&p=5543A1C13BBAAE02&playnext=1&playnext
_from=PL&index=90
First/Second Order False Belief Tasks
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The Sally-Anne Test (Baron-Cohen, 1985)
80% of ASD answered incorrectly- 86% with Downs
answered correctly
What a person thinks about other peoples thoughts
– “Fred believes that Suzie thinks…” (Happe, 1994)
TDC acquires Second order by age 6
What other people think that other people think
about their thoughts (higher order)
Poor Theory of Mind can Affect Social
Performance in a Number of Ways
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Individual may not realize they do not “fit in” or
understand why they don’t
Individual may not correctly perceive situations
Individual may misread or miss social
cues/responses of others
If individual misses social cues he will not
appropriately act on the social responses of others.
Behaviors which suggest poor theory of
mind
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Comments that embarrass or offend – even if they are
true “ you sure are fat!”
Inability to pick up on cues that suggest that our
conversation partner is not interested in what we are
saying
Wondering what other people are thinking and
knowing that they have thoughts about what we are
thinking
Inability to pick-up on facial expressions, body
language, prosody
Inability to understand that our behavior affects how
other people think and feel about us.
Increasing Perspective-Taking Ability
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Whole Body Listening
Pantomine
Using Literature to Teach Social Awareness
Use words such as “think, feel, believe, hope,
wonder”
Executive Functions
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Mediated by the prefrontal cortex
“allow us to organize our behavior over time and
override immediate demands in favor of longer-term
goals” (Dawson & Guare, 2004)
How we plan and execute a goal
Processing information
Planning and organizing tasks
Self-regulation
Monitoring behavior using feedback
Executive Dysfunction
– occurs in:
 Autism
 Schizophrenia
 Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
 Tourette Syndrome
 Learning Disability
 ADHD
 Conduct Disorder
 Parkinson’s Disease …and more
Aspects of Executive Functioning
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Nonverbal Working Memory
Verbal Working Memory/Internalized Speech
Regulation of affect, arousal, motivation
Problem-Solving
Goal-Directed Behavior
Barkley, 2005
Nonverbal Working Memory
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Sense of time
Schema formation
Anticipatory set/hindsight
Forethought
Complex imitations
Verbal Working Memory/Internalized
Speech
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Rule-governed behavior
Reading comprehension
Moral reasoning
Regulation of affect, arousal,
motivation
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Emotional control
Perspective taking
Motivation/persistence
Inhibition
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The ability to stop oneself from carrying out a
“ready” response when that response is not
adaptive
Rogers and Bennetto, 2000
Cognitive Flexibility
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Difficulty shifting attentional focus from one stimulus
to another or from one idea to another.
Often results in perseveration of thoughts and
actions like we see in individuals with frontal brain
injury.
Rogers and Bennetto, 2000
Behaviors indicative of executive
dysfunction
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Focus on “special topics”
Difficulty with transition between activities
Resistance to change
Repetitive language and motor behavior
Perseveration
Meltzer, 2007
Working Memory
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The simultaneous processing and storage of
information during complex cognitive tasks
Big issue with Children with poor EF– affects
everyday problem solving
Students need a variety of visual strategies to
support sequencing, transitions, and task completion.
By
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rd
3
grade
Curriculum is more challenging and there are
greater expectations for students
Students with EF challenges will begin to exhibit
frustration, inappropriate behavior, noncompliance
and “meltdowns”.
These inappropriate behaviors are not malicious or
manipulative but are associated with skill deficits.
Strategies to improve EF (Meltzer)
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Memorization—When using acronyms to help students memorize information, the “crazier the
phrase,” the better. If a student is non-verbal, then make a cartoon.
Cognitive Flexibility—To help students improve cognitive flexibility, work with riddles and
jokes to help students shift between word meanings. In math, students can ask themselves: do I
know another way to solve this problem, does this look similar to other problems I have seen, is
this problem the same or different from the one before it?
Prioritizing—To help students prioritize information, teach students to listen to the teacher’s
intonation during lectures. Also, students can highlight the most important ideas in a text in one
color and details in another color.
Notetaking—To help students prioritize and remember information students can take 3-column
notes: the first column contains one word that is the core concept, the second column contains
the details supporting the concept, the third column contains the strategy the student will use to
remember the information. When taking notes from text, students can use a 2-column
approach. In the first column, students ask themselves questions about the text, and they put
the answers in the second column.
Self-Monitoring and Self-Checking—Helping students check their work requires two
processes: 1) Provide explicit checklists for assignments, so students know what to check for,
and 2) Help students develop personalized checklists, so they become aware of and check for
their most common errors. As a final step, students can make their own acronyms to remind
themselves of their personal error traps.
Central Coherence
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Definition: The ability to incorporate details into
“the big picture”.
Ability to integrate information
Poor imagination
Restricted interests
Repetitive behavior
Focus on “the details” – Can’t see the forest for the
trees…
Uta Frith (1989)
Central Coherence
Allows us to recognize the correct context for many
common
ambiguous words
 meet-meat
 Son-sun
 Sew-so
 Pear-pair
CEFT (Shah & Frith, 1983)
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ASD averaged 21/25
embedded figures
TDC and Children with
LD average 15/25
Kanizsa's triangle:
The Ebbinghaus Illusion ( Frith, 2003)
Wechsler Block Design Task (Frith, 2003)
This subtest of the
Wechsler is consistently
found to be a test that
ASD show superior
performance relative to
the other subtest
Weaknesses Associated with Central
Coherence
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Interpretation of any type of stimuli as far as
obtaining the overall context and meaning
“In her eye was a big tear” vs. “In her dress there
was a big tear”– ASD tend to give the most common
production of these types of words
Together Weaknesses in TOM, EF, and
CC, can result in issues with
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Pragmatic (Social Language Performance)
Conflict Resolution
Difficulty repairing miscommunication
Negotiating
Dealing with sarcasm/irony
Presupposition
Conversation and narrative discourse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyMSSe7cOvA