Communication development
Reading: Adamson, B. L. 1996. Communication Development during Infancy. Oxford:
Westview. 15-37.
Questions

What is development?
Development is a predictable sequence or a schematic pattern of changes. Development
implies systematic changes over time.

What is communication?
Communion (Werner & Kaplan) – communication is a primordial sharing situation which
involves the child, the mother and the object.
Transmission (Jackobson) - the speech event is a transmission event in which the
addresser transfers a message to the addressee in a shared context using a shared code
under physical or psychological contact,
Education (Vygotsky) – a caregiver schools the child in the ways of their common
culture.
Is this communication?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtiojpb7Jz0&feature=related
Where does communication start?
The confused infant
Infant = without speech (Latin)
James (1890) The infant feels “one great blooming, buzzing confusion.”
Freud (1958/1911) Infants lack basic awareness of their environment. They hallucinate
satisfying objects.
Is this true?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DZifUSpbBY&feature=related
Figure 2.4 (page 32)
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Language Acquisition - 476
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Communication development
Phases in early communication development.
Phase
Shared attentiveness
Age
0-2
Interpersonal engagement
2-6
Joint object involvement
6-15
Emergence of symbolic communication 12-
Shared attentiveness
2
Characteristics
The infant and the care-giving adult are
the nucleus of the communicative
event, while other elements are in the
background.
The two participants are differentiated
indicating the new ability to focus
attention on each other, on the channel
and on the message.
The infants and their partners are
dealing with objects, communicating
about them.
The infant, like adults, uses words and
other shared means of conveying
messages.
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Language Acquisition - 476
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Communication development
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Shared attentiveness - both participants are simultaneously involved in each
communication act.
Newborns behavior is organized in clearly distinct states of arousal and their
expressive communication, whether it is crying or quiet inactive alertness,
resonates their psychobiological organization.
The success of expressive communication during this period strongly relies on the
meanings adults readily lend to this act.
The caregiver-infant link plays a crucial role in newborn’s receptive
communication.
When adults initiate communicative acts or give meaning to the infant’s
expressions, they actually cultivate the infant’s potential for interpersonal
engagement, the major characteristic of the next developmental phase.
Can we attribute this to the monkeys we saw?
Interpersonal engagement
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Interpersonal engagement - marks a change in the infant’s communicative
expressions, a change from a state of quiet alertness to active alertness
accompanied with social smiles, cooing, and a rich variety of facial expression
during communicative episodes.
Interestingly, studies of prematurely born infants (Crow & Gowers 1979) and
observations of congenitally blind infants (Fraiberg 1971) suggest that these are
innate behavior patterns, triggered by a maturational push, rather than by an
environmental input.
This change in expressive capacities makes a qualitative difference in social
patterns and reflects on their receptive competence.
Infants perceive the difference between a variety of facial expressions such as
smiles and frowns, they can match a facial expression with a sound detecting the
correspondence between audition and articulation, and they are even able to assign
meaning to other people’s expressions.
The still face experiment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0&feature=related
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While all these capacities are innate behavior patterns, the responsiveness of
caregivers who often use infant-modified acts, is crucial for interpersonal
engagement.
Studies of the effect maternal depression on interpersonal engagement show that
maternal depression tends to have a sharing affect, where, over time, the mother’s
unresponsive behavior triggers unresponsive behavior on behalf of the infant too.
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Language Acquisition - 476
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Communication development
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The mutuality of the relations during this phase makes the infants and the
caregivers communicative partners, who, under normal circumstances, feel the
communicative channel with affective messages.
As the patterns of communication become familiar, the infant’s attention starts to
divert from their partners to objects and events outside the immediate
communicative scene.
This is the key for joint object involvement, the next developmental hallmark
Joint object involvement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqfIVFbQd7w
Emergence of symbolic communication:
Milestones of early communication development (p. 17)
Milestone
Eyes open
Eye-to-eye contact
Social smile
Coos and goos
Laughs
Squeals, raspberries, growls, yells
Canonical babbling
Comprehends a word
Comprehends 10 words
Variegated babbling
Onset of pointing
Comprehends 50 words
Produces first word
Produces 10 words
Produces 50 words
Produces word combinations
Age
0
2
2
2
4
4
7
9
10.5
11
12
13
13 [9-16]
15 [13-19]
20 [14-24]
21 [18-24]
Developmental stages in infant vocalizations
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5
Stage
I
II
III
IV
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Language Acquisition - 476
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Communication development
Stark
Reflexive crying &
vegetative sounds
Cooing and laughter
Vocal play
Reduplicated babbling
= patterned speech
Non-reduplicated
babbling, expressive
jargon
Age (weeks)
0 - 8 wks
Oller
Phonation stage
Age (months)
0 - 1 mos
8 - 20 wks
16 – 30 wks
25 – 50 wks
GOO stage
Expansion stage
Canonical babbling
2 - 3 mos
4 - 7 mos
7 – 10 mos
9 - 18 mos
Variegated babbling
10 - 13 mos
Rachel E. Stark (1986). Prespeech segmental feature development. In P. Fletcher & M.
Garman, eds. Language Acquisition, 2nd ed, 149-173
David K. Oller (1980). The emergence of the sounds of speech in infancy. In G. YeniKmoshian, J. Kavanugh, & C. Ferguson, eds. Child Phonology, Vol. 1, Production.
NY: Academic Press.
David K. Oller (1986). Metaphonology and infant vocalization. In B. Lindholm &
R.Zelstrom, eds. Precursors of Early Speech. NY: Stockton.
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Language Acquisition - 476
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Communication development
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