Language Development
Observation:
Chimps will look for a toy or piece of food that
has disappeared.
Knowledge:
Children do that at around two years of age.
Thought:
Maybe chimps can develop mentally/intellectually at
least as far as a 2 year old.
Question:
Can chimps be taught to “talk” or use language?
Washoe
(Gardner, Allen & Beatrice)
at 3 ½ years used 87 signs
at 5 years, used more than 160
Steps in Learning a Language:
1.Learn to make signs.
2.Learn the meaning of the signs.
3. Learn grammar to combine signs.
• Crying gradually
lessens
• Cooing begins
• Coos develop into
babble
• Babble begins to
replicate familiar
sounds.
• The leap to using sounds as symbols occurs early in the
second year.
• First attempts are primitive and only approximate.
• The first real words usually refer to things infants can
see or touch. They are often labels or commands.
• By the end of the second year, children have a
vocabulary of 500 to 1500 words. They begin to express
themselves more clearly by joining words into twoword phrases.
• From 18 months to 5 years, children add roughly 5 to
10 words to their vocabulary each day.
• Grammatically, though, children use telegraphic
speech.
Early Grammar Acquisition
Telegraphic Speech: They leave out words or get the verb tense wrong, etc., but they still
make themselves understood. Brown, 1973.
Early Grammar Acquisition
Imitation:
Daddy went yesterday.
Overgeneralization:
Daddy goed yesterday.
Rule-governed:
Daddy went yesterday.
Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget
1896-1980
A Different Way
One Way
Schema
A conceptual framework a person uses to make sense of the world.
Operations
Mental transformations or manipulations that occur in the mind.
Operations can only develop as the brain develops.
Assimilation
X
Accommodation
Assimilation:
The process of fitting objects and experiences into one’s
schemas.
Accommodation:
The process of adjusting one’s schemas to include
newly observed events and experiences.
Object Permanence
A child’s realization that an object exists even when he or she can’t see or touch it.
Representational Thought
The intellectual ability of a child to picture something in his or her mind.
Conservation
Principle that a given quantity does not change when its
appearance is changed.
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor (0 to 2 years)
Behavior consists of simple motor responses to sensory
input; lacks concept of object permanence
Preoperational (2 to 7 years)
Lacks operations (reversible mental processes); exhibits
egocentric thinking; lacks concept of conservation; uses symbols
(words, mental images) to solve simple problems or to talk
about things that aren’t present
Concrete Operations (7 to 11 years)
Begins to understand and eventually masters the concept of
conservation; still has trouble with abstract ideas;
classification abilities improve
Formal Operations (11 years & onward)
Understands abstract ideas and hypothetical situations;
capable of logic and deductive reasoning; figurative language