Developmental Psychology: Language & Education Terms

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY CHAPTER 10: LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION Language – A symbolic system in which a limited number of signals can be combined according to rules to produce an infinite number of messages Scientists concluded that language was largely a product of left hemisphere activity, with a region called Broca’s area associated with speech production and another region called Wernicke’s area associated with comprehension of language Basic Components of Language Phoneme – One of the basic units of sounds used in a particular spoken language Morpheme – Basic unit of meaning in a word Syntax – Set of rules specifying how words can be combined to form meaningful sentences in a language Semantics – Aspect of language centering on meanings Pragmatics – Set of rules specifying how to use language appropriately in different social contexts to achieve goals Prosody – Sound pattern of speech, including intonation, stress and timing with which something is said Language Aphasia – Language disorder Universal Grammar – A system of common rules and properties of language that may allow infants to grow up learning any of the world’s languages Language Acquisition Device (LAD) – Set of linguistic processing skills that nativists believe to be innate Poverty of the Stimulus (POTS) – Notion that language input to young children is so limited that they couldn’t possibly acquire language Interactionists believe that both learning theorists (nurture) and nativists (nature) are correct: Children’s biologically based competencies and their language environment interact to shape the course of language development Expansion – Tactic where adults respond to a child’s utterance with a grammatically complete expression of the same thought Child-Directed Speech – Communication adults use with young people involving simple sentences spoken slowly and in a high-pitched voice Word Segmentation – In language development, the ability to break the stream of speech sounds into distinct words Cooing – Early form of vocalization that involves repeating vowel-like sounds Babbling – Early form of vocalization that involves repeating constant-vowel combinations Ten-month-olds can comprehend, on average, about 50 words but do not yet produce any of these Joint Attention – Act of looking at the same object at the same time with someone else Syntactic Bootstrapping – Process of using where a word appears in a sentence to determine meaning of the word Holophrase – Single-word utterance used by an infant that represents an entire sentence’s worth of meaning (usually around 1 year) Vocabulary Spurt – Phenomenon occurring around 18 months of age when the pace of word learning quickens dramatically Fast Mapping – Method allowing children to use sentence context to help make an educated guess about word meaning Overextension – Child’s tendency to use words to refer to a wider set objects than adults Underextension – Child’s tendency to use general words to refer to a smaller set of objects than adults Telegraphic Speech – Communication -using simple sentences that consist primarily of content words and omit less meaningful words (18-24 months) Functional Grammar – Analysis of the semantic relations that children express in their earliest sentences Overregulation – Process of extending observed grammatical rules to abnormal cases where the rules do not apply Transformational Grammar – Set of rules of syntax allowing individuals to change basic underlying thoughts into various sentence forms Mastery Motivation – Intrinsic rationale to become proficient in and control the environment evident early in infancy Babies who actively attempt to master challenges at 6 and 12 months score higher on tests of mental development at 2 and 3 years than their less mastery-oriented peers Metalinguistic Awareness – Knowledge of language as a system Bilingual – Knowing two or more languages Fixed Mindset – Belief that intelligence and other traits are static Growth Mindset – Belief that intelligence is malleable and can therefore be improved through hard work and effort By age 3, children are beginning to react differently to their successes and failures, yet they remain unrealistically optimistic about their abilities until age 7–8 Mastery (Learning) Goal – In achievement situations, striving for competence in order to gain knowledge or improve ability Performance Goal – Objective adopted by learners in which they attempt to prove their ability rather than improve it Alphabetic Principle – Idea that the letters in printed words represent the sounds in spoken words (pre-alphabetic phase, partial alphabetic phase, full alphabetic phase, consolidated alphabetic phase) Phonological Awareness – Understanding that spoken words can be decomposed into some number of basic sound units (full alphabetic phase) Emergent Literacy – Set of developmental precursors of reading skills that will facilitate the acquisition of reading competence Dyslexia – Serious difficulty learning to read in children who have normal intellectual ability and no sensory impairments In the United States, approximately 4 out of 5 students graduate from high school “on time,” or in four years Literacy – Ability to use printed information to function in society, achieve goals, and develop potential In 2011, 33% of all college students were 25 years or older, and a full 50% of students attending college part-time were over the age of 25 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2013)