Early Stages Of Language Development Research Articles

Association between neural prosody discrimination and language abilities in toddlers: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study

BackgroundLanguage delay affects near- and long-term social communication and learning in toddlers, and, an increasing number of experts pay attention to it. The development of prosody discrimination is one of the earliest stages of language development in which key skills for later stages are mastered. Therefore, analyzing the relationship between brain discrimination of speech prosody and language abilities may provide an objective basis for the diagnosis and intervention of language delay.MethodsIn this study, all cases(n = 241) were enrolled from a tertiary women’s hospital, from 2021 to 2022. We used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to assess children’s neural prosody discrimination abilities, and a Chinese communicative development inventory (CCDI) were used to evaluate their language abilities.ResultsNinety-eight full-term and 108 preterm toddlers were included in the final analysis in phase I and II studies, respectively. The total CCDI screening abnormality rate was 9.2% for full-term and 34.3% for preterm toddlers. Full-term toddlers showed prosody discrimination ability in all channels except channel 5, while preterm toddlers showed prosody discrimination ability in channel 6 only. Multifactorial logistic regression analyses showed that prosody discrimination of the right angular gyrus (channel 3) had a statistically significant effect on language delay (odd ratio = 0.301, P < 0.05) in full-term toddlers. Random forest (RF) regression model presented that prosody discrimination reflected by channels and brain regions based on fNIRS data was an important parameter for predicting language delay in preterm toddlers, among which the prosody discrimination reflected by the right angular gyrus (channel 4) was the most important parameter. The area under the model Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.687.ConclusionsNeural prosody discrimination ability is positively associated with language development, assessment of brain prosody discrimination abilities through fNIRS could be used as an objective indicator for early identification of children with language delay in the future clinical application.

Changing the functioning of the article in the history of the German language

The subject of the study is the historical changes in the syntactic structure of the German language; the object of the study is articles. The authors consider in detail the use of definite, indefinite and null articles based on the material of a fragment of the Gospel of Luke, which were published in various periods of the German language: the text of Tatiana, translated by Martin Luther, made in 1545; an adapted version of Luther's translation, published in 2017 and a lightweight electronic version created as a result of deviation from the canonical translation. Particular attention is paid to the frequency of use of articles, the reasons for the increase or decrease in their use, as well as other means of determination. It is established that modern electronic text shows a tendency to decrease nominal groups, which, accordingly, leads to a decrease in articles. The tendency to decrease the zero article is manifested by the early Upper German period; in modern German, there is a displacement of the definite article. The methodological basis is based on a systematic approach to the interpretation of the phenomena of linguistic ontology in diachrony. The research methods are comparative historical analysis, the method of distributive analysis, quantitative analysis, methods of N. Chomsky's theory of control and binding. The main conclusions of the proposed study are the revealed historical processes in the system of articles of the German language. It was found that at an early stage of language development, the zero article dominated in texts, which significantly narrowed the manifestation of determination. The main burden during this period fell on possessive nominal groups, which primarily included proper names. The definite article was used much less frequently. In nominal groups that are part of the prepositional group, the zero article was mainly used, which eventually led to the creation of stable prepositional constructions with a zero article. The largest number of all types of articles falls on Luther's translation adapted to the modern grammatical structure of the German language, which is associated with the maximum use of nominal groups. What is new is the establishment in modern German of a tendency to reduce the zero and definite articles.

Jak małe dzieci werbalizują to co widzą i wiedzą o świecie?

This is a review article. It characterizes the early stage of language development based on chosen literature. The author describes how children start to use verbal symbols and how speech becomes a tool in the process of thought. The article consists of two parts. The first shows the connection between language, speech, thought and creating terms. The second describes the development of understanding language symbols process and giving meaning by children up to about 16 months old.

자유놀이 상황에서 초기 언어발달단계 자폐범주성장애 아동과 어머니의 의사소통 특성

Herein, we aimed to characterize the communicative intentions between children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the early stage of language development and their mothers. The participants included six children with ASD and their mothers, and six typically developing and language-age matched children and their mothers. Spontaneous speech during free play was collected. Therefore, (1) types of communicative intentions, mode of communication, and types of turn-taking showed a significant difference between the children’s groups, (2) The types of communicative intentions and number of turn-takings demonstrated a significant difference between the mothers’ groups. Our results will aid us in understanding the characteristics of the communicative acts performed by children with ASD in the early language development stage and their mothers.

VALENCY OF CHILD SPEECH IN THE YOUTUBE CHANNEL “STEVE TV SHOW”: SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC ANALYSIS

Current linguistic studies tend to investigate sentence structure to determine the form of valency in written sentences. However, the study of valency in verbal communication still needs more exploration. This study investigated the types of valency and its arguments used by Ariana Jalia, a 6-year-old child, in her spontaneous utterances during the interview on ‘Steve TV Show’. As a qualitative descriptive study, the purpose was to gain a deep understanding of valency and its arguments found in the child's speech. In the field of semantics, the findings of this study indicated that the utterances produced by Ariana contained four types of valency zero, twelve types of valency one, and three types of verb valency. In addition, the semantic analysis investigated the thematic roles assigned to the argument verbs used by the child. Viewed from the agents, themes, causes, and topics of what Ariana described in her narrative, she employed transitive verbs. The findings shed light on the way children used language in informal and conversational settings and how they constructed sentences with different verb structures to convey their thoughts and ideas. It also highlights the importance of understanding the grammatical structures used by children in order to better support their language development. The need for further research suggests that there is still much to be learned about the early stages of language development and how children use language in various settings.

Lexical development in an Indonesian-Balinese bilingual child

It is debatable whether bilingual children can distinguish between their two languages from an early age. This study aims to describe how a bilingual infant differentiates between her two languages, focusing on the acquisition of a dual vocabulary. This topic is addressed in a bilingual case study of an infant who acquired a national language (Indonesian) and an indigenous language (Balinese) simultaneously from birth until the age of one year and eleven months. Within the family, the two languages are used interchangeably. The parents' native language is Balinese, and Indonesian is the neighbourhood’s lingua franca. However, within the peer group, Indonesian is the dominant language. Daily diaries are used to record the child's vocabulary development in combination with weekly video recordings in the two language settings. The study shows that the child develops vocabulary in both Indonesian and Balinese. Since Indonesian and Balinese are closely related, the child also develops words that are shared by the two languages. During the development of the child’s vocabulary, Indonesian words outnumbered Balinese words due to the dominant use of Indonesian in the environment. The research demonstrates that translation equivalents (TEs) mean those language choices are available from the early stages of language development. The study shows that translation equivalents (TEs) demonstrate those language choices are available from the initial stages of language development. The findings highlight that a child who is exposed to two closely related languages can differentiate different language systems from an early age. Despite the child's ability to differentiate between the two languages, the national language develops at a far quicker rate than the indigenous language.

Variation versus deviation

Abstract Naturalistic production research has reported that, unlike monolingual peers, children acquiring Spanish as a heritage language omit Differential Object Marking (DOM) with animate objects since the earliest stages of language development. However, the previous studies investigating longitudinal monolingual and bilingual corpora cannot be compared to each other given their different treatment of language-internal variation in DOM use along the animacy scale. Whereas monolingual results excluded contexts predicted to be variable, bilingual results combined them with categorical contexts increasing the rate of “errors” in the bilingual group. This study reexamines naturalistic production by monolingual and early bilingual children as well as by their caregivers using a common methodology that distinguishes categorical from variable DOM contexts. The results indicate that longitudinal corpora covering child heritage speakers’ development up to age three do not show evidence of greater omission of DOM compared to monolingual children once variability along the animacy scale is accounted for. By contrast, young monolingual and bilingual children’s use of Spanish DOM seems target-like based on their input.

Pragmatics of L2 gestures in beginners’ classes of Italian

This article examines the responses that two groups of beginners of Italian in Canada (n=30) and in Italy (n=30) contributed to a multimodal exercise, where six culturally-based Italian gestures were presented alone and in combination with mini-dialogues. The main goal of this study was to encourage Italian L2 pedagogy to become more oriented towards the teaching of the pragmatics of body movements occurring during interactions. This work advocates that it is important to promote awareness of the pragmatic roles of the body from the early stages of language development to better prepare L2 learners in the recognition of the nonverbal contents communicated in a target language. One of the main results of this study suggests that combining target gestures with speech is a necessary pedagogical approach to enable the understanding of the semantics and the pragmatics of multimodal messages in L2 communication.

The Protocol for the Analysis of Aided Language Samples in Spanish: A Tutorial

Purpose: The purpose of this tutorial is to describe a tool and a procedure to support the collection and qualitative manual analysis of aided language samples in Spanish. Method: The Protocol for the Analysis of Aided Language Samples in Spanish (PAALSS) was developed from the present knowledge of Spanish language acquisition, and established procedures for the analysis of aided language samples. A draft version of PAALSS was distributed among 476 augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) service providers in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, and the United States, who provided feedback on their usability and applicability. The clinical application of PAALSS is illustrated through the analysis of three different language samples of an 8-year-old child who uses aided AAC. Results: The use of PAALSS allowed the child’s educational team to document the child’s strengths and to set therapy goals to address her needs, such as increasing the length of her utterances and other structures essential for grammaticalization including articles, adjectives, adverbs, diminutives, morphemes for gender and number, prepositions, and personal pronouns. Conclusions: PAALSS can be used to describe the expressive language use of children who use aided AAC in Spanish and are in the early stages of language development. PAALSS can also be used as a guide to set goals for and measure outcomes of language therapy along four domains of expressive language including vocabulary, morphology, grammatical complexity, and syntax. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19233237

Lexical Units with Functionalverbs for German Language Development in a Historical Context

The existance of functionalverbs is confirmed by scientists at different stages of German language development. An event whose origins are recorded in the early stages of language development is not uniwue to the German language. The fact, that the number of words in the German languagr has been increasing over the centuries confirms the tendency of its development from a synchronic to an analytic structure. In the process of diachronic language development, there are certain periods when the tendency of nominalization and use of words is more pronounced than in other sections. The development of functionalverbs into a systemic phenomenon is thought to have taken place in the XVIIIth century. They are recorded in the scientific literature and the language of governance, as well in the fiction.There was a development of the German language’s internal potential and analytical structure in the face of changed living conditions.Many factors contribute to the widespread use of functional expressions in Modern German. They are found is almost all functional styles: mostly in pfficial, scientific and press languages, as well as in fiction.

Gender differences in early stages of language development. Some evidence and possible explanations.

It is a common feeling that girls speak earlier than boys; however, whether or not there are gender differences in early language acquisition remains controversial. The present paper aims to review the research on gender effects in early language acquisition and development, to determine whether, and from which age, an advantage for girls does eventually emerge. The focus is on the production of actions and communicative gestures, and early lexical comprehension and production, by girls and boys. The data from various studies that were conducted with direct and indirect tools suggest that some gender differences in actions, gesture, and lexical development depend on the interactions of different factors. Studies differ in terms of age ranges, sample sizes, and tools used, and the girl advantage is often slight and/or not evident at all ages considered. Statistical significance for gender differences appears to depend on the greater individual variability among boys, with respect to girls, which results in a greater number of boys classified as children with poor verbal ability. Biological (e.g., different maturational rates), neuropsychological (e.g., different cognitive strategies in solving tasks), and cultural (e.g., differences in the way parents relate socially to boys and girls) factors appear to interact, to create feedback loops of mutual reinforcement.

An early Spanish vocabulary for children who use AAC: developmental and linguistic considerations

For children with complex communication needs in the early stages of language development, access to appropriate vocabulary provides a means for social interaction and participation, and the foundation for the acquisition of grammar and other language related skills. While numerous resources are available to support decision making for speakers of English, there is a pressing need to rapidly expand such resources for other languages. Spanish is the official language in 20 countries, and in other countries (e.g., United States) Spanish-speaking communities represent a substantial proportion of the population. The aim of this study was to produce a developmentally-relevant word list for use by Spanish-speaking children in the early stages of language development. The list was developed from an analysis of overlap between published and validated lists of words produced by young Spanish speaking children with typical development. The list includes a wide range of word classes and semantic categories and is proposed as a tool to assist professionals, families and software developers in the process of selecting an initial lexicon for children who require AAC and are learning Spanish. Implications of our findings for vocabulary selection and future research directions are discussed.

Bilateral cochlear implantation: simultaneous versus sequential

BackgroundBilateral cochlear implantation (BiCI) has been provided with an intent to promote binaural hearing and improve quality of life (QoL). Binaural hearing maximum benefit could be optimized with BiCI, when indicated in the early stages of life through preserving the cortical hearing development. Actually, BiCI benefits wide variables among patients, and in this work, we aimed to analyze the benefit of bilateral cochlear implantation over unilateral and the simultaneous over sequential implantation in peri- and post-lingual patients. The analysis based on common clinically used audiological tests such as aided hearing threshold and speech perception measures.ResultsThe results of the aided threshold and speech perception measures in all patients revealed a significantly better response in the bilateral implantations than in unilateral each implant separately. Overall, the best response was seen in the simultaneous bilateral group followed by sequential bilateral groups. In post-lingual patients, a better response was observed in sequential and similar bilateral than in sequential and different device groups with significant differences.Change of performance across time revealed aided threshold improvement of the from 3 to 6 months. In speech perception measures, the post-lingual group revealed significant improvement of high-context sentence test (HCST) scores from 3 to 6 months and 12 months. In the peri-lingual group, Early Speech Perception test (ESPT) revealed a change in performance with time at 3, 6, and 12 months. In addition, the simultaneous patient’s scores were significantly better than sequential similar patient’s scores.ConclusionThe main finding of our study was that bilateral cochlear implants (BiCI) are better than unilateral cochlear implant, and simultaneous BiCI is preferred than the sequential cochlear implant even after escaping the early stage of language development.

TABOO AND TABULAR VOCABULARY IN THE KAZAKH LANGUAGE

This article examines the linguistic and ethnographic nature of taboos and euphemisms as one of the topical issues of lexicology and stylistics of the Kazakh language. The question of the origin and spread of taboos has been studied in detail. The classification of taboos and euphemisms of the Kazakh language is given. Taboos and euphemisms that arose at an early stage of language development due to religious beliefs, as well as customs that once existed among the people, are studied. Forbidden words and euphemisms that arose on a different social basis, which includes etiquette, established moral norms, etc., are classified, techniques and language means of euphemization are identified. The role and function of taboos and euphemisms in changing the meaning of words and enriching the vocabulary and developing the culture of speech are defined.

Reciprocal relationships between nonword repetition and vocabulary during the preschool years.

The aim of this longitudinal study is to evaluate 3 views on the relationship between nonword repetition and vocabulary: (i) the storage-based view that considers nonword repetition, a measure of phonological storage, as the driving force behind vocabulary development, (ii) the lexical restructuring view that considers improvements in nonword repetition as the result of vocabulary growth, and (iii) the "combined" view that assumes that both storage-based learning and lexical restructuring play a role, resulting in reciprocal relationships between nonword repetition and vocabulary during language development. Data are analyzed from 471 monolingual Dutch children who performed tasks assessing nonword repetition and vocabulary at yearly intervals, from ages 2 to 5. Latent Change Score (LCS) modeling of Item Response Theory-scaled scores was used to investigate the relationships between nonword repetition and vocabulary growth over time. Additionally, the statistical techniques used in earlier work-cross-lagged and latent growth modeling-were applied to see whether the results changed as a function of the analytical technique used. Results from a bivariate LCS model showed positive reciprocal influences from nonword repetition on vocabulary between 2 and 5 years. Such positive cross-influences also emerged from the cross-lagged and latent growth models. Predictive relationships from vocabulary to nonword repetition were stronger than vice versa. These results indicate that both storage-based learning and lexical restructuring play a role in vocabulary learning, at least in early stages of language development, with the clearest support found for lexical restructuring. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Speed of Language Comprehension at 18 Months Old Predicts School-Relevant Outcomes at 54 Months Old in Children Born Preterm.

Identifying which preterm (PT) children are at increased risk of language and learning differences increases opportunities for participation in interventions that improve outcomes. Speed in spoken language comprehension at early stages of language development requires information processing skills that may form the foundation for later language and school-relevant skills. In children born full-term, speed of comprehending words in an eye-tracking task at 2 years old predicted language and nonverbal cognition at 8 years old. Here, we explore the extent to which speed of language comprehension at 1.5 years old predicts both verbal and nonverbal outcomes at 4.5 years old in children born PT. Participants were children born PT (n = 47; ≤32 weeks gestation). Children were tested in the "looking-while-listening" task at 18 months old, adjusted for prematurity, to generate a measure of speed of language comprehension. Parent report and direct assessments of language were also administered. Children were later retested on a test battery of school-relevant skills at 4.5 years old. Speed of language comprehension at 18 months old predicted significant unique variance (12%-31%) in receptive vocabulary, global language abilities, and nonverbal intelligence quotient (IQ) at 4.5 years, controlling for socioeconomic status, gestational age, and medical complications of PT birth. Speed of language comprehension remained uniquely predictive (5%-12%) when also controlling for children's language skills at 18 months old. Individual differences in speed of spoken language comprehension may serve as a marker for neuropsychological processes that are critical for the development of school-relevant linguistic skills and nonverbal IQ in children born PT.

A new measure of child vocal reciprocity in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Children and adults often engage in back-and-forth vocal exchanges. The extent to which they do so is believed to support children's early speech and language development. Two studies tested a new measure of child vocal reciprocity using computer-generated and real-life vocal samples of young children with autism collected in natural settings. The results provide initial evidence of accuracy, test-retest reliability, and validity of the new measure of child vocal reciprocity. A sound measure of children's vocal reciprocity might improve our ability to predict which children are on track to develop useful speech and/or are most likely to respond to language intervention. A free, publicly-available software program and manuals are provided.

“I use it when I see it”: The role of development and experience in Deaf and hearing children’s understanding of iconic gesture

Iconicity is prevalent in gesture and in sign languages, yet the degree to which children recognize and leverage iconicity for early language learning is unclear. In Experiment 1 of the current study, we presented sign-naïve 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds (n=87) with iconic shape gestures and no additional scaffolding to ask whether children can spontaneously map iconic gestures to their referents. Four- and five-year-olds, but not three-year-olds, recognized the referents of iconic shape gestures above chance. Experiment 2 asked whether preschoolers (n=93) show an advantage in fast-mapping iconic gestures compared to arbitrary ones. We found that iconicity played a significant role in supporting 4- and 5-year-olds’ ability to learn new gestures presented in an explicit pedagogical context, and a lesser role in 3-year-olds’ learning. Using similar tasks in Experiment 3, we found that Deaf preschoolers (n=41) exposed to American Sign Language showed a similar pattern of recognition and learning but starting at an earlier age, suggesting that learning a language with rich iconicity may lead to earlier use of iconicity. These results suggest that sensitivity to iconicity is shaped by experience, and while not fundamental to the earliest stages of language development, is a useful tool once children unlock these form-meaning relationships.

Predictive coding accelerates word recognition and learning in the early stages of language development.

The ability to predict future events in the environment and learn from them is a fundamental component of adaptive behavior across species. Here we propose that inferring predictions facilitates speech processing and word learning in the early stages of language development. Twelve- and 24-month olds' electrophysiological brain responses to heard syllables are faster and more robust when the preceding word context predicts the ending of a familiar word. For unfamiliar, novel word forms, however, word-expectancy violation generates a prediction error response, the strength of which significantly correlates with children's vocabulary scores at 12 months. These results suggest that predictive coding may accelerate word recognition and support early learning of novel words, including not only the learning of heard word forms but also their mapping to meanings. Prediction error may mediate learning via attention, since infants' attention allocation to the entire learning situation in natural environments could account for the link between prediction error and the understanding of word meanings. On the whole, the present results on predictive coding support the view that principles of brain function reported across domains in humans and non-human animals apply to language and its development in the infant brain. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: http://hy.fi/unitube/video/e1cbb495-41d8-462e-8660-0864a1abd02c. [Correction added on 27 January 2017, after first online publication: The video abstract link was added.].

Something special: Care, pre-school television and the dis/abled child

Abstract Through a close reading of the series Something Special (2003–), this article explores the implicit and explicit rhetorics of ‘care’ within the remit and content of the UK pre-school children’s channel CBeebies. With its address to an audience that includes disabled children and children with special educational needs, CBeebies is celebrated as an inclusive site of play and learning for its diverse audience of 0–6 year-olds. In Something Special (2003–), for example, Mr Tumble’s playful encounters with the world around him are supported through the use of Makaton, a sign language designed to help both children in the early stages of language development and those with communication disorders. With the channel’s emphasis on learning, development and ‘care’, this article questions the ways in which the disabled child both challenges and reinforces understandings of childhood and development. By exploring the manifestations of touch, texture, performance, play and repetition within this programme, it considers this inclusive mode of address for what it reveals about forms of intersubjectivity and non-verbal modes of communication.