Language development Timeline

Question 1

At what age children begin to be sensitive to the patterns of language & use it to segment words from speech (i.e. word segmentation)?

Answer 1

7mo

Question 2

Study: Understand that sounds that appear together often are likely to be words. What age?

Answer 2

8mo

Question 3

Cross language speech perception Timeline

Answer 3

6mo: discriminate between Hindi /Ta/ and /ta/.
~8mo: Perceptual narrowing of speech perception: discrimination ability diminishes.
10-12mo: “Lose” ability to discriminate between non-native speech sounds.

Question 4

To test speech perception in infants. What age is appropriate for a High Amplitude Sucking Procedure?

Answer 4

0-4mo

Question 5

To test speech perception in infants. What age is appropriate for a Preferential Listening Procedure?

Answer 5

4mo and up

Question 6

Language Milestones Timeline

Answer 6

2mo: Cooing.
6mo: Understand high-frequency words (i.e. look to the correct picture more often than chance). Understand more words than they can produce.
7mo: Babbling.
12mo: First words.
18mo: Knows 50 words. Vocabulary spurt

Question 7

Putting words together (grammar) Timeline

Answer 7

8mo: Pick-up on grammatical patterns.
2yo: Telegraphic speech. i.e. 2-3 word phrases that leave out non-essential words (e.g. mommycake).
2-5yo: Acquiring the basics of grammar. Extend patterns + overregularization errors.
5yo: Mastered basics of grammar (Wug test).

Question 8

Conversation Timeline

Answer 8

1-4yo: Private/Egocentric speech.
5+yo: Able to stick to the same conversation topic as their conversation partner.

Question 9

Sensitive Period for Language Acquisition

Answer 9

Birth until before puberty.