Class notes, week 3

Language and Literacy Development: Preverbal Communication

Language depends on a prior development of communication. A desire to communicate must precede that.

Word meaning is arbitrary and idiosyncratic.


Prelinguistic dialogue

• situation dependent
• routines

What do children learn?

• Initiation & termination of conversations
• Turn-taking
• Pacing
• Verbal and non-verbal elements

Chronology of Communication

1. Birth to 6 mos. Socialization and Early Communication
   1. Newborn
      1. Interactions synchronized with speech
      2. Preference for human speech
   2. 1 Month
      1. Engaged in interactional sequences (movement and eye contact)
      2. Imitate pitch and duration of speech
      3. Develops social smile and cooing
   3. 2 Months
      1. Mouth movements are more distinct
      2. Infant develops eye contact with mother
   4. 3 Months
      1. Child likely to revocalize if caregiver responds verbally resulting in "conversational" turn-taking
         1. Helps develop babbling and turn-taking
         2. Babbling becomes speechlike (use of syllables)
         3. Protoconversations
      2. Rituals emerge
         1. Provide predictable patterns of behavior and speech
      3. Game playing emerges
         1. Include aspects of communication
   5. 5 Months
      1. Deliberate imitation of movements and vocalizations
         1. Facial imitation most frequent b/w 4-6 mos
      2. Face to face play
         1. Infant exposed to facial expressions
      3. Vocalization based on temperament
   6. 6 Months
      1. Interest in toyes and objects increase
         1. Eye-hand coordination increases
         2. Interactions include infant, caregiver, and object
      2. Joint attention begins to develop
         1. Initiated by caregiver
   7. 7 Months
      1. Begins developing attachment
      2. Demonstrates selective listening to simple words
      3. Complies with simple requests
   8. 8-10 Months
      1. Imitate simple motor behaviors
         1. waves bye
      2. Folllow maternal pointing and glancing