scholarly journals Vocal turn-taking in a non-human primate is learned during ontogeny

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1807) ◽  
pp. 20150069 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia P. Chow ◽  
Jude F. Mitchell ◽  
Cory T. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Primate Species ◽  
First Year ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Common Marmosets ◽  
Turn Taking ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
Vocal Interactions

Conversational turn-taking is an integral part of language development, as it reflects a confluence of social factors that mitigate communication. Humans coordinate the timing of speech based on the behaviour of another speaker, a behaviour that is learned during infancy. While adults in several primate species engage in vocal turn-taking, the degree to which similar learning processes underlie its development in these non-human species or are unique to language is not clear. We recorded the natural vocal interactions of common marmosets ( Callithrix jacchus ) occurring with both their sibling twins and parents over the first year of life and observed at least two parallels with language development. First, marmoset turn-taking is a learned vocal behaviour. Second, marmoset parents potentially played a direct role in guiding the development of turn-taking by providing feedback to their offspring when errors occurred during vocal interactions similarly to what has been observed in humans. Though species-differences are also evident, these findings suggest that similar learning mechanisms may be implemented in the ontogeny of vocal turn-taking across our Order, a finding that has important implications for our understanding of language evolution.

scholarly journals Parents should keep talking to boost infant language development

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Language Development ◽  
Low Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
First Year ◽  
Low Socioeconomic ◽  
Infant Language Development ◽  
Starting School ◽  
Infant Language ◽  
First Year Of Life

Children from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds tend to have poorer language skills when starting school than those from higher SES backgrounds. Now, data shows that increasing the amount of “contingent talk”— whereby a caregiver talks about objects that an infant is directly focusing on — within an infant’s first year of life promotes a wide vocabulary later in infancy.

Speech Perception in Infancy

2013 ◽  
pp. 908-925 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet F. Werker ◽  
Judit Gervain
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Newborn Infants ◽  
First Year ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Environmental Input ◽  
Perceptual Abilities ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
Different Levels

We discuss the development of speech perception and its contribution to the acquisition of the native language(s) during the first year of life, reviewing recent empirical evidence as well as current theoretical debates. We situate the discussion in an epigenetic framework in an attempt to transcend the traditional nature/nurture controversy. As we illustrate, some perceptual and learning mechanisms are best described as experience-expectant processes, embedded in our biology and awaiting minimal environmental input, while others are experience-dependent, emerging as a function of sufficient exposure and learning. We argue for a cascading model of development, whereby the initial biases guide learning and constrain the influence of the environmental input. To illustrate this, we first review the perceptual abilities of newborn infants, then discuss how these broad-based abilities are attuned to the native language at different levels (phonology, syntax, lexicon etc.).

scholarly journals Language Skills of Young Children with Unilateral Cleft Lip and Palate following Infant Orthopedics: A Randomized Clinical Trial

2003 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmy M. Konst ◽  
Toni Rietveld ◽  
Herman F. M. Peters ◽  
Anne Marie Kuijpers-Jagtman
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trial ◽  
Language Development ◽  
Cleft Lip ◽  
Cleft Lip And Palate ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Expressive Language ◽  
Receptive Language ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
Infant Orthopedics

Objective To investigate the effects of infant orthopedics (IO) on the language skills of children with complete unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP). Design In a prospective randomized clinical trial (Dutchcleft), two groups of children with complete UCLP were followed up longitudinally: one group was treated with IO based on a modified Zurich approach in the first year of life (IO group); the other group did not receive this treatment (non-IO group). At the ages of 2, 2½, 3, and 6 years, language development was evaluated in 12 children (six IO and six non-IO). Receptive language skills were assessed using the Reynell test. Expressive language skills of the toddlers were evaluated by calculating mean length of utterance (MLU) and mean length of longest utterances (MLLU); in the 6-year-olds, the expressive language skills were measured using standardized Dutch language tests. Patients The participants had complete UCLP without soft tissue bands or other malformations. Results IO did not affect the receptive language skills. However, the expressive language measures MLU and MLLU were influenced by IO. At age 2½ and 3 years, the IO group produced longer utterances than the non-IO group. In the follow-up, the difference in expressive language between the two groups was no longer significant. Conclusions Children treated with IO during their first year of life produced longer sentences than non-IO children at the ages of 2½ and 3 years. At 6 years of age, both groups presented similar expressive language skills. Hence, IO treatment did not have long-lasting effects on language development.

Language Development in the First Year of Life

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. e56-e62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dani Levine ◽  
Kristina Strother-Garcia ◽  
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff ◽  
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Of Life

Early human communication helps in understanding language evolution

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 560-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Lenti Boero
Keyword(s):  
Motor Skills ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
First Year ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
Extant Species ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
Auditory Skills ◽  
Early Human

AbstractBuilding a theory on extant species, as Ackermann et al. do, is a useful contribution to the field of language evolution. Here, I add another living model that might be of interest: human language ontogeny in the first year of life. A better knowledge of this phase might help in understanding two more topics among the “several building blocks of a comprehensive theory of the evolution of spoken language” indicated in their conclusion by Ackermann et al., that is, the foundation of the co-evolution of linguistic motor skills with the auditory skills underlying speech perception, and the possible phylogenetic interactions of protospeech production with referential capabilities.

scholarly journals Early development of turn-taking with parents shapes vocal acoustics in infant marmoset monkeys

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1693) ◽  
pp. 20150370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Y. Takahashi ◽  
Alicia R. Fenley ◽  
Asif A. Ghazanfar
Keyword(s):  
Breeding Strategy ◽  
First Year ◽  
Life History Stage ◽  
Self Monitoring ◽  
Vocal Behaviour ◽  
Turn Taking ◽  
Vocal Acoustics ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
Marmoset Monkeys ◽  
Do So

In humans, vocal turn-taking is a ubiquitous form of social interaction. It is a communication system that exhibits the properties of a dynamical system: two individuals become coupled to each other via acoustic exchanges and mutually affect each other. Human turn-taking develops during the first year of life. We investigated the development of vocal turn-taking in infant marmoset monkeys, a New World species whose adult vocal behaviour exhibits the same universal features of human turn-taking. We find that marmoset infants undergo the same trajectory of change for vocal turn-taking as humans, and do so during the same life-history stage. Our data show that turn-taking by marmoset infants depends on the development of self-monitoring, and that contingent parental calls elicit more mature-sounding calls from infants. As in humans, there was no evidence that parental feedback affects the rate of turn-taking maturation. We conclude that vocal turn-taking by marmoset monkeys and humans is an instance of convergent evolution, possibly as a result of pressures on both species to adopt a cooperative breeding strategy and increase volubility.

scholarly journals Developmental Variability and Developmental Cascades: Lessons From Motor and Language Development in Infancy

2021 ◽  
pp. 096372142199382
Author(s):  
Jana M. Iverson
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
First Year ◽  
Language Abilities ◽  
Cascading Effects ◽  
Language System ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
Developing System ◽  
Lasting Change

The first year of life is punctuated by explosions of growth in motor and language abilities. This is not a coincidence. The notion of developmental cascades provides a conceptual framework for considering ways in which advances in one component of a developing system can exert far-reaching and lasting change in other domains. In this article, I review evidence for the cascading effects of early motor advances on the developing communication and language system and describe how differences in the timing of these advances may have consequences for these effects.

A SPEECH SCREENING PROCEDURE WITH THREE-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-276
Author(s):  
Miriam F. Fiedler ◽  
Eric H. Lenneberg ◽  
Ursula T. Rolfe ◽  
James E. Drorbaugh
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Screening Procedure ◽  
First Year ◽  
Speech And Language ◽  
Failure Group ◽  
Screening Examination ◽  
Control Subjects ◽  
Speech And Language Development ◽  
First Year Of Life

A screening examination for use by nonprofessional interviewers in the home situation for evaluation of speech and language development of 3-year-old children was developed. The perinatal histories and developmental data for the first year of life were examined for 46 children who failed this screening examination and for 92 control subjects, matches for age, sex, and time of examination, who passed the screening examination. Significant differences were found between the groups in incidence of complications of pregnancy and labor, prematurity and in various aspects of development during the first year of life. Follow-up psychological examinations at 4 years of age and psychological and neurological examinations at 7 years of age found marked differences between the groups still present, with the speech failure group presenting a significantly higher incidence of a Variety of psychological and neurological deviations from the normal.

Phonological working memory and language development: What are the measures and what do they measure?

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 1313-1321
Author(s):  
Cornelia Hamann
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Recent Trend ◽  
First Year ◽  
Language Outcomes ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Bilingual Language Development ◽  
Different Populations ◽  
First Year Of Life

In line with the recent trend in comparative analysis of different populations (see Friedmann & Rusou, 2015, as an example), Pierce, Genesee, Delcenserie, and Morgan (2017) present a comprehensive review of different language outcomes in populations that have received qualitatively and quantitatively different input during the first year of life, from enriched stimuli in bilingual situations to no stimuli at all in the case of children with profound hearing impairment. The claims derived from these data deserve some comment, however, and need some caveats about the measures used, which I will provide in the following with a brief discussion of complementing research and the presentation of some new data derived from the Bilingual Language Development (BiLaD) Project, a recent French/German collaboration studying bilingual populations with and without specific language impairment (SLI).

scholarly journals Vocalization frequency as a prognostic marker of language development following early cochlear implantation

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paris Binos ◽  
Elena Loizou
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Cochlear Implantation ◽  
Sound Production ◽  
Late Onset ◽  
First Year ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Linguistic Performance ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
Frequency Current ◽  
Implantation Success

Despite their potential significance for later linguistic outcomes, early aspects of vocalization had been seriously undervalued in the past, and thus, minimally investigated until relatively recently. The present article sets out to critically examine existing evidence to: i) ascertain whether vocalization frequency (volubility) posits a plausible marker of cochlear implantation success in infancy, and ii) determine the clinical usefulness of post-implementation vocalization frequency data in predicting later language development. Only recent peer-reviewed articles with substantial impact on vocalization growth during the first year of life, examining sound production characteristics of normally hearing (NH) and hearing impaired infants fitted with cochlear implantation (CI) were mentioned. Recorded differences in linguistic performance among NH and CI infants are typically attributed to auditory deprivation. Infants who have undergone late CI, produce fewer syllables (low volubility) and exhibit late-onset babbling, especially those who received their CIs at the age of 12 months or thereafter. Contrarily, early recipients (before the 12-month of age) exhibit higher volubility (more vocalizations), triggered from CI-initiated auditory feedback. In other words, early CI provides infants with early auditory access to speech sounds, leading to advanced forms of babbling and increased post-implementation vocalization frequency. Current findings suggest vocalization frequency as a plausible criterion of the success of early CI. It is argued that vocalization frequency predicts language development and affects habilitation therapy.

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