Some Critical Developments in Acquiring Native Language Sound Organization during the First Year

2002 ◽  
Vol 111 (5_suppl) ◽  
pp. 11-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter W. Jusczyk

Although infants are born with rather sophisticated capacities for discriminating and categorizing speech sounds, they still must learn about the sound organization of their native language. Before 6 months, infants show relatively little sensitivity to native language versus non-native language sound organization. Shortly thereafter, infants recognize which sounds and sound sequences and rhythmic patterns are likely to appear in native language words. Knowledge of these features plays a critical role in how and when infants segment words from fluent speech. Word segmentation abilities develop rapidly between 7.5 and 10.5 months. Initially, English-learners segment words using stress cues. Soon after, they learn to use other potential cues to word boundaries. As their lexicons develop during the second year, they begin to use information about known words in segmenting and learning new words.

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 840-849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nayeli Gonzalez-Gomez ◽  
Thierry Nazzi

Purpose In this study, the authors explored whether French-learning infants use nonadjacent phonotactic regularities in their native language, which they learn between the ages of 7 and 10 months, to segment words from fluent speech. Method Two groups of 20 French-learning infants were tested using the head-turn preference procedure at 10 and 13 months of age. In Experiment 1, infants were familiarized with 2 passages: 1 containing a target word with a frequent nonadjacent phonotactic structure and the other containing a target word with an infrequent nonadjacent phonotactic structure in French. During the test phase, infants were presented with 4 word lists: 2 containing the target words presented during familiarization and 2 other control words with the same phonotactic structure. In Experiment 2, the authors retested infants' ability to segment words with the infrequent phonotactic structure. Results Ten- and 13-month-olds were able to segment words with the frequent phonotactic structure, but it is only by 13 months, and only under the circumstances of Experiment 2, that infants could segment words with the infrequent phonotactic structure. Conclusion These results provide new evidence showing that infant word segmentation is influenced by prior nonadjacent phonotactic knowledge.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 1276-1287
Author(s):  
Hui CHEN ◽  
Dahliane LABERTONIÈRE ◽  
Hintat CHEUNG ◽  
Thierry NAZZI

AbstractInfants attune to their native language during the first two years of life, as attested by decreases in the processing of nonnative phonological sounds and reductions in the range of possible sounds accepted as labels for native words. The present study shows that French-learning infants aged 1;8 can learn new words in an unfamiliar language, Cantonese, after just 6 repetitions of each word. This shows that word learning in a nonnative language remains possible during the second year of life even in a nonnative language that is typologically distinct from the native language.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriel John Orena

Infants’ early language experiences play a critical role on their language development. In this dissertation, I explored the nature of this relationship in a bilingual context. Specifically, I investigated how bilingual caregivers are providing language input to their infants, and how global measures of this bilingual experience affect early word segmentation (i.e., the ability to recognize words in a sentential context). This work is important for understanding the factors that contribute to the developmental trajectory and processing capacities of bilingual infants. In the first part of this dissertation, I assessed research methods for examining the language input to bilingual infants. To do so, I recruited twenty-one French-English bilingual families with a 10-month-old infant from Montréal, Canada. These families completed language interviews and contributed three full-day recordings at home using the LENA (Language Environment Analysis) recording system. Chapter 2 provides support for using the LENA recording system for investigating the language input in bilingual infants, and Chapter 3 shows that caregivers are reliable at describing their infants’ language experience at home. Next, I described the variability in language experiences within bilingual infants, and how these language experiences might affect word segmentation. In Chapter 4, I recruited 8- and 10-month-old infants from monolingual and bilingual homes. Our findings confirm that monolingual infants can segment bisyllabic words in their native language, but not a non-native language. Critically, our findings reveal that some bilingual infants are able to segment bisyllabic words in both of their native languages by 8-months of age. Interestingly, exploratory analyses suggest that infants’ word segmentation skills in our dual-language task are bolstered if they hear more language mixing from their caregivers. In sum, this dissertation contributes to the growing literature that highlights the wide variability in bilingual language experiences, and their effects on early speech processing skills. Indeed, examining the language experiences and skills of bilingual-learning infants provides us with a unique lens for investigating language acquisition and development.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Esmeralda de Diriye

Hispanic Generation 1.5 students are foreign-born, U.S. high school graduates socialized in the English dominant K-12 school system while maintaining their native language and home culture (Allison, 2006; Blumenthal, 2002; Harklau et al., 1999; Rumbault & Ima, 1988). When transitioning from high school to college, these students sometimes assess into ESL, basic, or mainstream courses based on their English language abilities, and because of this placement, Hispanic Generation 1.5 students might have different learner-content, learner-instructor, and learner-learner experiences than their mainstream peers. The purpose of this study was to describe the learner-content, learner-instructor and learner-learner experiences of Hispanic Generation 1.5 students. This study employed a qualitative design that included an analysis of the participants' interaction experiences. The main source of data was in-depth, face-to-face interviews with forty-one Hispanic Generation 1.5 students at one California State University and one California Community College. Purposive sampling was used to select the interview participants, ensuring that all participants identified as both Hispanic and Generation 1.5 learners and were taking or had taken at least one first year college composition course at their respective institutions. The study findings show that Hispanic Generation 1.5 students at both colleges believed that meaningful interactions with their English instructors, peers, and content played a critical role in their success. Participants indicated that they preferred content that was relatable and engaging; they preferred instructors who were caring, professional, engaging and supportive; and, they preferred peers who were prepared, engaging and supportive. Closing gaps between and among learners and their peers, instructors and content is a critical factor in student success.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-89
Author(s):  
Hugh Crago

In a seminal 1973 paper, Robert Clark described the very different “cultures” of the first and second year students in a four year clinical psychology PhD programme. The author applies Clark’s template to his own experiences as trainee or trainer in five different counsellor education programmes, one in the US and four in Australia. Each of the programmes, to varying degrees, demonstrates key features of the pattern identified by Clark, where the first year is “therapeutic” and other-oriented, the second is “professional” and self-focused. The author concludes that all the surveyed programmes exhibited some level of “second year crisis”, in which a significant number of students felt abandoned, dissatisfied, or rebellious. The author extends and refines Clark’s developmental analogy (first year = childhood; second year = adolescence) to reflect recent neurological research, in particular, the shift from a right hemisphere-dominant first year of life, prioritising affiliative needs, to a left hemisphere-dominant second year, prioritising autonomy and control. This shift is paralleled later by a more gradual move from a protective, supportive childhood to necessary, but sometimes conflictual, individuation in adolescence. The first two years of a counsellor training programme broadly echo this process, a process exacerbated by the second year internship/placement, in which students must “leave home” and adjust to unfamiliar, potentially less nurturing, authority figures. Finally, the author suggests introducing more rigorous “academic holding” into the first year, and greater attention to “therapeutic holding” of dissident students in the second, hopefully decreasing student dropout, and achieving a better balanced training experience.


Author(s):  
Umar Iqbal ◽  
Deena Salem ◽  
David Strong

The objective of this paper is to document the experience of developing and implementing a second-year course in an engineering professional spine that was developed in a first-tier research university and relies on project-based core courses. The main objective of this spine is to develop the students’ cognitive and employability skills that will allow them to stand out from the crowd of other engineering graduates.The spine was developed and delivered for the first time in the academic year 2010-2011 for first-year general engineering students. In the year 2011-2012, those students joined different programs, and accordingly the second-year course was tailored to align with the different programs’ learning outcomes. This paper discusses the development and implementation of the course in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer McDonald ◽  
Rebecca Merkley ◽  
Jacqueline Mickle ◽  
Lisa Collimore ◽  
Daniel Ansari

Research in cognitive development has highlighted that early numeracy skills are associated with later math achievement, suggesting that these skills should be targeted in early math education. Here we tested whether tools used by researchers to assess mathematical thinking could be useful in the classroom. This paper describes a collaborative project between cognitive scientists and school board researchers/educators implementing numeracy screeners with kindergarten students over the course of three school years. The Give-A-Number task (Wynn, 1990) was used with first-year kindergarten students and the Numeracy Screener [BLINDED] with second-year kindergarten students. Results indicated that educators (N = 59) found the tools feasible to implement and helpful for exploring their students’ thinking and targeting instruction. The Educators’ feedback also helped inform improvements to the implementation of the tools and future directions for both the schools and the researchers. This work emphasizes the importance of transdisciplinary collaboration to address the research-practice gap.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
ARVIND KUMAR ◽  
POOJA KHULBE

Influence of abiotic factors and hosts on population dynamics of green lacewing, Chrysoper lacarnea (Stephens) was studied in sunflower, Helianthus annus (Linn.).The maximum number of C. carnea population was found during mid March –mid April in the first year and mid April – mid May in the second year in sunflower crop. The maximum number of host population viz. egg and larva of Helicoverpa armigera and Myzuspe rsicae population were found during mid March –mid April in both the year and correlation studies revealed the positive and significant correlation between larval population of H. armigera, M. persicae and predator C. carnea. While there was no significant relationship found between eggs of H. armigera and C. carnea. The C. carnea population on H. annus during both the year was positively correlated with maximum temperature and found significant,while negatively correlated with relative humidity.However, no significant correlation of C. carnea was found with minimum temperature in both the year.


1955 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 224-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Torrie ◽  
Earle W. Hanson
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Müller ◽  
Manuela Bombana ◽  
Monika Heinzel-Gutenbrenner ◽  
Nikolaus Kleindienst ◽  
Martin Bohus ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Mental disorders are related to high individual suffering and significant socio-economic burdens. However, it remains unclear to what extent self-reported mental distress is related to individuals’ days of incapacity to work and their medical costs. This study aims to investigate the impact of self-reported mental distress for specific and non-specific days of incapacity to work and specific and non-specific medical costs over a two-year span. Method Within a longitudinal research design, 2287 study participants’ mental distress was assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). HADS scores were included as predictors in generalized linear models with a Tweedie distribution with log link function to predict participants’ days of incapacity to work and medical costs retrieved from their health insurance routine data during the following two-year period. Results Current mental distress was found to be significantly related to the number of specific days absent from work and medical costs. Compared to participants classified as no cases by the HADS (2.6 days), severe case participants showed 27.3-times as many specific days of incapacity to work in the first year (72 days) and 10.3-times as many days in the second year (44 days), and resulted in 11.4-times more medical costs in the first year (2272 EUR) and 6.2-times more in the second year (1319 EUR). The relationship of mental distress to non-specific days of incapacity to work and non-specific medical costs was also significant, but mainly driven from specific absent days and specific medical costs. Our results also indicate that the prevalence of presenteeism is considerably high: 42% of individuals continued to go to work despite severe mental distress. Conclusions Our results show that self-reported mental distress, assessed by the HADS, is highly related to the days of incapacity to work and medical costs in the two-year period. Reducing mental distress by improving preventive structures for at-risk populations and increasing access to evidence-based treatments for individuals with mental disorders might, therefore, pay for itself and could help to reduce public costs.


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