Laz caregivers’ talk to their young children: The importance of context and utterance type in eliciting ancestral language use

2020 ◽  
pp. 014272372097000
Author(s):  
Peri Yuksel ◽  
Cass Lowry ◽  
Patricia J. Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Language Preservation ◽  
Play Interactions ◽  
Animal Farm ◽  
Child Age ◽  
Child Caregiver

This study examined play interactions of 15 to 48-month-old children ( n = 59) and their caregivers in Lazuri, a UNESCO-rated endangered South-Caucasian ancestral language, and Turkish, a dominant language supplanting Lazuri usage in the community. Child–caregiver dyads played with two toy sets (animal farm and tea set) that provided different contexts for interaction. Participants’ utterances were coded as instances of distinct functional utterance types (e.g. labels, commands, and questions). Our goal was to analyze the influence of play context on child and caregiver functional utterances in order to identify factors that prompted children to use the ancestral language. The animal farm encouraged dyads to engage in labeling objects, while the tea set encouraged use of social language (e.g. comments). The differing contextual affordances led children to produce many more Lazuri labels than expected when playing with the animal farm. Mixed-effects regression analysis indicated that caregivers’ use of Lazuri and their use of labels predicted children’s use of Lazuri, along with child age. Notably, older children were less likely to use the ancestral language than younger children. The children’s strong preference for speaking Turkish highlights the urgency of interventions to ensure language preservation in Laz communities. Interactions that promote labeling may serve as an effective first step in encouraging children’s use of the Lazuri vocabulary.

scholarly journals Understanding the effects of language revitalization workshops using long-format speech environment recordings

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 213
Author(s):  
Julia Nee
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Language Revitalization ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Teaching Language ◽  
Methodological Challenges

Long-format speech environment (LFSE) recordings are increasingly used to understand language acquisition among young children (Casillas & Cristia 2019). But in language revitalization, older children are sometimes the largest demographic acquiring a language. In Teotitlán del Valle, Mexico, older children have participated in Zapotec language revitalization workshops since 2017. To better understand how these children use language, and to probe whether the language workshops impact language use, I invited learners to collect LFSE recordings. This study addresses two main questions: (1) what methodological challenges emerge when children ages 6-12 collect LFSE data?; and (2) what do the data suggest about the effects of the Zapotec workshops? I argue that, while creating LFSE recordings with older children presents methodological challenges, the results are useful in highlighting the importance of not only teaching language skills, but of creating spaces where learners are comfortable using the Zapotec language.

Instruction Helps and Hinders Young Children’s Feature Learning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Kalish ◽  
Nigel Noll
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Feature Learning ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Diagnostic Feature ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Prediction Task ◽  
Feature Correlation ◽  
The Future

Existing research suggests that adults and older children experience a tradeoff where instruction and feedback help them solve a problem efficiently, but lead them to ignore currently irrelevant information that might be useful in the future. It is unclear whether young children experience the same tradeoff. Eighty-seven children (ages five- to eight-years) and 42 adults participated in supervised feature prediction tasks either with or without an instructional hint. Follow-up tasks assessed learning of feature correlations and feature frequencies. Younger children tended to learn frequencies of both relevant and irrelevant features without instruction, but not the diagnostic feature correlation needed for the prediction task. With instruction, younger children did learn the diagnostic feature correlation, but then failed to learn the frequencies of irrelevant features. Instruction helped older children learn the correlation without limiting attention to frequencies. Adults learned the diagnostic correlation even without instruction, but with instruction no longer learned about irrelevant frequencies. These results indicate that young children do show some costs of learning with instruction characteristic of older children and adults. However, they also receive some of the benefits. The current study illustrates just what those tradeoffs might be, and how they might change over development.

scholarly journals Changes in Children’s Body Composition and Posture during Puberty Growth

Children ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 288
Author(s):  
Wojciech Rusek ◽  
Joanna Baran ◽  
Justyna Leszczak ◽  
Marzena Adamczyk ◽  
Rafał Baran ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Composition ◽  
Adipose Tissue ◽  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Pelvic Obliquity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Posture ◽  
Older Children ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right

The main goal of our study was to determine how the age of children, puberty and anthropometric parameters affect the formation of body composition and faulty body posture development in children. The secondary goal was to determine in which body segments abnormalities most often occur and how gender differentiates the occurrence of adverse changes in children’s body posture and body composition during puberty. The study group consisted of 464 schoolchildren aged from 6–16. Body posture was assessed with the Zebris system. The composition of the body mass was tested with Tanita MC 780 MA body mass analyzer and the body height was measured using a portable stadiometer PORTSTAND 210. The participants were further divided due to the age of puberty. Tanner division was adopted. The cut-off age for girls is ≥10 years and for boys it is ≥12 years. The analyses applied descriptive statistics, the Pearson correlation, stepwise regression analysis and the t-test. The accepted level of significance was p < 0.05. The pelvic obliquity was lower in older children (beta = −0.15). We also see that age played a significant role in the difference in the height of the right pelvis (beta = −0.28), and the difference in the height of the right shoulder (beta = 0.23). Regression analysis showed that the content of adipose tissue (FAT%) increased with body mass index (BMI) and decreased with increasing weight, age, and height. Moreover, the FAT% was lower in boys than in girls (beta negative equal to −0.39). It turned out that older children (puberty), had greater asymmetry in the right shoulder blade (p < 0.001) and right shoulder (p = 0.003). On the other hand, younger children (who were still before puberty) had greater anomalies in the left trunk inclination (p = 0.048) as well as in the pelvic obliquity (p = 0.008). Girls in puberty were characterized by greater asymmetry on the right side, including the shoulders (p = 0.001), the scapula (p = 0.001) and the pelvis (p < 0.001). In boys, the problem related only to the asymmetry of the shoulder blades (p < 0.001). Girls were characterized by a greater increase in adipose tissue and boys by muscle tissue. Significant differences also appeared in the body posture of the examined children. Greater asymmetry within scapulas and shoulders were seen in children during puberty. Therefore, a growing child should be closely monitored to protect them from the adverse consequences of poor posture or excessive accumulation of adipose tissue in the body.

scholarly journals Multilab Direct Replication of Flavell, Beach, and Chinsky (1966): Spontaneous Verbal Rehearsal in a Memory Task as a Function of Age

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 251524592110181
Author(s):  
Emily M. Elliott ◽  
Candice C. Morey ◽  
Angela M. AuBuchon ◽  
Nelson Cowan ◽  
Chris Jarrold ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Development ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Continuous Increase ◽  
Verbal Rehearsal ◽  
Picture Memory ◽  
Spontaneous Production

Work by Flavell, Beach, and Chinsky indicated a change in the spontaneous production of overt verbalization behaviors when comparing young children (age 5) with older children (age 10). Despite the critical role that this evidence of a change in verbalization behaviors plays in modern theories of cognitive development and working memory, there has been only one other published near replication of this work. In this Registered Replication Report, we relied on researchers from 17 labs who contributed their results to a larger and more comprehensive sample of children. We assessed memory performance and the presence or absence of verbalization behaviors of young children at different ages and determined that the original pattern of findings was largely upheld: Older children were more likely to verbalize, and their memory spans improved. We confirmed that 5- and 6-year-old children who verbalized recalled more than children who did not verbalize. However, unlike Flavell et al., substantial proportions of our 5- and 6-year-old samples overtly verbalized at least sometimes during the picture memory task. In addition, continuous increase in overt verbalization from 7 to 10 years old was not consistently evident in our samples. These robust findings should be weighed when considering theories of cognitive development, particularly theories concerning when verbal rehearsal emerges and relations between speech and memory.

scholarly journals Evaluating working conditions in the informal economy: Evidence from the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin C Williams ◽  
Ioana Alexandra Horodnic
Keyword(s):  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Logistic Regression Analysis ◽  
Informal Economy ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Formal Economy ◽  
European Working ◽  
European Working Conditions Survey

Although it is widely held that working conditions in the informal economy are worse than in the formal economy, little evidence has been so far provided. The aim of this article is to fill this lacuna by comparing the working conditions of informal employees with formal employees using the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey. Multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression analysis provides a nuanced and variegated appreciation of which working conditions are worse for informal employees, which are no different, and which are better for informal than formal employees. The article concludes by discussing the theoretical and policy implications.

Age Effects in the Processing of Typical and Distinctive Faces

1995 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 447-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Johnston ◽  
Hadyn D. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Recognition Memory ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Age Effects ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Cognitive Architectures ◽  
Differential Processing ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Adults And Children

Two experiments exploring the differential processing of distinctive and typical faces by adults and children are reported. Experiment 1 employed a recognition memory task. On three out of four dimensions of measurement, children of 5 years of age did not show an advantage for distinctive faces, whereas older children and adults did. In Experiment 2, however, subjects of all ages classified typical faces faster than distinctive ones in a face/non-face decision task: the 5-year-olds performed exactly as did adults and older children. The different patterns in performance between these two tasks are discussed in relation to possible cognitive architectures for the way young children represent faces in memory. Specifically, we examine two alternative architectures proposed by Ellis (1992) as precursors for Valentine's (1991a) multidimensional adult face-space and discuss whether implementations of these spaces should be based on a norm-based or an exemplar-based framework.

Do Monkeys and Young Children Understand Exclusive “Or” Relations? A Commentary on Ferrigno et al. (2021)

2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762110246
Author(s):  
Shalini Gautam ◽  
Thomas Suddendorf ◽  
Jonathan Redshaw
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Response Pattern ◽  
Compelling Evidence ◽  
Experimental Task ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Disjunctive Syllogism ◽  
Identical Response ◽  
Exclusive Or

Ferrigno et al. (2021) claim to provide evidence that monkeys can reason through the disjunctive syllogism (given A or B, not A, therefore B) and conclude that monkeys therefore understand logical “or” relations. Yet their data fail to provide evidence that the baboons they tested understood the exclusive “or” relations in the experimental task. For two mutually exclusive possibilities—A or B—the monkeys appeared to infer that B was true when A was shown to be false, but they failed to infer that B was false when A was shown to be true. In our own research, we recently found an identical response pattern in 2.5- to 4-year-old children, whereas 5-year-olds demonstrated that they could make both inferences. The monkeys’ and younger children’s responses are instead consistent with an incorrect understanding of A and B as having an inclusive “or” relation. Only the older children provided compelling evidence of representing the exclusive “or” relation between A and B.

The alternative negative constructions in spoken and written Korean: Logistic regression analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-442
Author(s):  
Beom-mo Kang
Keyword(s):  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Logistic Regression Analysis ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Relevant Factor ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Relevant Factors

AbstractAdopting quantitative corpus-based methods, this paper focuses on the alternative negative constructions in Korean, [anV] and [Vanhda]. Logistic regression analyses for a mixed-effects model were carried out on data drawn from the Sejong Korean Corpus. Certain features of the verb or adjective in negative constructions significantly affect the use of the two negative constructions. A relevant factor is register/medium (spoken or written), among other significant interactions of factors. Furthermore, the fact that frequency is consistent with other relevant factors, together with certain diachronic facts of Korean, supports the claim that frequency of use plays an important role in linguistic changes. Another finding is that, notwithstanding noticeable differences between spoken and written language, the factors influencing the use of the two negative constructions in Korean are largely similar in the spoken and written registers.

Why are Mongolian Infants Treated Like ‘Kings’?

Inner Asia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aude Michelet
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Infants And Toddlers ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Privileged Status ◽  
Daily Interactions ◽  
Children In The Middle

As infants and toddlers, Mongolian children grow up as the centre of attention in their home, promptly taken care of and tenderly indulged. In this paper, I seek to explain why young children in the middle Gobi enjoy a privileged status, in contrast with their status as older children. I show how the physical, emotional and moral peculiarities of infants’ and toddlers’ personhood converge in conferring upon them ‘kingly’ prerogatives. I then examine what leads to their loss of privileges, as they grow older. Unlike most studies examining the changes of status that children undergo, I do not focus on rites de passage, but analyse daily interactions. The loss of young children’s privileges occurs according to different timelines for each aspect of their personhood, while the prerogatives enjoyed by young children also reoccur at different periods in life, thus inviting us to reconsider what is meant by infancy as a discrete stage.

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