Cognitive Theory
Swiss psychologist who viewed language as just one of the many symbolic systems a child uses to express knowledge acquired through physical interactions with the world.
Who is Jean Piaget?
Russian psychologist who theorized that language develops primarily through social interaction rather than independent physical exploration.
Who is Lev Vygotsky?
The modified speech register instinctively used by adults when talking to infants, characterized by a slower rate, higher pitch, and exaggerated intonation.
What is Child-Directed Speech (or Motherese)?
Theoretical perspective that rejects the idea of an innate "language module," arguing instead that children acquire language using only their general cognitive abilities and exposure to the environment.
What is the Usage-Based perspective?
Cognitive milestone—defined as the understanding that things continue to exist even when out of sight—that must be achieved before a child can use words to refer to them.
What is object permanence?
The metaphorical space representing the difference between a child's independent problem-solving capacity and what they can achieve with guided support.
What is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)?
The specific feature of Child-Directed Speech that assists infants in segmenting the continuous, rapid stream of speech into individual, recognizable words.
What are exaggerated intonation patterns (or longer pauses)?
The statistical factor in usage-based theories that determines how strongly a child associates a specific word with its meaning or a particular grammatical structure.
What is frequency (of occurrence)?
The primary method through which children, often compared to "little scientists," acquire their initial understanding of the world (according to the cognitive view).
What is physical exploration (or interacting with the environment)?
The supportive conversational structure provided by an adult or more knowledgeable other (MKO) to help a child accomplish a task or express a thought they could not manage alone.
What is scaffolding?
The conversational technique where an adult repeats a child's incorrect utterance but provides the correct grammatical form without explicitly pointing out the error.
What is a recast?
The cognitive strategy children use to acquire language according to the usage-based view, which replaces the behaviourist reliance on imitation and habit formation.
What are networks of associations?
The broader developmental process that strictly dictates, and always precedes, language development in the Piagetian perspective.
What is cognitive development?
The primary source of cognitive and linguistic development according to Vygotsky, contrasting sharply with Piaget’s emphasis on a child's solitary physical exploration.
What is social interaction (or the sociocultural environment)?
The audio-visual medium that proved insufficient for Jim, a hearing child with deaf parents, to acquire normal language.
What is television (or radio)?
Computer programs that simulate human language learning by processing massive amounts of linguistic input to build and strengthen associative networks.
What are Connectionist models?
The complex linguistic elements that the purely cognitive view struggles to explain, as they do not directly correspond to physical concepts or experiences.
What are grammatical structures (or syntactic rules)?
The phenomenon where thought and language merge, resulting in children talking to themselves to self-regulate and guide their own actions.
What is inner speech (or private speech)?
The interactionist assumption regarding Child-Directed Speech that is directly challenged by the parenting practices of the Kaluli people.
What is universality (the idea that CDS is universal)?
The specific units of language that a child's brain learns to memorize and combine appropriately, making their speech look rule-governed when it actually reflects pattern learning.
What are chunks and formulas?