Charlie's English Language Blog: September 2016

Thursday, 22 September 2016

Speech and language define us from other animals
Children learn to speak with minimal effort
Despite the amount of research done and being done how we learn is still a mystery
Dr Deb Roy - Speech home project. Found parents simplify language (convergence) to match child's simple language and as the child's language becomes more complex so does the caregivers.
By the age of 5 years old a child knows around 5000 words
For humans the voice box is low within the throat and on animals it quite high. This was suggested to be the reason we could speak but they could not, however, it was found that animals actually drop their voice box with they make noises. This shows that the different positions of the voice box does not determine whether you talk or not.
Dr Kathy Price - Highlighting the key areas in the brain that are associated with language (nature)
Babies respond to their mothers before anyone else. They pick up sound within the womb
Noam Chomsky - Language acquisition device (lad). There is a blueprint for language but we need to be exposed early on
It was noticed that in a family with a speech problem there was a problem with chromosome 7
Also in an unrelated child it was found that a part of the chromosome was missing which was affecting the child's speech ability.

2 years is a key age for language to start, they acquire 10 new words a day
Dadda and Mumma are frequent first words
Chimps cannot acquire like we can however they can make commands by pushing buttons and use sign language but not have/hold conversations
As a human communication is used for collaboration
Medical research found Fox P2 as a chromosome in charge of language - only a small change within this chromosome can alter the ability of language. For example rats are only 3 amino acids different for humans
We know more about the universe than we do our brain
The brain has the ability to rewire itself if damaged
There is a window for language development that closes around early puberty
Dr Deb Roy - Created the speech home project. He recorded every second of his sons first three years of life to analyzing his speech development. Suggests a childs semantic awareness out strips their phonologival awareness ( Understands what they want to say but just do not have the ability to say it)
Steven Pinker - Children say things they've never heard before which suggest children are born with the ability to speak
Jean Berko Gleason - Developed the WUG test. Suggests parents need to provide the opportunity to speak in different contexts