Author Question: At the holophrastic stage of language acquisition, the one-word terms the child uses are a. ... (Read 56 times)

jho37 · **on:** Jun 22, 2018

At the holophrastic stage of language acquisition, the one-word terms the child uses are

a. simply labels for common objects or actions that occur frequently.
b. typically imitations of adult words that have little meaning for the child.
c. believed to be attempts to express complex or elaborate ideas with only a single word.
d. the first evidence that the child's speech is rule-governed, not imitative.

Question 2

Dr. Bernstein kept a thorough record of her child's behavior and progress throughout the first year of life, with careful attention to the sounds and noises her baby made that seemed to lead up to later language usage. She also kept notes on how her own behavior affected her baby's vocalizing, in an attempt to learn how parent-child interactions influence language development. Later, in developing her own theory, she and her colleagues replicated the project on several dozen other children by observing them weekly throughout their first year of life. (a) What research methods were employed? What type of comparison was used? (b) Why was the research conducted on children other than Dr. Bernstein's? (c) If Dr. Bernstein observed that whenever she talked to her baby, the baby's rate of vocalizing increased, would this mean that her behavior caused the baby's? Why or why not?

What will be an ideal response?

Dunkey · **Reply #1 on:** Jun 22, 2018

Answer to Question 1

C

Answer to Question 2

(a) Assuming that Dr. Bernstein did not try to elicit or train specific aspects of language usage in her child, the basic method is naturalistic observation (and in her focus on her own child, one might argue a case study) and then a longitudinal design for the study conducted with colleagues. (b) The researchers would be interested in whether the initial observations of her own child generalized and reflected universal behaviors. (c) Causation should not be inferred from this type of observation. It would be necessary to experimentally vary the mother's vocalizations and other behavior to see what effect such treatments have on the baby's language development.