PRESCHOOLERS: PRAGMATIC AND SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT (2-5 years)

1. PRESCHOOLERS: PRAGMATIC AND SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT (2-5 years)

2. Outline • I. Developmental Milestones • II. Semantic Development • III. Pragmatic Development • IV. Social Skils Training • V. Emergent Literacy • VI. Bilingual Language Learning • VII. Impact of Poverty

3. I. DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONES** • A. Cognitive Development • 24 mos—follows simple verbal commands • 27 mos—points to and names familiar pictures • 36 months—gives “two” objects on request

5. B. Social Development** • 27 mos—communicates desire and orders others around • 30 mos—demands caregiver’s attention, throws tantrums when needs are not understood

7. C. Motor Development** • 27 mos—walks up and down stairs, does not alternate feet • 36 mos—constructs a tower of 7-8 blocks • 39 mos—dresses and undressses self

9. II. SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT** • A. Introduction • Semantic development is closely related to development in motor, social, and cognitive abilities • The better a child’s abilities in those areas, the more language he receives and practices

10. Preschoolers’ vocabularies grow fast:** (please memo for exam ) • 18-24 months: expressive vocab goes from 50 to 200-300 words • By 36 mos of age, children will have expressive vocabularies of 900-1,000 words • At age 4, a child should be saying 1500-1600 words • At 5 years, by kindergarten, they should be saying 2,100-2,200 words

11. youtube • 3-year-old girl tells hilarious nonsensical stories • Notice how long her sentences are and how many different words she uses • Write down at least 5-6 vocabulary words you hear

12. youtube • Mixed Receptive-Expressive Language Delay • Ashley Repking Brickey • Start at one minute in • What do you notice about his speech (how understandable he is). Write down 5-6 words he uses.

13. Children learn words exposed to in their environments** • 3-year old farm girl: “Mommy, I think we are having difficulty milking Flicker because her orifices are too small.”

14. B. Word Learning** • Fast mapping —a hypothetical process where children associate a word and its referent after the first or initial exposure • Extended mapping —new words are gradually expanded and modified as additional experiences become available

15. For example:** • A child might learn the word “horse” when he goes on a merry-go-round with his dad • Then, he extends his understanding as he sees horses in pastures and reads about them in books

16. Extended mapping “pumpkin” for a 4-year old with LI: • For example, the child sees a pumpkin in a book • How can you extend her understanding of and exposure to pumpkins?

17. Children learn new words more quickly when these words…** • Are composed of phonemes that the child can produce (“cow” vs. “synthesize”) • Are object words as opposed to action words • Are reduplicated syllables (mama)

18. We can help children learn new words faster by: • Simultaneously pairing a word with its referent • Letting the new word be the only new word in a certain context

19. Let’s say you want to teach “pig;” you’d want to make sure it was the only new word in that context**

20. C. Dimensional Words** • These words are adjective pairs that indicate dimensions of objects • E.g., big/little, wide/narrow • Usually, big/little is the first pair to be mastered (3 yrs.)

21. D. Development of Relational Terms** • These terms express relationships in domains such as color, location, size, family roles, and temporal sequences • These terms can be hard because they are often relative • For example, whose mom is the skinniest? Whose dad is the tallest?

22. E. Color Words** • By 4-5 years old, most preschoolers can name blue, red, yellow • More subtle color shades are acquired later

23. F. Spatial Words** • Indicate location of a referent in relation to some item • in, out, behind, under • By 5 yrs, most preschoolers have mastered most spatial relations • Important for math!

24. G. Kinship Words** • The first ones to develop usually refer to immediate family—mother, father, sister, brother • Then, children gradually learn other layers of relatives

25. H. Temporal Words • Refer to how things are related to each other in time

26. In small groups, come up with activities: • You are serving a 5-year old with a language impairment • She is in kindergarten, and does not understand the concept of until • How will you teach this concept? What activities will you do, and what materials will you use?

27. III. PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENT** • A. Introduction • For optimal development of pragmatic skills, children need both varied and routine experiences

28. B. Private and Socialized Speech** • Monologues: private speech-ch talk to selves • Socialized speech-acknowledge partners’ utterances, ↑ concern re: transmitting info

29. C. Discourse Skills** • Discourse, or conversation, is a series of consecutive utterances shared by at least 2 people • Cohesion refers to the relatedness of successive utterances in discourse

30. The Big Bang Theory - Sheldon and Amy's date night • How are Sheldon’s cohesion skills?

31. Children need to develop Theory of Mind (ToM) skills:

32. D. Play Behavior** • In symbolic play, the child allows one thing to represent another • A kleenex may represent a doll’s blanket • A stick may represent a gun • Symbolic play is closely associated to the development of words, which are symbols which stand for things

33. In solitary play…** • Child plays independently, even if other children are present

34. In parallel play… • Ch play near each other • May be using similar items • Not interacting

35. In associative play…

36. In cooperative play…

37. E. Preschoolers’ Storytelling

38. **The setting provides the context and characters • The goal provides the characters’ motivation • The episode describes the events related to the goal • The outcome provides the conclusion and states whether or not the goal was attained

42. Bliss, McCabe, & Mahecha :

43. Youtube video • Crabetha • Preschooler talking about his day • Even something this basic is a precursor to narrative and reading skills

44. F. Narrative Levels** • PRIMITIVE NARRATIVES/CENTERING—4 yrs.—there is an identifiable theme and elements are conceptually related to the core topic •  • SEQUENCES/CHAINING—3 yrs.—elements of story are related to a central topic, but are not necessarily chronologically sequenced (p. •  • HEAPS—30 mos.—collections of unrelated utterances

45. G. Behaviors that contribute to cohesion:** • 1. Topic Introduction —young preschoolers physically intro topics (e.g., pointing, putting an object in someone’s hand) • Intro topics with listener’s name (Mommy…)

46. 2. Presupposition** • Young preschoolers often give info with no apparent context • But after 3, most preschoolers have appropriate presuppositional skills • 3 aspects of presuppositional skills

47. Presuppositional skills include use of:** • a. Anaphoric reference, or the role pronounsplay in referring back to words that occurred just prior to them • My mom called, and she asked me to come home. • I saw Jason, and he said to tell you hello.

48. Because of anaphoric reference, you would not say things like:** • “The Avengers movie was awesome, and I’m so glad I got to see this movie.” • Scarlett Johanssen was amazing, and Scarlett is such a good actress.”

50. c. Grammatical ellipsis, a device** speakers use to eliminate info listeners already know; omit shared information • Emerges gradually after 3, may not be mastered until school age • Examples: “I am so glad it’s out!” (referring to a new movie that everyone knows about) • “Are we there yet?” (assumes everyone knows where there is)