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Do Children Pick and Choose?

An Examination of Phonological Selection and Avoidance in Early Lexical Acquisition.

Richard G. Schwartz and Laurence B. Leonard (Purdue University)

Presented By Amber JamiesonNovember 5, 2010

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BACKGROUND

• Number of phonologists have observed that young children select and attempt adult words based on certain phonological characteristics of words while avoiding other characteristics

• Patterns of selection and avoidance seem to be based on structure/syllable shape or comprising sounds, or mixture between

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BACKGROUND • Jennika (Ingram 1974) primarily attempted words with

open syllable structure (CV or CVCV), largely avoiding other syllabic shapes

• Hildegard (Leopold 1949) only attempted words involving initial labial and apical stop and nasal consonants

• Primary word attempts made by one child (Ferguson & Farwell 1975) involved initial fricatives

• Child (Ferguson, Peizer, & Weeks 1973) who primarily selected adult words with open syllable shape CVCV only in which final vowel was [i]

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BACKGROUND: Previous Studies

• Examined the effects of selection/avoidance patterns upon tendency to produce unsolicited imitations of nonsense words & found that patterns appearing in spontaneous speech not reflected in tendency to imitate words with certain phonological features (Leonard, Schwartz, Folger, & Wilcox 1978)

• Children had entered 50 word stage• Perhaps there is general rapid relaxation of such

constraints rather than gradual disappearance of selection/avoidance

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BACKGROUND: Previous Studies

• Why select and avoid? Perhaps plays important role in initially simplifying task of acquisition by limiting number of lexical forms with which child must deal (Ferguson 1976)

• Evidence for child’s perceptual abilities and active role in phonological acquisition (Kiparsky & Menn 1977)

• Failure to select certain words may be one of several means by which a child observes output constraints (Menn)

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PURPOSE OF STUDY

• Determine actual role of selection and avoidance in lexical & phonological acquisition

• Obtain results in experimental paradigm• Restrict investigation to children with no more

than 5 ‘true words’ (Dore et al. 1976) when initial selection patterns are evident

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SUBJECTS and INVESTIGATION

• 12 children (1;2 to 1;3.5) comprised of 6 boys and 6 girls– all at early point in lexical acquisition– all from middle-class homes in which English was only

language spoken• Each child seen for– initial language sampling session– parental interviews– 10 bi-weekly experimental sessions which

• Took place in each child’s own home

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STIMULI

• 16 contrived lexical concepts, each consisting of a nonsense word and four experimental exemplars serving as referents

• 8 of nonsense words were IN words; other 8 were OUT words

• 8 of concepts involved four unfamiliar objects, subdivided into Functionally Similar (FS) and Perceptually Similar (PS)

• 8 of concepts involved four unfamiliar actions subdivided into FS and PS

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STIMULI Definitions• IN words: words involving phonological characteristics which had been evidenced in

production• OUT words: involving characteristics not evidenced in production or selection• Imitative: productions following naming of exemplar without intervening utterances• Non-Imitative: productions occurring after an intervening utterance• Functionally Similar (FS)

– Objects: objects upon which the SAME actions could be and were preformed (such as spinning by hand), perceptually different in terms of shape & texture

– Actions: preformed on various familiar objects having similar end result (such as making objects spin), perceptually different in direction of movement and body part involved

• Perceptually Similar (PS)– Objects: shared static attributes (shape & texture), functionally different in actions that

could be performed, presented with different action for each exemplar within given concept

– Actions: involved same direction of movement and similar body parts, functionally different in terms of end results and affects upon various objects

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STIMULI

• 8 concepts named by IN words– 2 Object Concepts with FS Exemplars– 2 Action Concepts with FS Exemplars– 2 Object Concepts with PS Exemplars– 2 Action Concepts with PS Exemplars

• 8 concepts named by OUT words– 2 Object Concepts with FS Exemplars– 2 Action Concepts with FS Exemplars– 2 Object Concepts with PS Exemplars– 2 Action Concepts with PS Exemplars

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METHOD• Words were embedded in phrases such as Here’s an ofof or

Watch me ket • Administered probes in each session probe to determine

acquisition of experimental words, attempting to elicit names of exemplars by asking What’s this? or What am I doing?

• For vocalization to be considered production of experimental word minimally vowel or consonant had to match or be consistent with commonly reported processes

• Primarily interested in imitative and non-imitative productions

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RESULTS

• imitative and non-imitative aspects used to examine results for each type of word

• Compared:– # of instances of IN vs. OUT productions for each aspect– Mean # of presentations preceding 1st production– Mean session # in which 1st production occurred

• Children acquired (produced non-imitatively) greater number of IN words than OUT words

• Words considered to be IN appeared to be attempted earlier than words considered OUT

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RESULTS• 1st IN-word production occurred in earlier sessions than 1st

OUT-word production• Mean # of preceding presentations differed in same

direction, but not with statistical significance• Significantly fewer OUT words than IN words were

attempted (55% vs. 74%)• For both object and action concepts, IN words were

acquired in significantly greater #s than OUT words, also true for both PS exemplars and FS exemplars

• Imitative productions revealed a pattern similar to that found for non-imitative productions

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# of Cases Where 1 or More Exemplars of Concept Named

Non-Imitative Imitative0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

INOUT

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Mean Session # Where Experimental Words First Produced

Non-Imitative Imitative0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

INOUT

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# of Phonetically Accurate & Inaccurate 1st Productions of Experimental Words

Non-Imitative Imitative Non-Imitative Imitative0

10

20

30

40

50

60

AccurateInaccurate

IN OUT

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DISCUSSION

• Experimental evidence that young children are selective in words

• Significant similarities but some differences– Some words produced imitatively not produced

non-imitatively– Some words produced non-imitatively not

imitated– In limited number of cases, accuracy of imitative

productions differed from non-imitative

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DISCUSSION

• The origins of constraints, basis for the maintenance and eventual disappearance remain unspecified

• Cognitively based model of phonological acquisition:– Schema: structural unit of perceptual or figurative

knowledge– Scheme: behavioral structure which permits organism

to transfer and generalize actions to similar situations

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DISCUSSION

• Proposal leads to predictions concerning words most likely to attempt– Words which child has schema & coordinated scheme

most likely to be attempted– Words for which schema exists but no coordinated

scheme less likely to be produced– Schema but no pre-existing scheme are least likely to

produced– Words for which child has no schema will not be

produced

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QUESTIONS• According to Menn the cognitively based proposals suggest that

children do not avoid certain words, but instead simply fail to select them. How would one make a distinction between failing to select and avoiding? How could one test failure-to-select ≠ avoidance?

• The age range of the children was selected to ensure that at the conclusion of the investigation the children would still be within a period when selection continues to occur. What could be expected if the children had crossed the fifty word stage while in the process of the investigation?

• The subjects were selected from middle-class homes. In what way is this a significant or an arbitrary control?

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QUESTIONS