1

Lucia Ruiz Amador

Naja Frejan Ramirez

LING 212 A

Winter Quarter 2022

Week 1:

Describe the brain growth that happens in the first 5 years of life. (1) (2) (4)

The brain growth is rapid in the first five years of life. Experiences being a crucial part as
they strengthen synapses that are used most commonly. The process of these growing synapses
and connections can be compered to that of a forest. The initial connections are there but as time
passes, branches form and grow and wood becomes denser.
Define the following terms: dendrite, axon, synapse, pruning, sensitive period. (1) (4)
Dendrite are input fibers of neurons.
Axon are output fibers of neurons.
Synapse are connection points between neurons.
Pruning is the process of removing excess synapses
Sensitive period is the time in which the brain, as it is sensitive to experience, is ready to learn a
skill as
Explain the process of neuronal proliferation and pruning. Outline the rate of synapse formation
in infancy. (1) (3) (4)
The process of begins when an infant is born. While in the womb, billions of neurons are born
inside the developing brain, for the next five years synapses form and connections strengthen
said synapses. However, after five years, the process of pruning - the removal of excess
synapses- begins.
Describe the following analogy: Building a brain is like building a house. (3)
Genes provide the basic blueprint but experiences shape the process that determine if the
brain will have a strong or weak foundation for future health, behavior, and learning. Everything
is connected. What comes first provides the foundation for all that comes later.
Explain the cookie / pancake analogy. (4)
The cookie/pancake analogy is the outcome of development is determined by biology and
experiences. The biology is the raw ingredients and the experiences is the recipe, in the end there
 2

can be two outcomes, a cookie or a pancake. Despite havin g similar ingredients, the experiences
will and can shape it into different things.

Briefly explain the following terms: citizens of the world; culture-bound listeners. (2)
Citizens of the world: Babies being able to tell the difference between all the different sounds
that exist in the thousands of languages spoken around the world.
Culture-bound listeners: When one is familiar only to the sounds that are common to their own
languages. This is true for all adults and gradually true of babies as they start to learn their
languages.
Briefly outline the vast variability in infants’ language achievement. Explain why we care about
infants’ early language ability. (4)
Some of the various variability in infant’s language achievement is being able to differentiate
between familiar and unfamiliar sounds. They are exposed to language in the womb.We care
about infants’ early language ability because it predicts school readiness. Which in turn, affect
several things later in life. Such as job placements, high school graduation rates, and health
outcomes.

Week 2
1 Outline the “nativist” and the “anti-nativist” perspectives
The nativist perspective is that it’s natural and instinctual, that language is innate and we
are inherently programmed for it. That it is something stored inside the brain and that all children
have.
Anti-Nativist perspective is that language is a by-product of our advanced cognitive
capacities, that humans are super learners, and that no humans are preprogrammed with a
language template. Essentially, the complete opposite of a nativist perspective.

2 Describe the following terms and concepts:

Puzzle of language acquisition:
Poverty of the Stimulus: Is that language rules and organization are too complex to be discovered
by children from language input alone.
Universal Grammar: An innately specified system of combining linguistic units that constrains
the structural patterns of all human languages.
Language Acquisition Device: An innate system that allows, once a sufficient vocabulary has
been acquired, to use words and combine them into grammatical sentences

3 Define homesign and explain its role in theories of language acquisition

Homesign is a personal communication system invented by a deaf person to
communicate through gestures with others who don’t know sign language. Its role in theories of
 3

language acquisition is that despite the fact that communication with others, from a deaf person
to hearing, is with a personal communication invented by said deaf individual, a basic framework
of a language is invented and communication can still be achieved. This provides that children
are born with the capacity to learn language and invent a basic framework though homesign
children milestones will be achieved much later and not as complex as a hearing children.

4 What does research on Williams Syndrome contribute to theories of language acquisition?

Research shows that those with Williams Syndrome are extremely gregarious and
interested in the social world, which helps them capitalize on their social strengths. It is how they
are able to memorize well, have large vocabularies, and use rare words. Though they do have
poor rule-learning skills, leading to their language not being as well developed. Their course of
development is completely different to the “normal” course.

5 Outline the information-processing theory and the social-interactionist theory

Information-processing theory is that the human brain is extentionality skilled at
detecting patterns and that infants can detect statistical patterns in language input.
While social-interactionist theory is that infants have a strong desire to understand others
and be understood by them, and a rich language environment combines to help children discover
the functions and regularities of language, there is a strong emphasis on social interaction.

6 What is the critical period? Give two examples of critical period phenomena from the animal
kingdom
The crucial period is
Ex 1:
Ex 2:

7 Describe Genie’s background and linguistic profile

Infant-like speech, almost no verbal skills at all, 13 years of age when she was
discovered, she was completely isolated for a long time, she had no communication with her own
family. She was found in diapers and did not know how to walk. There was no toys, no cloths,
there was no indications, in the home, that showed that a child live there

8 Describe some of the confounds in with research on Genie

Although, with rehabilitation, made rapid progression in certain areas but there was still some
areas where she did poor in. She was able to add words to her vocabulary, occasionally putting
together 2 words together like children do. However, after a year, she would even start to put 3
words together. Language explosion did not occur for Genie, her progress leveled and acquisition
halted. It was never fully determined whether Genie had suffered pre-existing cognitive deficits,
or if her living conditions and treatment until she was found was the reason for her mental
cognition. While Genie could use words, it was discovered that she couldn’t arrange those words
in a meaningful way.
 4

9 Besides cases like Genie, what are some other ways to study the critical period hypothesis?
Explain advantages and disadvantages of each.

Week 3

1 List three language-related distinctions that infants can make at or before birth.

Language related distinctions that infants can make before and at birth are:
1. Recognize their mother’s voice from other women.
2. Distinguish between their mother’s language and a foreign language, they can even have a
preference for a language, their mothers!
3. Are able to distinguish rhythmic patterns between languages

2 What is a phoneme? Outline the process of phonetic learning.

A phoneme is a sound in a language that distinguishes one word from another. The
process of phonetic learning starts as babies transition from being citizens of the world to
becoming selectively sensitive to phonemes in the language around them. This starts as babies
use statistics on the language input that they hear, building their categories for certain phonemes
they hear. Since they do not have the input of certain foreign sounds, they can’t build categories
for those foreign phonemes. Thus infants foreign sound discrimination starts to decrease but
there is an increase in native sound discrimination.

3 Explain the concept of neural commitment. Which neural component (brain wave) is used to
measure neural commitment?

The neural commitment can be describe as the result of exposure to one’s native
language. Neural networks thus become dedicated to processing native language sounds,
strengthening native language learning, while weakening the capacity to processes the sounds of
unfamiliar languages. The neural component that is used to measure neural commitment on the
scalp with an electroencephalography, is through the electrical activity responses of neurons, the
voltages changes.

4 Describe the main findings of the eye-gaze following study (with eyes open or closed). Outline
the relationship between children’s ability to follow eye gaze and their language skills.

The main findings of the eye-gaze following study (with open or closed eyes) is that 9
months follow head and body movements and are still learning importance about eye
communication. In the following 2 months, babies learn the importance of eye communication.
In the following months, the open eye bar is much higher than the closed eyes bar, showing that
infants grasp the concept of eye communication much better and understand it. The better the
 5

eye-gaze an infant has, the higher vocabulary they have as a toddler. This allows them to point
and gesturing, this is symbolic, it represents an idea/concept. Allowing for better and easier
communication between the child and parent.

5 Outline the main stages of speech production between 0 and 12 months (prior to the production
of first words).

The first month, they cry and grunt with burps there as well. They start to coo during
months 2-3, vowel-like coos. Months 3-4, infants blow raspberries, squeal, and yell a bit.
Babbling begins between months 4-12. Months 4-6, babies are babbling CV monosyllables, such
as ma, pa, ba. Months 6-10, is canonical babbling, repeated CV syllables such as mamama, papa,
dadada. Months 10-12 is variegated babbling, different CV syllables together such as badigu,
potato, tamami.

6 Explain the following terms: Overextension, underextension, vocabulary spurt, whole object
bias, mutual exclusivity, syntactic bootstrapping, U-shaped learning. Feel free to provide
examples.

Overextension: the usage of a word to describe more object categories than it actually represents,
such as calling different animals all dogs
Under extension: failing to extend a word to other objects in the same category
Vocabulary spurt: a rapid growth in word learning
Whole object bias: assumption/bias that words are associated with whole objects
Mutual exclusivity: assumption that unknown word is for the object that they have no word for
out of two objects, one known and one unknown
Syntactic bootstrapping: ability to use previous knowledge of language structure in order to learn
meaning of unfamiliar words
U-shapped learning: when a child says the correct rule/behavior, later applies the wrong
rule/behavior before returning to the correct rule/behavior again, revealing that they did learn the
rule though applied the incorrect one before returning to the correct one, revealing mastery

7 Explain the “Wug test”. What does it show?

The Wug test is testing whether or not children can make the plural on a word that they
have never heard before, specifically if they can apply this rule to any situation and if they can
apply grammatical morphemes. It reveals that children are able generalize/ apply this rule to
other words, real or not.

8 Describe what early vocabularies look like and how they grow.
 6

Early vocabularies tend to be bias, mostly nouns, no actions words, animals sounds, and
things, people, and routines that babies have. There aren’t that many verbs, and if there are
any action words, they are simple such as jump, walk, run. These early vocabularies grow
through whole object biases, mutual exclusivity, and syntactic bootstrapping.

9 When do children begin combining words? What do early word combinations look like?

The two word combine stage, when children start to combine words occurs around the
time they produce about 50 different words, individual words. The timing, in relation to age,
varies from child to child. But once a child knows at least 50 individual words, one can expect
these combinations to occur. These language combinations can be found in children learning
different languages and a single language. These combinations words have relational
meanings, such as “daddy sit” “mommy cup,” “daddy shoe.” They only count as a
combinations if the child can produce both words individually.

10 What is telegraphic speech? Give an example sentence.

Telegraphic speech is occurrence of two to four word combinations that lack grammatical
morphemes, something that gets the point across. Usually, the parents/caregiver will be able to
understand the child, a more than likely repeat what was said but with the correct grammatical
morphemes. An example can be “I walk dog dad” instead of “I’m walking dog with dad.”

Week 4

Label the main lobes of the brain and explain their main functions (frontal, parietal, temporal,
occipital)
Frontal: motor control
Parietal: integrating sensory information
Temporal: hearing

Label the Central Sulcus and the Sylvian Fissure. (1, 2, 5)

Central Sulcus provides a distinct landmark dividing the frontal and parietal lobes
Sylvian Fissure divides the temporal lobe from other regions of the hemisphere

Explain the difference between gray matter and white matter (1, 5)

The difference between gray and white matter is that gray is the outer layers of the cortex. This is
due to the preponderance of neuronal cell bodies and dendrites gray matter has. White matter on
the other hand, get’s its appearance from the whitish fatty myelin that insulates the axons of
many neurons
 7

Outline the neuron doctrine (1, 5)

Is when information is transmitted from neuron to neuron across synapses
Neurons are structurally, metabolically and functionally independent

Explain the three main planes of the brain: horizontal, coronal, and sagittal. If presented with
brain image, recognize the plane (1, 5)

Explain the following terms: neuron, glia, myelin (1, 5)

Neuron: basic unit of the nervous system, composed of receptive extensions called dendrites, an
integrating cell boyd, a conducting axon and a transmitting axon terminal

Glia: non-neuronal brain cells that provide structural nutritional and other types of support to the
brain

Myelin: Fatty insulation around an axon, formed by glial cells. This sheath boots the speed at
which nerve impulses are conducted

Draw a neuron, label the following parts of it, and explain their basic function: input zone,
integration zone, conduction zone, output zone, dendrite, cell body, axon, axon terminal (1, 3, 5)
On tablet

Draw a synapse, label the following parts, and explain their basic function: presynaptic
membrane and terminal, postsynaptic membrane and terminal, synaptic cleft, synaptic vesicle,
neurotransmitter, neurotransmitter receptor (1, 4, 5)

Week 5