Glossary

1. Accommodation: When a new event does not fit into a cognitive schema that already exists
(e.g., penguin), there is a change in the existing schema (e.g., birds) to accommodate the
characteristics of this new information.

2. Acoustics: Relating to sound, the sense of hearing, or the science of the physics of sounds.
Acoustics can also be defined as sound vibration propagating through air or the science of sound

3. Analogy: Analogical reasoning involves using information from one situation and applying this
information to a new situation.

4. Assimilation: 1. In relation to cognition, this term applies to children’s exposure to new

information or an event. In this case, the new entity can be assimilated or incorporated into a
schema that already exists when there is a good fit between the new information and the
preexisting schema. 2. In relation to phonetics, this term describes the changing of a speech
sound due to the influence of adjacent sounds. The production of a speech sound that is similar
to another sound in the same word (e.g., tat produced in place of cat)

5. Babbling: The early production of connected sequences of sounds by infants

6. Code-mixing: A code is a system of signals used for sending messages. Code-mixing or -switching
describes changes or mixes from one language or system to another. Speakers use code-
switching to shift from a native language to a second language. Code-mixing can also be used to
mark oneself as part of a particular ethnic group.

7. Cognition: The mental processes that consist of knowledge, along with the mechanisms to
acquire knowledge. Cognitive skills consist of attention, working memory, reasoning, intuition,
judgment, and perception.

8. Cognitive theory: Language emerges through cognitive skills, such as object permanence (the
ability to produce words for entities or things that are absent) and through schema formation
(the psychological structures that allow children to attach meaning to experiences and entities).

9. Coherence: Involves interpreting the meaning of a context or situation by considering all aspects
of a situation, along with any previous knowledge that relates to an event.
10. Cohesion: The use of transitional expressions and other devices to guide readers and show how
the parts of a text (written or spoken) relate to one other.

11. Cohesive devices: Linking words and phrases to make an organized thought. In narrative, the use
of words to connect the text (e.g., and then . . . ).

12. Communication: 1. The exchange of information between people through speaking, writing, or
using a common system of signs or behavior. 2. The vehicle for social interaction, consisting of
both verbal (words, sentences, narratives, and conversations) and nonverbal acts (eye gaze,
gesture, turn-taking in conversation, and facial expressions)

13. Circumlocution: The use of an unnecessarily large number of words to express an idea, such as
saying I use it to dig a hole in the ground, instead of saying the word “shovel.”

14. Communicative competence: A person’s knowledge of grammar, syntax, morphology, and

phonology, along with an understanding of how and when to use this knowledge appropriately

15. Communicative unit (C-unit): A method of separating spoken utterances or written sentences
into distinct independent clauses (simple sentence) and any dependent or subordinating
clauses, often used to measure growth in language abilities.

16. Complex sentence: A sentence that contains an independent clause with one or more
dependent clauses. A complex sentence always has a subordinator, such as because, since,
after, although, or when, or a relative pronoun, such as that, who, or which.

17. Compound-complex sentence: A sentence made up of more than one main clause and at least
one subordinate clause. It is the combining of a compound sentence with a complex sentence.

18. Compound sentence: A sentence that contains two independent clauses joined by a
coordinator, such as for, and, nor, but, or, yet, or so.
19. Concrete operations stage: Stage of development that emerges at 6 years of age and continues
until age 12. At this stage, children form ideas based on reasoning and are able to employ
abstract thought.

20. Concrete (words): A concrete noun is one which can be experienced by our senses as we can
touch it, see it, or hear it (e.g., table, apple, and dogs). An abstract noun can not be experienced
by our senses, as these nouns express a concept (e.g., truth).

21. Context clues: Context clues help a reader to define a difficult or unusual word. Clues may
appear within the same sentence or in the sentences that are contained in the text.
22. Contextualized language: Talk about the here and now, by referencing people, objects, and
action that are present in the immediate context.

23. Cooing: A stage in infants’ prelinguistic speech development that consists of the production of
single-syllable, vowel-like sounds.

24. Copula: In grammar, a linking verb, which links the subject of a sentence with an adjective or
noun-phrase complement relating to it (e.g., to be, or to seem)

25. Critical thinking: Analysis of an action or event for accuracy and logic.

26. Cross-linguistic effects: The bi-directional influence of one language on the other in bilingual
speech and language production.

27. Decode: 1. Decoding is the ability to read something that has been written. 2. An individual is
able to comprehend or understand information from another source.

28. Decontextualized language: Consists of language that is understandable without contextual

support (e.g., things that support the meaning of the utterance). Meaning is conveyed only via
linguistic cues.

29. Decontextualized narrative: Refers to descriptions of people, objects, and events that are not
present in the immediate environment.
30. Deep structure: In transformational grammar, the deep structure is an abstract representation
of a sentence, while surface structure corresponds to the version of the sentence that can be
spoken and heard. Surface structures are derived from deep structures by a series of
transformations

31. Deictic terms: The phenomenon wherein understanding the meaning of certain words and
phrases in an utterance requires contextual information (e.g., that one, over there, here, he,
she). Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their specific reference varies
depending on time and/or place.

32. Derivational morphemes: Prefixes and suffixes that are added to a root word to create
additional meaning. This often changes the part of speech of the root word, as in adding the
suffix -er to the verb teach to create the noun teacher

33. Dialogic reading: A method to support a child’s literacy and language skills through asking
questions during a reading task

34. Discourse: The exchange of information or conversation between people consists of the
transmission of information, opinions, ideas, or feelings

35. Divergent thinking: The ability to explore and provide multiple solutions to a problem

36. Dynamic assessment: An interactive approach to assessment that embeds intervention within
the assessment process. This begins with a pretest, followed by intervention, and ending with a
posttest. The goal is to determine the child’s response to intervention.

37. Dyslexia: A specific learning disability that affects reading. This disorder affects reading
accurately and fluently. Dyslexia may also impact on reading comprehension, spelling, and
writing

38. Egocentric, egocentrism: Characterized by preoccupation with one’s own internal world. The
belief that you are the center of the universe and everything revolves around you.

39. Egocentric speech: The type of speech typically observed in young children which is not
addressed to another person
40. Ellipsis: The omission of one or more words from a sentence, especially when the word that is
omitted can be understood from the context. In the sentence, I went but my wife didn’t, the
omission of “go” at the end of the sentence (I went but my wife didn’t go) is an example of
ellipsis.

41. Emergent literacy: The period when preschoolers learn about print before they actually learn to
read. The skills and knowledge about literacy that a child acquires before learning to read, such
as knowing that the print on a page contains information about the story.

42. Emergentism : The theory that language acquisition emerges from the interaction of biological
forces and the environment. According to this theory, neither nature nor nurture alone is
sufficient to prompt language learning and both of these influences must work in tandem to
allow a child to acquire a language.

43. Encode: Encoding involves converting incoming information into meaning, such as spoken
speech sounds into words. A sender transmits information (encodes) that a receiver
comprehends or understands (decodes)

44. Environmental theory: Environmental theory posits that the external environment provides the
essential information to support language development.

45. Equilibrium: The process of fitting new information or input into an existing cognitive schema.

46. Expository discourse: Language that is typically found in textbooks, classroom lectures, and
technical papers.

47. Expressive language: The language an individual produces spontaneously. Expressive language
skills consist of a variety of expressive skills, such as expressing words, ideas, and information.

48. Fluency: 1. The ability to read a text quickly, accurately, and with proper expression. This
involves the ability to read with little effort and without conscious attention to the mechanics of
reading. 2. The ability to speak, read, and/or write without difficulty

49. generative grammar: A finite set of rules that can be applied to generate sentences that are
grammatical in a given language. These rules are derived from a speaker’s tacit grammatical
knowledge of the system of that language.

50. guided distributional learning: This theory is part of emergentism, stating that language
acquisition emerges from the interaction of biological forces and the environment. In this view,
neither nature nor nurture alone is sufficient to prompt language learning.
51. indirect speech act: An utterance whose linguistic form (a question) does not directly refer to its
communicative purpose (a request for action).

52. Infant-directed speech: Patterns that consist of slowed rate and exaggerated intonational
patterns. This type of speech has been termed “motherese.”

53. innateness theory: A theory of language acquisition which states that at least some linguistic
knowledge exists in humans at birth

54. input: Sensory information that is processed from an outside influence and is then acted upon
or integrated.

55. language exposure: The amount of time an individual is exposed to a particular language.

56. Language form: The language areas that define the structure and rules of language: phonology,
morphology, and syntax.

57. Language loss: This process occurs, over time, when the speech and language features of the
first language are no longer utilized by the speaker, possibly due to less exposure or use of the
speaker’s first language.

58. Language processing: The way words are used to communicate ideas and feelings and how
communication is understood.

59. Language proficiency: How well a language is spoken

60. Language acquisition device (LAD): The concept that infants have an instinctive me capacity
which enables them to acquire and produce language. This theory asserts that humans are born
with the instinct or innate facility for acquiring language. It is believed that without this innate
knowledge of grammar, children would be unable to learn language as quickly as they do

61. limited English proficient (LEP): This is a term used to describe a student who is limited in English
proficiency and has not yet mastered English in the four domains of reading, writing, listening,
and speaking

62. Linguistic competence: Linguistic knowledge possessed by native speakers of a language. It is

distinguished from linguistic performance, which is the way a language system is used in
communication

63. mean length of utterance (MLU): The average number of morphemes (basic units of meaning) a
child produces. For example, jump is one morpheme, whereas jumps (jump+s) is two.
64. metalinguistic competence: Involves the awareness that language is composed of syntactic,
semantic, morphological, phonological, and pragmatic domains that can be synthesized,
analyzed, and reorganized.

65. metalinguistic strategies: Allow children to reflect on and knowingly consider oral and written
language and how it is used. The strategies that support vocabulary knowledge are semantic
mapping, semantic feature analysis, and context clues

66. motherese: A form of speech that differs from typical adult speech, usually delivered with a
“cooing” pattern of intonation, slowed production, a higher pitch, and greater intonation
changes

67. Morphemes: The minimal, meaningful, and distinctive components of grammar. Morphemes are
commonly classified into free (morphemes which can occur as separate words) or bound forms
(morphemes that cannot occur by themselves, such as affixes).

68. operant conditioning: Modification of voluntary behavior through reward/positive

reinforcement (a consequence that increases the likelihood of a behavior) or through
punishment/negative reinforcement (a consequence that decreases the likelihood of a
behavior).

69. Orthography: Written system of a language, such as letters that compose written words

70. Overgeneralization: A typical process of extending the features of an entity to another entity
(e.g., all four-legged animals called doggie). This process also applies to use of a rule, such as the
use of the morpheme -ed to form the past tense form of a verb (e.g., throwed, eated, goed).

71. overgeneralize: A process whereby children extend their use of grammatical features beyond
the context of those in adult language, e.g., use of -ed, walk + ed to signify past tense of all
verbs, eat+ed as opposed to ate). The term overgeneralization refers to this typical
developmental process.

72. paralinguistic: The non-verbal elements of communication that modify meanings and convey
emotion, including the pitch, volume, and intonation of speech.

73. Parallel distributed processing: The theory views the mind as composed of a great number of
elementary units connected in a neural network. Mental processes are interactions between
these units which excite and inhibit each other in parallel rather than sequential operations.

74. Presuppositions: Beliefs that a particular state of affairs is true or false without the provision of
evidence.

75. Processing: Involves the functions performed in the brain that allow us to perceive and
understand spoken language, along with a speaker’s ideas and feelings.
76. recasts: An adult’s correction or modifications of a child’s utterances.

77. reduplicated babbling: Repeated sequences of repeated consonant-vowel pairs (e.g.,

bababababa).

78. Scaffolding: The use of a model which consists of the input from more experienced language
users to younger children to correct word use, sentence structure, and other forms of language

79. Schemas: 1. According to Piaget, the basic psychological structures for organizing information. 2.
Organizational or conceptual patterns in the mind used to catagorize objects or ideas

80. social competence: The emotional and cognitive skills and behaviors that children need for
successful social adaptation and social interaction.

81. social-interaction theory: Children’s language acquisition emerges through social interaction and
experience with language used in the external environment. Children possess the innate desire
for social interaction.

82. Strategies: Chosen plans to bring about a desired future, such as achievement of a goal or
solution to a problem

83. surface structure: Structural characteristics of the actual spoken message. The surface structure
derives from the deep structure through the utilization of phrase structure and transformational
rules.

84. t-units: Measurements used to determine average sentence length in the spoken or written
language of school-age children and adolescents. T-units include only full, independent clauses
(e.g., basic sentences) and any dependent clauses

85. Zone of proximal development: The distance between the actual developmental level, which is
determined by autonomous problem solving, and the level of potential development,
determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more
proficient peers.