Midterm Review

CASD 2231
Format
The overall setup of the midterm
 The Questions

● ~35 Total Questions

● Multiple choice
○ Mix of true/false and “traditional” M/C
● Fill in the Blank
○ Eligible for partial credit (if more than one blank)
● Written Response
○ Responses shouldn’t need to be more than 4-5 sentences long
○ Eligible for partial credit
● 1 Bonus Question (worth up to 2 points)
○ Based on your memory from class (you won’t be able to study for it)
The Questions
● I’m not a fan of ‘tricky’ questions, so they will be as direct as possible

● Be ready to think critically! You’ll be asked to construct and explain responses instead of
just copying them from notes

● Be on the lookout for key words like ‘not’ and ‘no’

● This lecture is your study guide.

● Remember, you’ll be allowed an hour and half to take the midterm. Focus on what you can
answer quickly first, then go back.

● I’ll be around to clarify anything that’s unclear

 Topics
An overview of what will be on the exam
 Topics you should review
● Elements of Communication
● Parts of Language
● The Critical Period
● Word Learning/Lexical Acquisition
● Major Milestones of Language
Development
● Perceptual Narrowing
● Word Boundaries
● Event-Based Knowledge
● Aspects of Speech Sound Development
● Phonetics vs Phonemics
● Social Aspects of Language Acquisition
● Statistical Learning
● Joint Attention
● Infant Directed Speech
● Pre-Speech Vocal Development
● Bootstrapping
● Word Acquisition
● Phonological Rules
● Phonological Idioms
● Phonological Processes
● Comprehension vs Production
 How to Approach the Topics
You don’t need to know each topic inside-out
If you reorganize these slides onto the allotted cheat sheet amount, you’ll be in a good
place for the midterm
If you study the slides associated with these topics prior to the midterm, you’ll be able
to find them easier on your cheat sheets
Even better: the more you can do without resorting to your cheat sheet, the quicker
you’ll be done with the exam

Videos and experiments discussed in class will not be on the exam

Let’s Review Together
 Elements of Communication

Transmitter Signal
The individual sending the message The message itself

Receiver
The individual receiving the message
(who can respond)

Notably, not all communication is language.

 Parts of Language

Form Use
Phonology: study of
sounds Pragmatics: the study of
Content the different contexts
Morphology: study of Semantics: the study of surrounding language use
word forms meaning
Syntax: study of sentence
structure
 Parts of Language Explained Further

Phonology Morphology
● Phonology concerns the speech-sound
● Morphology studies of the smallest units of
structure that can be found within a
meaning, known as morphemes.
language. This structure is based on patterns
that can be found within basic speech units
● Acquiring and mastering morphology in
as well as the rules that surround production
language is a necessary component to both
of these sounds (the smallest unit of which
grammatical and vocabulary development.
are phonemes).
One needs to understand the internal
organization of words (which is based on
● Phonemes are contrastive. They signal a
combining morphemes) for this acquisition.
difference in meaning; they differentiate
morphemes, e.g., bat, bad
 Parts of Language Explained Further
Syntax
● Refers to how words and related morphemes
combine to create sentences: grammar. It’s by
knowing syntax that we’re able to see that these
two sentences, although constructed differently,
mean the same thing:
● The dog chased the cat.
● The cat was chased by the dog.
● It’s also through syntax that we understand “I
walked to school” as a meaningful sentence,
while “School walked I to” does not hold any
meaning (in English)
Semantics
The rules that govern the meaning of words and
word combinations. Semantics is a difficult aspect
of language to master due to dialectal nuances
(e.g., ”soda” vs “pop” vs “Coke”) and constant
changing of common vernacular (e.g., drip, shook,
etc.), among other reasons.
Semantics also helps us understand the relationship
between words to combine them into meaningful
sentences.
e.g., We implicitly know that “The vacuum cleaner
did my taxes” does not ‘make sense’.
 Parts of Language Explained Further

Pragmatics

The topic of pragmatics refers to the rules related to language use within situational
context. Knowing the difference in language and when to use which style is the
essence of pragmatics, and understanding pragmatics is key to using language
effectively.

Pragmatic rules also govern communicative social interactions. Speakers choose

words and sentences based upon social context and conversational topic.
 Sensitive Periods

● Sensitive periods refer to limited periods of time in which the brain can
undergo a profound change in development due to exposure to some sort
of experience

● These are time windows in which the effects of environmental stimuli on

developing organisms are stronger than in the rest of the lifespan.
 The Critical Period

● The Critical Period seems to be most important when it comes to first

language acquisition
● It is generally accepted that the Critical Period lasts from infancy up
until/through puberty. It is also generally accepted that to reach native-like
competence, we need to start learning by age 10 at the latest.
● The most sensitive time for first language acquisition is within the first 5
years.
 Word Learning/Lexical Acquisition
Mutual Exclusivity
Constraint
The assumption that words are
mutually exclusive labels that refer to
one, and only one, object, which leads
to learning through eliminating objects
one already knows the label for
Whole Object Constraint
The assumption that a novel label is
more likely to refer to the object in its
entirety (whole object) instead of its
parts
Perceptual Narrowing

● Until around 6 months, infants universally distinguish between sounds in

different languages (think of it as they are sensitive to all sounds at first).

● Up to two months later, the process of perceptual narrowing begins, and children
gradually lose the ability to distinguish between all sounds, including aspects of
languages that are unique.

● Notably, infants have been hearing for quite some time before the process of
perceptual narrowing begins, as they begin hearing sounds by 18 weeks in utero.
 Word Boundaries

Discriminating word boundaries remains difficult throughout initial language

acquisition (and even beyond).

They’re not entirely obvious in a spoken language but can be identified through a few
different markers such as brief, millisecond long pauses, stress change, pitch change,
and implicit knowledge of a language’s phonological rules.
 Event-Based Knowledge

● Event-based Knowledge (aka world knowledge): consists of sequences of

events and routines (e.g., birthday party) which contain temporal or causal
organization; contains actors, roles, props, options/alternatives

● A child uses this knowledge to form scripts or sets of expectations that aid
memory and comprehension

● Early words are first comprehended and produced in the context of everyday
events (e.g., bath and soap during bath time)
 Characteristics of First Words

Starting at 6 months, the sounds babies produce are subtly influenced by the language of the
environment. This is known as babbling drift.
As the child transitions from babbling to words, phonological development is still incomplete.
● Some consonants haven’t been formed yet
● No consonant clusters are mastered yet
● Most babbles are still single syllables, with the occasional two-syllable production

When going from babbling to words, kids may keep individual made-up words that have consistent
meanings (e.g., ”Bibi” to mean “stuffed bear”).
These are called protowords.
 Underlying Processes of Speech Sound Development
(aka why children employ phonological processes)

Biology
● Physical Growth
Creates room for more movement of tongue, which allows for sound manipulation

Experience
● Environmental Speech
Languages that surrounding adults speak influence child’s speech
● Languages that surrounding adults speak influence child’s speech
The infant discovers the relationship between manipulating articulators and sound output
● Caregiver reactions to vocalizations
 Social Aspects of Language Acquisition
Children go from primary intersubjectivity (interacting with objects and people) to
secondary intersubjectivity (interacting with objects and with people about objects)

Communicative pointing: being able to follow another person’s pointing and

participate in pointing (before, they’re equally likely to look at a hand rather than the
direction it’s pointing in)

Gaze-following: Around 10 to 11 months, infants become sensitive to gaze (they

look where another person is looking)

This can help guide attention when mapping words to objects

 Statistical Learning
● Statistical Learning posits that an infant’s brain ‘counts’ the frequency in
which one phoneme is followed by another compared to other
combinations of phonemes.

● It assumes direct experience with all possible stimuli.

● But language learning requires more nuance in that you can apply your
language’s rules to words you’ve never heard before (in other words, you
don’t need direct exposure to new words to apply your language’s rules to
them).
 Joint Attention
Joint attention refers to a behavior in which two or more individuals participate in
sharing attention on an object or event, usually through eye-gaze or through verbal or
other non-verbal indications. In joint attention it is mutually understood that all
participants are interested in the same thing

While developing social cognitive skills, children between 9 and 15 months

increasingly spend their time in a state of joint attention.

Joint attention enables the development of intention reading, which may be

relevant for language acquisition. This is because to understand intentions, you need
to both understand that others have intentions and then figure out what these
intentions are.
 Four Phases of Joint Attention Development
1 Mastering
0-6 months: learns to look at
objects and maintain eye contact
with caregiver (supported by
feeding time)
Intent to Communicate
2 7 months: points to objects or events
without looking at adult
8 months: begins reaching for
objects while shifting gaze b/t object
and adult
Gestures & Vocalizations
3 It’s the biggest planet in the Solar
System
4 Naming & Topicalization
12 months: child assumes more
control as parental questioning
decreases; joint reference has more
structure via dialogues
Infant Directed Speech
Bootstrapping

● In syntactic bootstrapping, children use syntax (or the grammatical structure of a

sentence) to guide learning verbs, nouns, and other semantic components of
language.

● In phonological bootstrapping, an infant starts to acquire lexicon and syntax

through phonological analysis of the speech signal of their native language.
Factors Related to Phonological Bootstrapping

Prosodic contours provide clues to grammar structure:

● Pauses and changes in intonation tend to occur at phrase and clause boundaries
(e.g., We don’t breathe within a word)
● Plus, nouns and verbs are typically stressed, whereas determiners (like the/a)
and prepositions are not
● Even more so, nouns and verbs receive differential stress in English. Nouns
typically have first-syllable stress; whereas verbs have second-syllable stress
Compare “REcord” (noun) and “reCORD” (verb)
 Stages of Acquiring a Word

Stage 1: Language Discrimination

Before a child can focus on learning verbal language, they need to discriminate
speech from other sounds (the ability to discriminate speech from other sounds
begins in utero).

Stage 2: Phoneme Discrimination

This involves the ability to discriminate different speech sounds from one another
 Stages of Acquiring a Word

Stage 3: Word Discrimination

The ability of the child to to identify and isolate single words (i.e., establish word
boundaries), to learn their meaning

Stage 4: Word Meaning

The child begins to map new words to their referents
Involves the Whole Object Constraint (which states a novel label most likely refers to a
whole object, rather than just a part)
 Phonological Rules

● Phonological rules determine how sounds are affected and pronounced

given their surrounding sounds. One of these rules, voicing assimilation,
occurs when two consonants are together: they match in terms of voicing

● For example: “bugs” vs “bikes”

○ Bugs (/b^gz/) is voiced, whereas bikes (/baiks/) is voiceless

● With voicing assimilation, plural –s is pronounced /s/ after voiceless

consonants, but /z/ after voiced sounds.
Phonological Idioms
These are adult-like production of some sounds in words, while producing the
same sounds in other words in a child-like manner
e.g., the child can say “space” but will say “pider” for “spider”

Whole Word Representation

The entire word has a mental ‘representation’ that the child relies on for
production and comprehension.

Individual Sound Sequences

A word is ‘broken down’ into its individual sounds in the child’s brain.
 Comprehension & Production

Comprehension
The child relies on linguistic and conceptual knowledge and his or her
memory

Production
The child uses linguistic and conceptual input but also relies on linguistic
knowledge for encoding (a word, phrase, or message).
 Misc. Terminology to Know

Phonemics
The study and classification of the abstract constructs of speech sounds within a language

Transcription is ‘broad’; therefore, it is put into slashes (e.g., / bɜtɪŋ / for ‘betting’)

Phonetics
The study and classification of the production of speech sounds within a language

Transcription thereof is representative of the actual sounds made by a speaker of a spoken language;
transcription is put into brackets (e.g., [bɜɾɪŋ] for ‘betting’, with a /ɾ/ denote a tap used by the speaker
instead of /t/)

Phonemes
The meaningfully different sounds within a language
 Misc. Terminology to Know
Phonotactics
Rules on how to sequence sounds

Distinctive Features
Features that contribute to the differences between two sounds that are meaningfully different
(distinctive) within a language

Allophones
Phones that do not differentiate meaning even when produced differently (e.g., the [p] in pour
vs top)

Protowords
When going from babbling to words, kids may keep individual made-up words that have
consistent meanings
 Phonological Processes
Weak syllable deletion: omission of an unstressed syllable in target word
e.g., “nana” for “banana”
Consonant harmony (Assimilation): one consonant becomes the same or similar
to another consonant in the word
e.g., /did/ for “bead”
Consonant cluster reduction: omitting one or more consonants in a consonant
cluster
e.g., /pɒt/ for “spot” or /ɪŋ/ for “bring”
Final consonant deletion: Omission of the final consonant in the word
e.g., /pɒ/ for “spot”
 Phonological Processes
Reduplication: production of two identical syllables based on one of the syllables
e.g., /sisi/ for “sesame”
Gliding: replacing a liquid by a glide
e.g., /wabɪt/ for “rabbit”
Stopping: replacing a fricative by a stop
e.g., /ti/ for ”sea”
Context-Sensitive voicing: replacing voiceless consonants with voiced consonants
and voiced consonants with voiceless consonants
e.g., “sun” to /zʌn/ (voicing) and “nose” to /noʊs/ (de-voicing)
Advice &
Reminders
How to approach the midterm
Remember:

You must be present in-person to take this

exam.
Failure to show up in person is an automatic 0

If you are late, you do not get extra time.

Remember:
Construct your own responses
● Your study guides/cheat sheets are there to help, but please do not copy your responses
from them. Produce your own examples and definitions, although I understand there
are only so many ways you can reword things, so you’ll have more leeway with
definitions (be careful with questions that say to explain to a caregiver, though, as
copied definitions are often full of specific terms). A good way to practice is to think
about how you would explain these concepts to a family member with no experience in
the field.

● This goes without saying, but do not copy from a classmate. Also, if I see electronics
use during the exam, your test is automatically forfeit and you will receive a 0.
Remember:
The soft deadline for the paper is today
Anything submitted after the soft deadline is considered your final
paper. If you want feedback and a chance for a rewrite, please send it in
by 11:59 tonight.

In other words, anything I get from midnight on will be considered

your final paper. If you’re unsure if you can meet the deadline, send
what you have instead of waiting until literally the last minute. I
promise there’s nothing you can add in those last moments that’s worth
jeopardizing your grade.
 Some Advice

How to study
● Some good practices on how to study include involving other people who are not in the
program.

● If you’re able to explain concepts to someone who has no prior knowledge of

communication sciences in a way that they’re able to understand it, then congratulations!
You’ve accomplished two things: 1) true knowledge of the topic and 2) the ability to break
down that knowledge into easy to digest bites of information.

● It’s the same idea as being able to explain difficult concepts to a five-year-old.
 Some Advice

Lean on your notes, but do not rely on them entirely

● Think of your notes/cheat sheets to confirm what you know, rather than to tell you the
answers. Something that trips students up on formal exams is second guessing ourselves. If
we study well, we know the answer, but the high-pressure situation tends to make us
unsure of what we know.

● So go through the test and answer what you know off the top of your head. If you feel
unsure, double check your notes. If you respond to questions using only your notes, you
won’t have enough time because most of it will be spent looking up answers.
 Some Advice

Do not overstudy
If it’s not on the topic list, do not waste your time on it.

Do not stress yourself (or your classmates!) out

When it comes time for the exam, asking last minute questions in a panic and comparing
potential answers won’t help, and will only increase your anxiety as well as your classmates’
anxiety (which will impact test performance, etc.). Trust yourself and what you know. Don’t do
this after the exam, either. You can’t change your answers, don’t put mental and emotional
energy into worrying about them.

(Personal anecdote: having a strict “do not talk about the exam after it’s over” policy was tough
at first but did wonders for my mental health. Try it!)
 Some Advice

Sleep!
Cramming until 2AM isn’t going to help you (It’s scientifically proven!). It’s going to help you
even less since you have class at the end of the day and you’re already tired. Getting a good
night’s rest, however, will (it gives your brain time to compile what you’ve learned as well as a
chance to refresh).

You are NOT your test score

I understand this is a trite reassurance when you’re constantly told that every bad grade will hurt
your chances of getting into grad school but shaking off the mindset that anything less than an
A- means potential failure will, coincidentally, help you relax and do better on your exams. Treat
tests seriously, but don’t let letters on a piece of paper/on a screen define you.
Good