Communication, Language and Foundations

For Literacy: The Early Years

Usha Goswami

Centre for Neuroscience in Education

University of Cambridge

What is Language For?

- Social function – social interaction

- Communicative function – shared meaning

- Sociolinguistic function – language defines social

grouping

- Intra-psychological function – language is symbolic,

hence enables metacognition …

… and language is highly engaging for infants!

Social and Communicative Function

Language as a special “extra” capacity - ??

(Chomsky – LAD)

Goal is making shared meaning – so development likely

to involve similar abilities to psychological

development (“Theory of Mind”)

…perspective taking, joint visual attention,

understanding communicative intent ….

Studying Infant Abilities

Sucking paradigms

Head-turn/ looking paradigms

Brain imaging …

Electrodes10 electrodes

EEG studies

fMRI

fNIRS

Newborn Infants Recognise Mother’s Speech

De Casper & Fifer - neonates

Infant can hear mother’s voice during 3rd trimester

Sucking paradigm

Played them mother’s voice reading a story

Played strange female voice reading same story

Rewarded infants with mother’s voice whenever suck

rate was above (or below) baseline

De Casper & Fifer – Contingency Paradigm

Day 1: infants learned to suck at the rate appropriate

to hear the mother’s voice

Day 2: the experimenters reversed the contingency …

Role of Understanding Communicative Intent

Communication and meaning-making is not

always oral

- gesture

- sign language

And some animals can make some gestures

But a pre-requisite for using words, signs or

gestures linguistically is the understanding

that such actions have communicative intent

Csibra 2010: Specialized Ostensive Signals

Recognizing communicative intent is a key

source of the development of language skills:

1. Direct gaze generating eye contact

(confirms the other is “on line”)

2. The use of a special intonation pattern with

infants (‘Motherese’ or ‘Parentese’)

3. Contingent reactivity and turn-taking –

complementary matching of actions

(prototype = infant sucks, mother jiggles)

Csibra 2010: Specialized Ostensive Signals

Importance of infant’s own name – the earliest

recognized word (at around 4.5 months)

Caretakers utter the infant’s name:

- using Parentese

- when looking directly at the infant

- as part of contingent play

Hence pragmatically, name has a “special status”

as the strongest ostensive signal

Comprehension / Production: Bates et al.

Comprehension: can measure from 6 months

Production: onsets around 11 – 13 months

Universal sequence across languages

- but enormous individual differences

Median vocabulary size (production):

16 months 55 words

23 months 225 words

30 months 573 words …

6 years 6000 words

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120

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16

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Age in months

Number of words Diary Studies: Comprehension

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7 10 13 16 19 22 25

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B

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Age in months

Number of words Diary Studies: Production

Lexical Development

What do young children talk about?

- First words are highly relevant to day-to-

day life

Talk about salient objects (mummy, doggie),

about actions (up, gone), recurrence (more,

again) and social routines (night night)

Fast Mapping in Early Language

By the age of 2 years, children are acquiring 10 new

words per day

Often just hear a novel phonological string once, and

then learn it = “fast mapping”

Fast mapping supports the exponential increase

in vocabulary from 2 – 6 years

Quality (Parentese) and quantity of language heard

both related to individual differences

Language Input to Babies and Children

Hart & Risley, 1995; USA study

High SES families 487 utterances per hour

Lower SES families 178 utterances per hour

(on welfare)

By 4 years of age:

High SES families 44 million utterances

Lower SES families 12 million utterances

Grammatical Development

Examples of early grammatical and morphological

errors

1 y 10m “I noised” (playing with blocks)

2y 4m “I’m souping” (eating soup)

3y 1m “Yuck! It coughs me” (makes me c.)

2y 7m “It’s very nighty” (looking out at dark)

4y 6m “We saw a drummist and a flutist too”

- errors show that “rules” are being extracted

and applied creatively to produce new meanings

Who Teaches Children about Their Errors?

Perhaps surprisingly, parents rarely correct their

children directly

And when they do, children are fairly immune

“Want other one spoon daddy”

“You mean, you want the other spoon”

“Yes, I want other one spoon please daddy”

“Can you say ‘the other spoon’?”

“Other one spoon”

“Say ‘other’… Say ‘spoon’ … “Other spoon”.

“Other.. spoon. Now give me other one spoon?”

Learning Language: Role of Reformulation

Parents rarely correct misformed utterances

Instead, they reformulate them during conversation

“I want butter mine”

“Okay, give it here, I’ll put butter on it”

“I want butter on it”

“Muffy step on that”

“Who stepped on that?”

“Muffy”

“Muffy stepped on it”

- more conversationally natural

Reformulation Leads to Greater Learning

Nursery school study from USA

Day-care centre for children aged 2 – 3 years

G1 extensive and deliberate expansions

G2 natural conversation, reformulation

G3 control group

Language development by end of intervention:

G2 > G1 = G3

Whitehurst – Shared Picturebook Reading

Significant boost to children’s language skills:

- Acquire more complex syntax

- Greater gains in vocabulary

- Greater gains in narrative skills

The language in story books is different from

conversational speech

Language gains are greater when reading dialogic

“Parentese” and Learning Language

Found across languages, and whether mother

or father is the speaker

e.g., Fernald et al., 1989 – recorded naturalistic speech

All languages and both

genders showed:

-Higher pitch

-Greater prosodic contours

-Longer durations

-Longer pauses

Parentese and Language Acquisition

Brain

Language

Rhythm-driven

encoding

Infant-Directed Speech:

More stressed syllables

More slow modulations

Singing

Nursery Rhymes

Poetry

Rhythm

Prosody

Neural entrainment to slow modulations

in IDS may drive language acquisition

Babies begin with speech rhythm

-Auditory signal

-Visual dynamics

-Motor synchronisation

-Encoding via

oscillatory entrainment

The Brain and Phonological Development

Oscillatory Sensory Processing by the Brain:

Based on “sampling” energy in the environment.

Perception is not continuous, takes “snapshots” of the

signal. For auditory signals, the brain samples different

temporal rates concurrently: multi-time resolution.

Phonological

representations

“garden” “cat”

“banana”

Auditory

Visual

Motor

Language Encoding via Oscillations

Language

Representations

Neurons

Networks

Neuroscience:

MEG

EEGSimple neural coding

mechanisms, like neurons

oscillating at different

rhythmic rates, are key

delta: ~2 Hz

theta: ~5 Hz

beta: ~ 20 Hz

gamma: ~ 35 Hz

Nested – delta at top

Oscillatory Encoding by the Brain:

A Bit Like Fireflies Signalling

Brain Firing is Rhythmically Co-ordinated

Dots = Cells firing

LFP = summed activity

10 Hz Oscillation - From MMolano Word Press

Onset of speech signal:

Rise times cause phase reset (temporal

re-synchronisation)

+ Phase Locking of Oscillations Hierarchically Organised

F

R

E

Q

U

E

N

C

Y

Importance of Rhythm for Neural Encoding of Speech

Brain aligns neuronal

rhythms to rhythms in speech

…

Rhythm patterns in IDS and

in “nursery” rhymes optimal

All the different brain rhythms (delta ~2Hz, theta ~5Hz, gamma ~35)

must be in perfect time with each other for speech perception to be

accurate ( = perfect phase synchronisation or alignment)

From

Google

Images

IDS: Leong, Kalashnikova, Burnham & Goswami, 2017

Slowest brain rhythm is a 2 Hz oscillation

Modulation Peak in IDS ~ 2 Hz

Developmental Role for Slower Amplitude

Modulations

• Amplitude modulations (AMs) at 2 Hz salient

in infant-directed and child-directed speech

• Slower AMs < 10 Hz contribute rhythm and

prosody

Rhythm Individual words

Only < 2 Hz

AM

Only < 40

Hz AM

Only < 8 Hz

AM

The Speech Signal: High Complexity

Spectrogram: emphasises phonetic structure: b/d

Amplitude (energy) modulation: emphasises speech rhythm

Key source of individual differences in development

NINE SEVEN TWO THREE TWO

3D : Syllable Structure and AM Rise Time

[s]

[eh]

[vx]

[en]

juncture accented syllable

unaccented syllable

“Seven”

mean duration

Full-spectrumperspective

Greenberg 2002

[s] [eh] [vx] [en]

Rise times

Cues to rhythmic

energy patterns

Jack and Jill went up the hill

Amplitude Modulations in Child-Directed SpeechModelling nursery rhymes: strong AMs aid learning

Key AM patterns at different temporal rates are nested in

the speech signal: 2 Hz and 5 Hz modulations dominate

Different amplitude rise times cue the different temporal rates

Leong, Stone, Turner, Goswami, 2014

Ring a Ring o’ Roses

Phoneme

Onset –rime

Syllable

Stressed syllable GAR den

gar

g ar

den

d en

Amplitude Modulation Hierarchy

Related to Phonological Development

g ar d e n(taught via

reading)

Energy Patterns in Rhythmic Speech - Hierarchically Org.

"Ma -ry Ma -ry quite con tra -ry"

‘STRESS’ AM ~

delta (~2 Hz)

‘SYLLABLE AM’ ~ theta (~5

Hz)

‘ONSET/RIME’ AM ~

beta (~ 20 Hz)

Leong & Goswami, 2015

Onset -rime

Syllable

Stressed syllable

GAR den

gar

g ar

den

d en

Nested AM Hierarchy in Speech Signal:

Encoded Automatically by Neural Oscillations

~ 2 Hz

~ 5 Hz

~ 20 Hz

And these temporal hierarchies are perfectly aligned when singing!

Learning to read involves many skills …

Predicting Reading Across Languages:

Core Role of Linguistic Processing

Brain

Language

Reading

Phonology

sound

structure

of speech

Predicting Reading Across Languages:

Core Role of Linguistic Processing

Brain

Language

Reading

Phonology

sound

structure

of speech

“Phonological

representations”

for words = amalgam

of prosodic, syllabic,

phonetic learning.

Language: “Phonological Awareness”

Shows Language Universal Development

Preschool: large units

syllables

rhymes

With teaching: small units

phonemes

Ziegler & Goswami, 2005

Onset -rime

Syllable

Stressed syllable

GAR den

gar

g ar

den

d en

Language- Universal Phonological Impairments

in Developmental Dyslexia

Phonemes: Awareness develops via tuition in reading

Dyslexia:

Measuring the Neural Encoding of

Speech using EEG

Speech signal

Rapid modulations

Gamma networks

~30 – 50 Hz

Slow modulations

Theta networks

~4 – 8 Hz

Binding for

speech perception

Phase Locking to Slowest Modulations

Is Impaired in Developmental Dyslexia

Syllables (~ 5Hz)Phonemes(~35 Hz)

Slow modulations

Delta networks

~0.5 – 4 Hz

Stressed

syllables(~ 2 Hz)

Rhythm

Syllables

Meter

Phonetic

information

Goswami, 2011: Temporal Sampling Theory

Implications for Literacy Foundations

Liberman, 1975: All temporally-ordered human

behaviour is metrically organised

e.g. singing, movement, dancing, rhyming ….

- Spontaneous tap rate to music ~ 2 Hz (adults, children > 8yr)

- Singing lullabies to infants ~ 2 Hz (498 ms)

- Spontaneous adult applause (clapping) ~ 2 Hz (493 ms)

- Reading text aloud: inter-stress intervals multiples ~ 2 Hz

- Stressed syllables across languages ~ 2 Hz (493 ms)

-> Fun rhythmic activities that highlight 2 Hz rate

Training 1000 Olympic Drummers in 2012: “If you can say it, you can drum it…”

“Play the drum, so your Mum, can see you on TV”

From

Google

Images

Educational Neuroscience in the Classroom:

“Drum to say” helps children with dyslexia

“Entraining the oscillators” – use music + motor activities

to emphasise the rhythms and metrical structure of speech

- nursery rhymes

- poetry

- music and singing

- playground clapping games

Other rhythmic experiences:

- dancing

- marching

- playing instruments

to language rhythms

Matching speech and

motor rhythms

Enhanced phase alignment

of slow modulations

theta/delta networks

0.5 – 8 Hz

Enhanced

cross-modal

representations

of phonology

Rhythm and

syllable pattern

Motivation:

Language play based on

rhythm and metrical

patterning “entrains

the oscillators”

Educational Neuroscience: Training Rhythmic Timing

Bhide, Power & Goswami (2013)

Music+motor intervention for poor readers (10 weeks):

Drumming, singing, marching, poetry, hand-clap games…

Effect sizes:

Reading 0.73

NWR 0.95

Spelling 0.90

Rhyming 1.0

Conclusions

Learning language requires high quality input from

the learning environment: meaningful conversations

Other sources of individual differences include

differences in acoustic processing (e.g., dyslexia)

or in child’s ability to perceive communicative intent

Rhythmic games and language play focused on

speech rhythm patterns promote phonological

foundations for literacy

Singing involves perfect rhythmic synchronisation

GraphoGame Rime:

(Apple App, Google Play)