RELATIONSHIP, INTENTIONALITY, AND SHARED MEANING:

THE ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION

 

Sima Gerber, Ph.D., CCCQueens College, CUNY

October, 2011

It’s a long story...

Jeffrey - 1971… John - 1980’s…. DIR - 1990’s … Integration – 2000’slanguage, self-social emotional development, relationships, the body, affect, comprehension

Why Revisit the World of Speech-Language-

Communication

Where does language come from?

Why are some children having difficulty acquiring language?

What is the impact of a speech, language, communication challenge on a child’s development?

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Developmental Language Process

ENGAGEMENT INTENTIONALITY

SHARED MEANINGS COMPREHENSION

PRODUCTION

S. Gerber, 2011

Where Does the Ability to Comprehend and Produce

Language Come From?• Caregiver-child relationships • Shared intentionality• Shared meaning

These capacities lead to the ability to ‘crack the linguistic code’

S. Gerber (2011)

SHARED INTENTIONALITY Tomasello (1999); Carpenter, Nagell, and

Tomasello(1998)

Tomasello views social developments as the beginnings of the child’s understanding of

intentionality, an essential basis for language.

Shared intentionality is a collaborative activity in which participants share psychological states

with one another

Developments over the 9 - 15 month age range that together form a system of communication and social relatedness (Carpenter and colleagues, 1998)

Following the mother’s gaze Following a point Using a point Gestures Imitative learningIn particular, referential language tended to emerge after the onset of all of the other social behaviors, including the use of communicative gestures.

Intentionality in Comprehending New Words

• Children learn words early on in development in situations where they can read the communicative intent of the adult partner.

• If the intent is unclear, shared intentionality will not be established and meaning will not be made.

Ricamato, 2010

Meaning…is whatever is perceived as relevant to the individual on the basis of needs, interests, present context, or prior history…that which has meaning---significance---

for the individual……

Two people can share an experience but not a meaning

The enlargement of the boundaries of experience and meaning is at the heart of cognitive development and it

begins in the first year

Nelson, 2007

SHARED MEANING

Language is the primary tool that humans use to go beyond attention to the

exchange of meaning

Sharing the meaning of experience appears to be a unique motivation of human cognition incorporating the

intertwined motivations of MAKING SENSE and MAKING RELATIONSHIPS

Nelson, 2007

Meaning resides in different places….Meaning is in the mind and the brain; it is also in the body that recognizes familiar things and places.

Meaning comes to reside in the child, but it also resides in the social world, in the affect-laden interactions with caretakers and others, in the symbols and artifacts of the culture, in the language spoken around the child (Nelson, 2007, p. 10)

Experience is motivated and directed by meaning and meaning sensors evaluate the experience and coordinate it with what is already ‘known’ in the system

Nelson, 2007

Expressing Ideas Depends on…..

• Expressing an idea about “ball” depends on knowing what balls are.

• Knowing about balls and what they are depends on your experience.

• Experience comes from having many different encounters with many different objects/actions/events.

(Adapted from Nelson, 2007)

Ricamato, 2010

Learning the Meaning of Words

• In early development, the child’s goal in learning new words is to share meaning.

• Words are the tools for sharing meaning and “advancing the process of being with others in shared endeavors.”

• From this, the child is interested in acquiring and using more language with his partners.

(Nelson, 2007)

Ricamato, 2010

Language is the integration of form, content, and use

Language acquisition is embedded in other developmentsincluding social-emotional development

(Engagement)and cognitive development

(Effort)

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE

S. Gerber, 2011

Language is the ability to understand and express one’s ideas and feelings with other people in meaningful, interactive exchanges

Language is a way of being known as a person and of knowing other people

S. Gerber, 2011

Slow to talk (1956) J. Beasley

The child who is not talking, this 3, 4, or 5 year old whose world holds meanings he does not as yet symbolize through his own spoken words, is similar to all children.

He exists in close relation to other human beings as he reaches out, draws back, exposes himself, protects himself, pulls in, and pushes away.

He feels his own feelings and the feelings of those around him.He constantly searches for his place in the scheme of events and relationships that surround him.

S. Gerber (2010)

The child in the world:

Beasley (1956)

The child who does not comprehend lacks even the tie of another person’s labels and interpretations, and the meanings he abstracts from what he explores will be private to him. He will be dependent exclusively on nonverbal sensations, his own and those of others, for his learnings.

S. Gerber (2010)

The child who has comprehension challenges:

Beasley, 1956

Consequently, his discoveries are probably affected by the lack of verbal interaction, by his inability to respond through words, and by his inability to question, validate, and correct his impressions. He may compensate for this inability…..but the extent to which he can expand and refine his learnings without language is limited.

The child and his play:

S. Gerber (2010)

….we can grasp what any child is trying to say - whether he is mute or full of words - only if we enter into a closer communion with him than the intellectual content of the spoken word provides. Jersild, 1956

S. Gerber (2010)

Where Does the Ability to Comprehend and Produce

Language Come From?

• Caregiver-child relationships• Shared intentionality• Shared meaning

These capacities lead to the ability to ‘crack the linguistic code’

S. Gerber (2011)

Emma - 2 years old

Intervention Goals:

• Shared intentionality and shared meaning

• Comprehension of early gestures, words, phrases

Gerber, 2011

Developmental Language Intervention Strategies

For facilitating shared intentionality and shared meaning:

• Interpret all of the child’s behaviors as intentional

• Maintain a reciprocal flow by consistently taking your turn in the interaction – keep going!

• Maintain the child-directed focus by treating all behaviors as communicative

• Treat unconventional behaviors as intentional

Gerber, 2011

What is the relationship between comprehension and production in typical and atypical development?

In typical language acquisition, the comprehension of language precedes production.

In atypical language acquisition, comprehension does not always precede production.

Gerber & Ricamato (2009))

Matthew – 10 yrs.

Intervention Goals:

• Shared intentionality and shared meaning

• Peer interactions

Gerber, 2011

Developmental Language Intervention Strategies

• Support child’s ability to understand others’ affect states during natural exchanges (point out and highlight affect states)

• Support child’s ability to understand a range of intentions expressed by others (make reference to and call attention to others’ intentions)

• Support the child’s ability to express a range of affect states during natural exchanges (move beyond a narrow range of affect states).

• Support child’s ability to express a range of intentions with gestures, words and sentences.

• Facilitate the child’s shared meanings by working from the child’s loves, using visual supports, replaying, judiciously introducing ‘curve balls,’ and slowly ‘upping the ante’ relative to new meanings and the language forms that code them.

For facilitating shared intentionality and shared meaning:

Gerber, 2011

Sima Gerber, Ph.D., CCC

Emerging Language – Intervention Process – Questions and Analyses

Is the child engaged? (DMIC, 2005)

Does the child have shared intentionality? (DMIC, 2005)

Does the child have shared meaning – What ideas does the child have? (DMIC, 2005; Lahey, 1988; Westby, 2000)

Does the child understand language? (Miller & Paul, 1995)

What phase of language production is the child at ?(Lahey, 1988)

Gerber, 2011

Provide the child with many opportunities to feel integrated as an intentional communicator as a meaning maker as a person who brings a gleam to your eye Only then will he be able to ‘crack the linguistic code’

Gerber, 2011

Selected References

Beasley, Jane (1956). Slow to Talk. New York, Columbia University.

Bloom, L. & Tinker, E. (2001). The intentionality model and language acquisition. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 267, Vol. 66, 4.

Carpenter, M., Nagell, K., & Tomasello, M. (1998). Social cognition, joint attention, and communicative competence from 9 to 15 months of age. Monographs of the society for research in child Development, 63 (4, Serial # 255).

Gerber, S. (2007). Visual Reality: Illustrating the Application of Developmental Language Models to Language Intervention with Young Children. DVD. Supported by the Bamford-Lahey Children's Foundation.

Gerber, S. (2003). A developmental perspective on language assessment and intervention for children on the autistic spectrum. Topics in language disorders, 23.

Greenspan, S. & Wieder, S. (1998). The child with special needs. Mass.:Addison Wesley Longman.

Kasari, C., Paparella, T. & Freeman, S. (2008). Language outcome in autism: Randomized comparison of joint attention

and play interventions. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology. 76, 1. 125-137.

ICDL-DMIC (2005). Diagnostic Manual for Infancy and Early Childhood. ICDL Press: Bethesda, MD.

Lahey, M. (1988). Language disorders and language development. New York: Macmillan.

Lord, C and McGee, J. (Eds) (2001) National Research Council Educating Children with Autism, Committee on Educational Interventions for Children with Autism, National Academy of Sciences .

Miller, J. and Paul, R., (1995). The Clinical Assessment of Language Comprehension. Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company. Baltimore, MD.

McCune, L. (2008). How children learn to learn language. NY.: Oxford University Press.

National Research Council and Institute of Medicine (2000). From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development. Washington, D.C., National Academy Press.

Nelson, K. (2007) Young minds in social worlds. Cambridge: Harvard Univ.

Siegel, D. (1999). The developing mind. How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are. New York: Guilford Press.

Siegel, D. (2003). Parenting from the inside out. New York: Penguin Group.

Tomasello, M. (2007). Cooperation and communication in the 2nd year of life. Child development perspectives, 1, (1), 8-12.

Tronick, E. (2007). The neurobehavioral and social-emotional development of infants and children. N.Y.: Norton and Co. Wieder, S. (2004). Building Foundations for Children and Families. Tarrytown, NY

Zero to Three The Developing Mind, May, 2008, 28, 5.