Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition: How children use their environment to learn

Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition
Editorial page
Title page
Copyright page
Table of contents
Foreword
Introduction
	References
Part 1. Levels of acquisition
Learning how to communicate in infancy
	Preface
	The newborn’s preparedness for communication
	Early face-to-face interaction and primary intersubjectivity
	Turning towards the outside world
	The transition to intentional communication
	The developmental roots of human communication
	References
Heads, shoulders, knees and toes: What developmental robotics can tell us about language acquisition
	Preface
	Introduction
	Why models?
	Why robotics?
	Gaze following and joint attention
	First vocalisations
	First words
	Abstract words
	Syntax
	Conclusion
	References
Insights from studying statistical learning
	Preface
	Introduction
	Statistical processes for different language learning tasks
		General statistical principles of language acquisition: Grouping and dividing
	The role of the broader environment on learning
	A note on cue variability
	Conclusions
	Funding
	References
From grammatical categories to processes of categorization: The acquisition of morphosyntax from a usage-based perspective
	Preface
	Deriving language from interaction
	Categories and categorization in usage-based linguistics
		Categorization processes
			Example 1. Categorization in conceptual development: Representational redescription
			Example 2. Learning inflectional categories with variation
			Example 3. Learning case markers for reference and syntactic role marking
		From a structuralist to a constructivist perspective
			Attention tuning to prosodic cues
			Functional relations: Reference and attribution
	Summary and outlook
	References
The retreat from transitive-causative overgeneralization errors: A review and diary study
	Funding
	References
Where form meets meaning in the acquisition of grammatical constructions
	Preface
	Introduction
	Overarching theory
		What are grammatical constructions?
		How do children learn constructions?
	Grammatical errors as a window onto children’s form–meaning mappings
		‘Borrowing’ within a network of constructions leads to error
			Third person verb marking and auxiliary omission errors
			Pronoun case errors
			Summary
		The nature of the ‘slots’ within grammatical constructions
			Infinitival-to omission errors
			Methodological advances
		Creative solutions to communicative problems
			Structure combining in wh-questions
			Fine-tuning the meaning of negation
			The complexities of self-reference
			Summary
	Semantic and pragmatic (information-structural) properties of sentence representations
		Simple constructions
		Complex constructions
	Conclusions
	Funding
	References
Social cognitive and later language acquisition
	Preface
	Language acquisition and Theory of Mind in interaction
	Interactions between syntax, verbal semantics and false belief
	Interactions between syntax, verbal semantics and false belief from a cross-linguistic perspective
	Looking at usage patterns and functions across languages
	Summary and conclusion
	Funding
	References
Part 2. Levels of variation
The emergence of gesture during prelinguistic interaction
	Preface
	Introduction
	The development of triadic attention and joint action
	The development of prelinguistic communicative gestures
	Theoretical perspectives on the emergence of declarative gestures
	Prelinguistic gesture development across cultures
	Summing up
	Funding
	References
Individual differences in first language acquisition and their theoretical implications
	Preface
	Introduction
	1. Individual differences in language acquisition
	2. What causes individual differences in language acquisition?
		2.1 Intrinsic differences in the neurocognitive learning mechanisms
		2.2 The communicative environment (especially linguistic input)
		2.3 The role of developmental cascades
	3. Case study: Individual differences in children’s early lexical processing efficiency
		3.1 The LWL task and its relationship to lexical development
		3.2 Psychometric modelling
		3.3 Longitudinal analyses
	4. Future prospects
	Funding
	References
Understanding the cross-linguistic pattern of verb-marking error in typically developing children and children with Developmental Language Disorder: Why the input matters
	Wexler’s Unique Checking Constraint (UCC) account of the OI stage
	An alternative account of OI errors
	Modelling cross-linguistic differences in children’s rate of OI errors
	Modelling other aspects of the data on OI errors
	The Modal Reference Effect and the Eventivity Constraint
	The cross-linguistic patterning of OI errors in declaratives and Wh-questions
	Comparing MOSAIC and the Variational Learning Model
	The problem with English
	An input-driven model of the pattern of verb-marking error in children with DLD?
	Conclusion
	Funding
	References
	Appendix. Summary of how MOSAIC has been developed over time to simulate a wider range of OI-related phenomena
Sampling linguistic diversity to understand language development
	1. Personal statement
	2. Introduction
	3. Cross-linguistic diversity: Why care?
	4. The maximum diversity approach
	5. Input universals
	6. Some candidates of input universals
	7. Conclusions
	Acknowledgements
	References
Lessons from studying language development in bilingual children
	Preface
	Introduction
	What do we talk about when we talk about childhood bilingualism?
	Word learning
		Processing efficiency, language exposure and lexical acquisition
		Word learning and mutual exclusivity
		Shared syntactic representations in later bilingual development
	Conclusion
	References
Language disorders and autism: Implications for usage-based theories of language development
	Preface
	Introduction
	Theories of language development
	Usage-based theory
		Shared intentionality
		Statistical learning / distributional analysis
		From exemplar-learning to the learning of syntactic constructions
		Properties of the language input
		Usage-based predictions for language development
	Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)
	Autism
		Statistical learning in autism
		The role of language input for language development in Autism Spectrum Conditions
		Shared intentionality
			Is shared intentionality atypical in autism?
		Would difficulties in shared intentionality lead to impairments in nuts-and-bolts language?
		Would difficulties in shared intentionality lead to impairments in pragmatics?
	General conclusions
	Summary
	Future directions
	References
Index