Blooming, Buzzing Confusion

Making Sense of Language in the First Few Years of Life

Winter 2021: CHDV 23010

Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:30pm-1:50pm Chicago time

Office hours: Wednesdays 4:00pm–5:00pm Chicago time, or by appointment.

NOTE: This course is taking place remotely; email the instructor if you need access to the relevant meeting and coursework links.

Instructor: Marisa Casillas (mcasillas@uchicago.edu)

This course examines the social and cognitive mechanisms that drive language learning in the first few years of life. Nearly all children learn the language(s) of their community, despite the fact that human languages and caregiving practices offer immense diversity around the globe. What enables the learning system to adapt so robustly to the environment it finds itself in? We discuss the evidence for and against multiple factors that have been proposed to support language development across the world’s communities. We also critically examine how these ideas intersect with current deficit models of language learning. It is expected that, by the end of the course, students will grasp the basic mechanisms proposed to underlie early language learning and will design a novel research project to test one of these mechanisms in infants or young children.

Course materials:

All course materials, including readings, grading rubrics, lecture materials, and more will be available online on Canvas and the ChatterLab webpage for this course.


Grading

Students enrolled in this course will be graded on the following basis:

ComponentUndergraduatesGraduates
Reading notes30%30%
Participation20%20%
Mini essay exams30%-
Squibs-30%
Methods presentations20%20%

Reading notes

Students are expected to submit digital notes summarizing and reacting to a subset of the assigned readings. Marisa will evaluate each submission of reading notes according to a set rubric (see the guidelines for details).

Participation

Students are generally expected to come to class and actively participate in discussion. That said, please stay in touch with Marisa about your limitations regarding live participation. Details on participation points are here, but in brief, students can earn participation credit using some combination of active attendance in class and discussion of course content in office hours.

Mini essay exams

Undergraduate students are expected to complete three mini essay exams: one in week 4, one in week 7, and one during finals week. For each exam, students will have one week to give two short (~500 word) responses to take-home prompts. The exam will be graded following a the instructions here.

Squibs

Graduate students are expected to submit six squibs (i.e., very short theoretical papers) over the course of the quarter on topics of their choice related to course content.

Methods presentations

Each student is expected to participate in a total of two methods presentations. Methods presentations are group projects. Groups will interview a researcher with expertise in the assigned method and then: (1) create a 20-minute pre-recorded mini lecture introducing and giving some demonstration of the assigned research method and (2) elicit and answer questions from the class (~10-15 minutes). Group members will also give a short evaluation of their and their peers’ contributions to the project. Graduate students are expected to take a leadership role in their groups (see the guidelines for details).


Course schedule

Module 1: Pattern recognition

Week 1: Tuesday, 12 January 2021

Pre-class reading

None!

Pre-class video

[syllabus review] — 11 min (slides)

[reading notes review] — 8 min (slides)

[lecture] — 22 min (slides)

Assignments due today

None!

Week 1: Thursday, 14 January 2021

Pre-class reading

Saffran et al. (1996). Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science 274(5294), 1926–1928. (pdf) (MC’s notes)

Saffran (2020). Statistical language learning in infancy. Child Development Perspectives 14(1), 49–54. (pdf) (MC’s notes)

** R. Frost et al. (2019). Statistical learning research: A critical review and possible new directions. Psychological Bulletin 145(12), 1128–1153. (pdf) (MC’s notes)

** = Required for graduate students only

Pre-class video

[lecture] — 54 min (slides)

Assignments due today

None!

Week 2: Tuesday, 19 January 2021

Pre-class reading

Maye et al. (2002). Infant sensitivity to distributional information can affect phonetic discrimination. Cognition 82, B101–B111. (pdf) (MC’s notes)

Smith & Yu (2008). Infants rapidly learn word-referent mappings via cross-situational statistics. Cognition 106, 1558–1568. (pdf) (MC’s notes)

** R. L. A. Frost & Monaghan (2020). Insights from studying statistical learning. In C. F. Rowland, A. L. Theakston, B. Ambridge, & K. E. Twomey (Eds.), Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition: How children use their environment to learn (pp. 65–89). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (pdf) (MC’s notes)

** = Required for graduate students only

Pre-class video

[lecture] — 52 min (slides)

Assignments due today

None!

Week 2: Thursday, 21 January 2021

Pre-class reading

None!

Pre-class video

First round of student methods presentations (to be posted!)

Assignments due today

None, unless you’re doing a methods presentation today!

Module 2: Cognitive biases

Week 3: Tuesday, 26 January 2021

Pre-class reading

Goldstone & Hendrickson (2010). Categorical perception. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 1(1), 69-78. (pdf) (MC’s notes)

Bowerman (1980). The structure and origin of semantic categories in the language learning child. In Symbol as Sense (pp. 277-299). Academic Press. (pdf) (MC’s notes)

** Kuhl et al. (2003). Foreign-language experience in infancy: Effects of short-term exposure and social interaction on phonetic learning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100(15), 9096-9101. (pdf) (MC’s notes)

** = Required for graduate students only

Pre-class video

[lecture] — 63 min (slides)

Assignments due today

Graduate students: Squib (optional)

Week 3: Thursday, 28 January 2021

Pre-class reading

Scholl & Tremoulet (2000). Perceptual causality and animacy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(8), 299-309. (pdf) (MC’s notes)

Gergely & Csibra (2003). Teleological reasoning in infancy: The naïve theory of rational action. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(7), 287-292. (pdf) (relevant twitter thread) (MC’s notes)

** The ManyBabies Consortium (2020). Quantifying sources of variability in infancy research using the infant-directed-speech preference. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 3(1), 24-52. (pdf) (MC’s notes)

** = Required for graduate students only

Pre-class video

[lecture] — 51 min (slides)

Assignments due today

None!

Week 4: Tuesday, 2 February 2021

Pre-class reading

He & Arunachalam (2017). Word learning mechanisms. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 8(4), e1435. (pdf)

Ota et al. (2018). Why choo‐choo is better than train: The role of register‐specific words in early vocabulary growth. Cognitive Science, 42(6), 1974-1999. (pdf)

** Nielsen & Dingemanse (2020). Iconicity in word learning and beyond: A critical review. Language and Speech, 0023830920914339. (pdf)

** = Required for graduate students only

Pre-class video

[lecture] — 49 min (slides)

Assignments due today

Graduate students: Squib (optional)

Week 4: Thursday, 4 February 2021

Pre-class reading

Braginsky et al. (2019). Consistency and variability in children’s word learning across languages. Open Mind, 3, 52-67. (pdf)

Frank et al. (2020). Variability and Consistency in Early Language Learning: The Wordbank Project (Ch 11). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (html)

** Mitchell & Jordan (to appear 2021). The ontogeny of kinship categorization. Journal of Culture and Cognition. (pdf)

** = Required for graduate students only

Pre-class video

[lecture] — 53 min (slides)

Assignments due today

Undergraduate students: Mini essay exam 1

Week 5: Tuesday, 9 February 2021

Pre-class reading

Bergelson & Aslin (2017). Semantic specificity in one-year-olds’ word comprehension. Language Learning and Development, 13(4), 481-501.(pdf)

Kidd et al. (2011). Toddlers use speech disfluencies to predict speakers’ referential intentions. Developmental Science, 14(4), 925-934. (pdf)

** Shatz (1978). On the development of communicative understandings: An early strategy for interpreting and responding to messages. Cognitive Psychology, 10(3), 271-301. (pdf)

** = Required for graduate students only

Pre-class video

[lecture] — 38 min (slides)

Assignments due today

Graduate students: Squib (optional)

Week 5: Thursday, 11 February 2021

Pre-class reading

None!

Pre-class video

Second round of student methods presentations (to be posted!)

Assignments due today

None, unless you’re doing a methods presentation today!

Module 3: Maturation

Week 6: Tuesday, 16 February 2021

Pre-class reading

Karasik et al. (2014). Crawling and walking infants elicit different verbal responses from mothers. Developmental Science, 17(3), 388-395. (pdf)

Fausey et al. (2016). From faces to hands: Changing visual input in the first two years. Cognition, 152, 101-107. (pdf)

** Yurovsky et al. (2013). Statistical word learning at scale: The baby’s view is better. Developmental Science, 16(6), 959-966. (pdf)

** = Required for graduate students only

Pre-class video

[lecture] — 42 min (slides)

Assignments due today

Graduate students: Squib (optional)

Week 6: Thursday, 18 February 2021

Pre-class reading

Vlach & Johnson (2013). Memory constraints on infants’ cross-situational statistical learning. Cognition, 127(3), 375-382. (pdf)

Gómez et al. (2006). Naps promote abstraction in language-learning infants. Psychological Science, 17(8), 670-674. (pdf)

** Smith et al. (2018). The developing infant creates a curriculum for statistical learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(4), 325-336. (pdf)

** = Required for graduate students only

Pre-class video

[lecture] — 48 min (slides)

Assignments due today

None!

Week 7: Tuesday, 23 February 2021

Pre-class reading

None!

Pre-class video

Third round of student methods presentations (to be posted!)

Assignments due today

Graduate students: Squib (optional)

Nothing more, unless you’re doing a methods presentation today!

Module 4: Environment

Week 7: Thursday, 25 February 2021

Pre-class reading

Tomasello & Carpenter (2007). Shared intentionality. Developmental Science, 10(1), 121-125. (pdf)

Yu & Smith (2013). Joint attention without gaze following: Human infants and their parents coordinate visual attention to objects through eye-hand coordination. PloS one, 8(11), e79659. (pdf)

** Yu et al. (2017). Infant sustained attention but not joint attention to objects at 9 months predicts vocabulary at 12 and 15 months. Developmental Science, 22(1), e12735. (pdf)

** = Required for graduate students only

Pre-class video

[lecture] — 50 min (slides)

Assignments due today

Undergraduate students: Mini essay exam 2

Week 8: Tuesday, 2 March 2021

This counts as two readings (it’s long & detailed) – please adjust your notes so that they are equivalent to two readings of effort: Rowe & Weisleder (2020). Language development in context. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 2, 201-223. (pdf)

** Brice Heath (1983). Ways with words: Language, life and work in communities and classrooms (Ch. 3 & 4). Cambridge University Press. (pdf)

Pre-class reading

** = Required for graduate students only

Pre-class video

[lecture] — 25 min (slides)

Assignments due today

Graduate students: Squib (optional)

Week 8: Thursday, 4 March 2021

Pre-class reading

Liszkowski et al. (2012). A prelinguistic gestural universal of human communication. Cognitive Science, 36(4), 698-713. (pdf)

Carstensen et al. (2019). Context shapes early diversity in abstract thought. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(28), 13891-13896. (pdf)

** Adolph et al. (2010). Motor Skill. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.) Handbook of Cultural Developmental Science (pp. 61-88). Psychology Press. (pdf)

** = Required for graduate students only

Pre-class video

[lecture] — 35 min (slides)

Assignments due today

None!

Week 9: Tuesday, 9 March 2021

Pre-class reading

Hart and Risley (2003). The early catastrophe: The 30 million word gap by age 3. American Educator, 27(1), 4-9. (pdf)

Sperry et al. (2018). Reexamining the verbal environments of children from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Child Development, 90(4), 1303-1318. (pdf)

** Ochs & Kremer-Sadlik (2020). Ethical blind spots in ethnographic and developmental approaches to the language gap debate. Langage et Société, 170(2), 39-67. (pdf)

** = Required for graduate students only

Pre-class video

There is no pre-class video—Please do the assigned readings carefully and come to class with your general thoughts and responses.

Assignments due today

Graduate students: Squib (optional)

Week 9: Thursday, 11 March 2021

Pre-class reading

None!

Pre-class video

Fourth round of student methods presentations (to be posted!)

Assignments due today

None, unless you’re doing a methods presentation today!

Final deadline (Thursday, 18 March 2021)

Assignments due today

Contact

Email: mcasillas@uchicago.edu

Office: [online]

Office hours: Wednesdays 4:00pm–5:00pm Chicago time, or by appointment.

If you require any accommodations for this course, as soon as possible please provide your instructor with a copy of your Accommodation Determination Letter (provided to you by the Student Disability Services office) so that you may discuss with him/her how your accommodations may be implemented in this course. The University of Chicago is committed to ensuring the full participation of all students in its programs. If you have a documented disability (or think you may have a disability) and, as a result, need a reasonable accommodation to participate in class, complete course requirements, or benefit from the University’s programs or services, you are encouraged to contact Student Disability Services as soon as possible. To receive reasonable accommodation, you must be appropriately registered with Student Disability Services. Please contact the office at 773-834-4469/TTY 773-795-1186 or gmoorehead@uchicago.edu, or visit the website at disabilities.uchicago.edu. Student Disability Services is located in Room 233 in the Administration Building located at 5801 S. Ellis Avenue.