Development of Speech, Language and Cognition

Goals

This course is intended to cover a range of key topics in early cognitive and perceptual development, with a special focus on the early processes in speech perception that are fundamental to language acquisition. Attention, perception, and memory capacity, as well as the basic learning mechanisms that are central to cognitive and linguistic development in early infancy, will be reviewed from a broad information-processing perspective. The connection between these early skills and following language and cognitive outcomes will be analyzed and the complex interplay between brain maturation and experience factors will be discussed.

In each session, the general presentation of the topic will be followed by a group discussion and an analysis of a specific text or short paper directly related to the content of the session.

 

Course plan

1. Topics in early perception and cognition development

2. Speech Perception. Before the first words.

3. Finding words and word learning.

4. Speech and language learning in special conditions.

5. Cognitive and social development.

 

Assessment

a) An oral presentation and discussion of a selected paper closely related to any of the topics of the programme. Students are expected to summarize the objectives, the main findings and to critically discuss the results fostering group participation and discussion.

b) Two short written assignments, one on on speech/language learning topics and the other onecognitive development topics connected with the programme. 

Oral presentation (40%)

Written assignments  (25% + 25%)

Regular participation in class sessions (10%)

 

Repeat assessment 

Students with a final grade between 3 and 4.9 can be entered for reassessment through the improvement or expansion of one or both written assignments. The maximum final grade can only be 5.

 

Examination-based assessment

Assessment will be based on a written examination with six open-answer questions on the main topics of the programme (60%) and a discussion of methods and results form a selected research paper (40%).

Repeat assessment: Students having obtained a final grade between 3 and 4.9 can opt for reassessment by sitting a second examination. The maximum final grade can only be 5.

 

Bibliography

Books

Goswami, U. (2008). Cognitive development. New York: Psychology Press.

Johnson, M. H., & De Haan, M. (2015). Developmental cognitive neuroscience: An introduction. John Wiley & Sons.

Westermann, G., & Mani, N. (Eds.). (2017). Early Word Learning. Routledge.

 

Chapters

Lytle, S. R., & Kuhl, P. K. (2018). Social interaction and language acquisition: Toward a neurobiological view.

 

Articles

Aslin, R.N. (2014). Infant Learning: Historical, conceptual and methodological challenges. Infancy, vol. 19, 2-27.

Saffran, J. R. (2020). Statistical language learning in infancy. Child Development Perspectives, 14(1), 49-54.

Werker, J. F. (2018). Perceptual beginnings to language acquisition. Applied Psycholinguistics, 39(4), 703-728

Vouloumanos, A., & Curtin, S. (2014). Foundational tuning: How infants’ attention to speech predicts language development. Cognitive Science, 38(8), 1675-1686.