FINAL PROJECT
Students
DIEGO CÁRDENAS
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
B.A. IN ENGLISH
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF TOLIMA
CONTENTS
1. Subject characterization ………………………………………………………....3
1.1 Physical and attitudinal description ……………………………………….3
1.2 Context description …………………………………………………………..3
2. Findings & observations …………………………………………………………3
2.1 Phonological development: Non-reduplicated babbling ………………3
2.2 Semantic development: One-word utterances …………………………..4
2.3 Vocabulary burst ……………………………………………………………...4
2.4 Syntactic development: Two words utterances
………………………....4
3. Conclusions ………………………………………………………………………..5
1. Subject Characterization
1.1 Physical and attitudinal description
The subject observed is a 20-month-old infant, his name is
______________________, he was born on November 12th, 2017. In general terms,
his physical development has been adequate in all the different stages of his life, he
is a healthy baby and he has not had any serious problem or illness. Regarding his
attitudinal aspects, _____is able to develop and maintain positive relationships with
peers and adults, he is also very active, joyful, and he usually learns in a fast way;
he likes playing and sharing with other kids.
1.2 Context description
The child’s household is made up by his father________________,
mother_______________________, and half-brother, there are no family problems
which could impact his development. It is also important to mention that the baby’s
grandmother is in charge of taking care of him during the day because the parents
have to work in office hours. The baby also shares some time with his uncles and
aunts but mostly on weekends.
2. Findings & Observations
Taking into account the respective language acquisition stages and processes for
this specific age (17 months- 36 months) the infant’s language development was
analyzed during a week. First of all, it is important to highlight that the most relevant
insight was that the baby still has many characteristics of the previous stage, it
means that there is a delay in the language acquisition process, in this part, it could
be identified the following characteristics:
2.1 Phonological development: Non-reduplicated babbling
Link of video ( this was of about 9 seconds)
2.2 Semantic development: One word utterances
Link of video ( this was of about 30 seconds)
Link of video ( this was of about 60 seconds)
Link of video (this was of about 10 seconds)
Link of video ( this was of about 20 seconds)
Here, it can be observed how the baby relates some words with concepts; in
this case, the baby uses some words in order to ask for something he wants,
to express an action or answer to something that was asked.
Concerning the specific characteristics of the stage in which the baby is supposed to
be, it could be identified the following features:
2.3 Vocabulary burst
Link of video
The infant relates a word and understands what it means, even when he
cannot pronounce it, he knows the action behind the word, he relates one
word to more than one meaning using generalization, for example:
Gol: ball/ to score a goal.
2.4 Syntactic development: Two words utterances
Link of video
Link of video
Link of video
The child tries to express meaning by linking more than one idea, sometimes
that connection is not only between two different words but also between a
word and a sound that represents a word for him or in some cases a gesture.
3. Conclusions
The observation was carried out successfully and the researchers gathered the
information necessary to complete the study of Jose’s first language development so
far. Thus, it is concluded that the child’s language development is behind the
expectation based on the stages of language development because the performance
shown in the evidence is mostly comprised of phonological and semantic abilities
(like vocal play, babbling, and one-word utterances) belonging to a former stage (6 -
16 months), one explanation to this is the age of the child, being just 4 months apart
from the previous stage of development. Nevertheless, the researchers identified the
possibility of “Hawthorne effect” reactivity in the child as he was being recorded, he
did show skills producing two-word utterances several times but still used
generalization with the word “gol” in order to convey ball, scoring a goal and kicking
a ball (no vocabulary burst). In brief, the child shows language performance from the
6-16 months stage with some execution of 20-month abilities. This apparent delay is
not expected to cause any problems to the child’s language acquisition process.