Golinkoff, How Babies Talk

Chapter 1.

The Fetus

What does the fetus hear?

How old is the fetus when it begins responding to sounds.

How has heart-rate deceleration been used to analyze fetal responses to language?

Where was the “babi-biba” experiment carried out and what does it prove about language?

Describe the experiment in which rhymes were read to unborn children. What was concluded from the experiment?

Birthing the baby

What is the minimum and maximum amount of crying that a baby will do in 24 hours?

When do babies begin using “fake cries” to get attention? Before that are babies crying intentionally in order to attract attention?

Is crying a form of language?

How was it shown experimentally that babies prefer their mother’s voices after birth?

What experiment showed that neonates can distinguish between different sounds like “p” and “b”?

What experiment was done with 9 minute old babies to prove that babies are born predisposed to look at human faces?

How do we know that babies expect mouth movements and sounds to be synchronized?

What experiment showed that newborn babies can tell which mouth shape goes with which vowel?

Can neonates imitate facial movements, like sticking one’s tongue out?

What is “baby talk”? Give examples of how it might assist in child language learning.

Practical applications

Is linguistic stimulation critical? What would you look for in a baby-sitter?

Why do deaf children often get deprived of stimulation? What type of stimulation would be useful to them?

How old are congenitally deaf children until their deafness is detected? How can deafness be detected earlier?

Special assignment:

In studying language acquisition in this chapter, the authors use three different terms to label the unborn critter that is being studied: “fetus”, “baby”, and “child”. How often do they use each term in the chapter to refer to the unborn (up to page 18)? Does the labeling in this part of the chapter strike you as natural or forced? Propose an analysis for the shift between the three different labels. Find a contradiction on page 37.