This course introduces students to the main questions in first language acquisition. It covers the period from one-word production to mastery of syntax, around the age of 5 years. The course begins with a discussion regarding Innateness and Modularity of the language system, then it discusses various approaches to language development including construction-grammar and usage-based accounts (Piaget, Tomasello), and then lexical development, syntactic development are presented. Finally the course includes discussion of some linguistic properties in the behaviour of children with Autism and SLI with the aim of identifying differences and similarities with typical language development. During the course, students will be presented with child data from various stages of language acquisition in order for students to acquire hands-on experience with data observation, coding and quantitative and qualitative analyses. Students will become familiar with different theories of language acquisition in relation to cognitive development. Students will become familiar with child data analysis in order to identify developmental stages. Recommended reading: Is there a course textbook? Yes Is there a list of readings? Yes Assessment methods: Final written exam
| Semester | Group | Day | From | To | Room | Instructor |
| Winter | Thursday | 18:30 | 21:00 | 107 | Peristeri Eleni |
