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Course Requirement #1—A 1500 MINIMUM (MORE IS OK) WORD TERM PAPER

·        A term paper of no less than 1500 words will be written on a Topic to be selected by the students from a list of Language Development Hypotheses.  This list is provided below.  The Term Paper is to include a discussion, based on a minimum of three articles, books or chapters in a book (excluding the class Textbook), which describe, discuss, support and/or refute the hypothesis selected from the list.  A minimum of three citations with references in APA format will be included at the end of the paper. Examples of APA format are also provided below.  

·        Also at the end of the paper will be included a short Appendix which will answer three questions:  

1. What were the databases used to find each article.  (For example in the Communicative Disorders Multisearch example shown below we searched ten Data Bases but found most of our articles in PubMed.) 

2. What was the search strategy which was used,  i.e., the search words used in each database to find the articles.  (In the example below, we used the terms “Television and (Language Development).  We put the last two terms in brackets so that the computer would link Television to both terms and not just “Language.”)

3.  Was each article cited an example of Primary or Secondary research? As defined by the Library at UC Berkley, “Primary sources were either created during the time period being studied, or were created at a later date by a participant in the events being studied (as in the case of memoirs) and they reflect the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer. Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period.” 

“ A secondary source is a work that interprets or analyzes an historical event or phenomenon. It is generally at least one step removed from the event. Examples include scholarly or popular books and articles, reference books, and textbooks.”

 

  Information Competency Exercise:  LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESES LIST for Student Research

 

 

1.     The effects of watching television for young children are detrimental to language development.

2.     The number of siblings and their position in the family in terms of birth effects language development.

3.     Increased opportunities to experience (play with) many objects as a young child is beneficial to concept (and hence) language development.

4.     Letting the infant cry at night so that she/she will learn to sleep all night long is detrimental to language development if not the psychological development of the baby.

5.     Exposing the child in the first five years of life to classical music like Bach and Beethoven is beneficial for cognitive and/or language development.

6.     The more you talk to a child in the first five years, the better cognitive and/or language development will be.

7.     Children who are read to (or who read) have better imagery and/or language development than children who watch Television.

8.     A plentiful  of sugar based cereals, soft drinks, pastries, cookies, and/or fast foods, is developmentally detrimental to a child’s ability to sustain attention.

9.     Reading to a child every day (even an infant) is beneficial for language development.

10. A baby, who immediately after birth is allowed to remain with the mother rather than being immediately put in a nursery, will demonstrate more vocalization in later months.

11. Babies who are not touched will perish at worst or have diminished brain development at best.

12. Children who watch Television spend less time reading or drawing than children who don’t.

13. Children with stay-at- moms (or dads) have better language development than those having parents who both work away from the home.

14. Sustained middle ear infections among children from birth to 5 years will have a detrimental effect on language development.

15. Learning to read and play music facilitates attention (focused, sustained, selective, alternating and dual).

16. For the normal baby, being exposed to two, three or more languages is simultaneously is a good policy for language development.

17. A persons first language can not be acquired after puberty.

18. Parrots, porpoises, and/or primates do not acquire language

19. Children have better eidetic imagery than adults

20. Syntax is only found in human communication.

21. (Wild Card) You develop a hypotheses and then do the research for your report.

 

CLASS REQUIREMENT # 2–TECHNOLOGY APPLICATION AND PRACTICE:  An Annotated Bibliography will be developed including Five (100 word minimum) Annotated Citations.  With the exception of the first, these will be based on topics obtained from the Language Development Hypotheses in the list provided at the end of this survival document, and again in the Class Requirement Section online. 

 

The First annotated citation will be on the Topic of the “Legal and Ethical Dimensions of the Use of Information.”  This information can be obtained from the Internet using a search engine such as Google Scholar.  The annotated citation should be in APA format  and should include the URL (address) of the of the internet site.  The annotation should provide an overview of the discussion and/or list the most critical points.

 

The second two of these citations will be obtained through Databases of professional books and journals available online through the CSUN Library.  For more information on how to find these databases please see the discussion in the Class Requirements Section Online.  These citations will be reported in APA format.  Included in the annotation portion of each citation will be a paragraph which addresses briefly each following questions:

1.    What is the background (authority) of the author (viz., degree and type of education, affiliated institution, history of research in the area as perhaps reflected by past articles in the bibliography)?

2.    Who is the intended audience (i.e., professionals, laypersons, women etc.)?

3.    How dose this work compare or contrast with another you may have cited or be aware of?

4.    What is the scope and relevance of this work to the selected topic (hypothesis)?   

 

The Last Two citations will be obtained through the Internet using search engines provided online such as “Google Scholar.”  These citations will follow an APA format as closely as possible, including the URL information.  Included in each citation will be a paragraph which addresses the following questions related to, for the purpose of this exercise, the voracity of the Website:

1.    Is the site owner/manager’s identity available and is it associated with a reputable organization, company or educational institution?

2.    What is the background (authority) of the author (viz., degree and type of education, affiliated institution, history of research in the area as perhaps reflected by past articles in the bibliography)

3.    What is the level of objectivity?  For example, are there advertisements on the site related in anyway to the topic?

4.    Is the Website current?  Cues to the contrary, for example, include broken or expired links and/or no posting date or updated notations.

5.    Is the information correct; error free, verifiable, and/or backed by full citations?