Deck 9: Language Development

Question 1

A phoneme is

A) the smallest distinct sound in a particular language.
B) one of the specific grammar rules in a language.
C) the smallest unit of meaning in a language.
D) the way we change the meaning of word.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

A _____________ is the smallest unit that has meaning in a language.

A) morpheme
B) phoneme
C) syllable
D) spectrum

Answer 2

A

Question 3

In cognitive processing theory, the likelihood that certain sounds will follow each other is known as the

A) phonemic likelihood.
B) statistical determinism.
C) transitional probability.
D) universal grammatical structure.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Parents can differentiate the __________ of their infant's cries.

A) meaning and intention
B) severity and intensity
C) tone and cadence
D) purpose and frequency

Question 5

The idea that adults will modify that way they talk with young children until the child can understand and respond is associated with the theory of

A) interactionism.
B) information processing.
C) social cognitive theory.
D) operant conditioning.

Question 6

If you were interested in the meaning of words you would study

A) phonology.
B) syntax.
C) morphemes.
D) semantics.

Question 7

The idea that a grammatical structure for language is hardwired in our brain comes from

A) social cognitive theory.
B) nativism.
C) operant conditioning.
D) information processing theory.

Question 8

Phonology is the study of the

A) sounds of a language.
B) meaning of words.
C) smallest segments of language with meaning.
D) parts of language.

Question 9

According to Skinner, language is shaped through

A) innate mechanisms that are wired into the brain.
B) cooing and babbling.
C) data crunching the stream of words that we hear.
D) operant conditioning and the use of reinforcement.

Question 10

Infants have a preference at birth for

A) male voices over female voices.
B) musical sounds over the human voice.
C) the sounds of the language that their mother speaks.
D) sounds that different from sounds they have heard before.

Question 11

Sam is not very good at following conversational rules. It is difficult to have a conversation with him because he talks out of turn and keeps changing the topic of the conversation. Sam has a problem with

A) semantics.
B) pragmatics.
C) phonetics.
D) syntax.

Question 12

Once a child understands a rule of grammar (such as adding an "s" to form the plural of a word), they may use this rule incorrectly for words that don't follow this rule. The error is called

A) overapplication.
B) overregularization.
C) rule overload.
D) a universal grammar.

Question 13

MacKenzie frequently tells her brother to "shut up", but she would never tell her mother to "shut up". MacKenzie is demonstrating the concept of

A) semantics.
B) pragmatics.
C) morphology.
D) syntax.

Question 14

Throughout our life, our receptive language

A) always trails our expressive language.
B) always precedes our expressive language.
C) develops in parallel with expressive language.
D) usually trails expressive language, but rarely might precede it.

Question 15

The recognition of the emotion in someone's words are controlled by

A) the right hemisphere of the brain.
B) Wernicke's area in the brain.
C) Broca's area in the brain.
D) the temporal lobe in the brain.

Question 16

Social cognitive theory emphasizes the role of __________ in language learning.

A) babbling
B) joint attention
C) imitation
D) early phonemic discrimination

Question 17

The area that is the primary center for speech production is

A) Broca's area.
B) the speech cortex.
C) Wernicke's area.
D) mirror neurons.

Question 18

Cognitive processing theory proposes that while learning language children

A) figure out statistically how likely it is that certain sounds will follow each other.
B) imitate the language behavior of people they are emotionally attached to.
C) employ a universal grammar to understand the syntax of the language they hear.
D) rely upon a biological unfolding of a readiness to learn language

Question 19

As a theory of language development, interactionism incorporates aspects of

A) operant and classical conditioning.
B) proximal and distal influences.
C) phonological awareness and semantic integration.
D) biological readiness and experiences in the environment.

Question 20

Children will say things that they have never heard before, such as "I goed outside to play". This production of unique sentences is best explained by

A) social cognitive theory.
B) operant conditioning.
C) nativism.
D) information processing theory.

Question 21

Which of the following statements about early language development is true?

A) Babies younger than 6 months of age can distinguish the sounds of all languages.
B) Researchers agree that there is an early critical period in language development.
C) Deaf babies do not coo or babble in the same way that hearing infants do.
D) If parents do not talk a great deal to their infants, the infants will later have great difficult in learning their native language.

Question 22

In dialogic reading, asking the child to describe what is happening in a picture in the book is an example of a ________ prompt.

A) completion
B) recall
C) open-ended
D) distancing

Question 23

When a child points to an object and an adult names the object for the child

A) there is no reason for the child to use that word again.
B) that word enters the child's vocabulary sooner.
C) the child is likely to overregularize the use of that word in the future.
D) the child will assume that there are other names for the same object.

Question 24

In dialogic reading, a completion prompt involves

A) the adult explaining what is on an entire page of a book to the child.
B) the adult asking the child to complete a sentence about the book.
C) children asking the adult who is reading to them to answer questions.
D) children playing games related to topic of the book.

Question 25

Hart and Risley (1995) examined the similarities and differences in the everyday language that children hear as toddlers. They found that overall

A) most toddlers hear about the same number of words.
B) there were no differences by the gender, socioeconomic status, or educational level of parents.
C) children from families with more educated parents hear a great deal more language.
D) children from less educated families hear more words, but they are shorter words than children from more educated families hear.

Question 26

When children can learn a new word, sometimes with only one exposure, it is called

A) syntactic bootstrapping.
B) the whole object bias.
C) fast mapping.
D) statistical learning.

Question 27

When Ted says "Mama go car," it is an example of

A) holophrase.
B) telegraphic speech.
C) babbling.
D) abbreviated language.

Question 28

Carter and his mother are reading a book about volcanoes. His mother asks him, "Do you remember when we saw the volcano on Hawaii? What did the lava look like?" What type of prompt in dialogic reading does this describe?

A) Completion prompt
B) Recall prompt
C) Open-ended prompt
D) Distancing prompt

Question 29

Piaget describes children's inability to take the role of the person they are speaking to as

A) internal speech.
B) fast mapping.
C) private speech.
D) egocentric speech.

Question 30

Babies who are taught to use sign language

A) are delayed in their later acquisition of spoken language.
B) experience more frustration in their early language learning.
C) show a greater ability in later years to master a second or third language.
D) have a slight advantage when they later learn spoken language.

Question 31

Syntactic bootstrapping allows children to

A) determine the meaning of words through the use of syntax.
B) learn new words by eliminating items that already have labels.
C) learn the meaning of words through gesture.
D) guess whether a label refers to a whole object or to a part of that object.

Question 32

Which statement accurately describes early language development in deaf babies?

A) Deaf babies do not babble early in development.
B) Deaf babies increase the variety of the babbling sounds they make just like hearing babies do.
C) Deaf babies who are learning sign language appear to go through the same stages of language as hearing babies.
D) Deaf babies begin to babble but stop once they reach two months of age.

Question 33

One explanation for the success of dialogic reading is that it is based on the concept of

A) cognitive processing.
B) goal-directed behavior.
C) accelerated learning.
D) the zone of proximal development.

Question 34

The assumptions and principles that children use to facilitate their vocabulary learning are called

A) constraints.
B) hypotheses.
C) linguistic guidelines.
D) transitional probabilities.

Question 35

When his mother points out a window at a cat and says "Look, Sam! There goes a feline!" Sam assumes 'feline" to mean the

A) whole cat.
B) cat's whiskers.
C) cat's tail.
D) cat's motion.

Question 36

The term used to describe how adults and children change the way they speak to infants and young children is

A) infantile speech.
B) foundational speech.
C) child-directed speech.
D) pragmatic speech.

Question 37

When a child and adult look at a book together and actively talk about it, switching the role of asking and answering questions about it, it is the process of

A) the PEER sequence.
B) phonetic training.
C) dialogic reading.
D) balanced reading.

Question 38

When Dan is putting together a puzzle, his father can hear him talking through the process to himself. This is an example of

A) dyslexia.
B) private speech.
C) egocentric speech.
D) word salad.

Question 39

Metalinguistic knowledge allows children to

A) increase the size of their vocabularies.
B) improve their phonological skills.
C) think about language and how to use it.
D) improve their receptive language skills.

Question 40

When children assume that there is one (and only one) name for an object, they are engaging in

A) whole object bias.
B) taxonomic constraint.
C) semantic bootstrapping.
D) mutual exclusivity constraint.

Question 41

Aaron does not greet others when he sees them, constantly interrupts others when they are talking and doesn't understand jokes. Aaron has a __________ disorder.

A) childhood-onset fluency disorder.
B) language disorder.
C) speech sound disorder.
D) pragmatic communication disorder.

Question 42

The ultimate goal of bilingual classrooms is to

A) transition students into monolingual English classrooms.
B) make children proficient in their native language.
C) have children learn two languages in early elementary school.
D) provide children with instruction primarily in their native language.

Question 43

When adolescents and adults write, their goal usually is to

A) transform information into ideas that they can share with their readers.
B) repeat as much information as they possibly can.
C) show their understanding of pragmatics.
D) engage in as much code switching as possible.

Question 44

Young children who learn two languages simultaneously will

A) be cognitively confused.
B) reach language milestones at about the same time as their peers.
C) speak a mishmash of both languages.
D) never learn to speak either language well.

Question 45

Children learn that words are composed of separate sounds called phonemes and that phonemes can be combined into words when they are learning the read using the

A) whole language approach.
B) phonics approach.
C) basal reader approach.
D) authentic literature approach.

Question 46

The whole language approach to reading focuses on

A) letter-sound relationships.
B) letter recognition.
C) reading material that interests the child.
D) reading sight words.

Question 47

Children who frequently substitute one sound for another (for example, using ph for th) might be diagnosed with a

A) childhood-onset fluency disorder.
B) language disorder.
C) speech sound disorder.
D) pragmatic communication disorder.

Question 48

Children who are diagnosed with dyslexia show neurological differences, demonstrated in that they have

A) a smaller auditory cortex.
B) smaller connections between Broca's area and Wernicke's area.
C) more activity in the left hemisphere of the brain.
D) abnormalities in the occipital lobes of the brain.

Question 49

Throughout life, our receptive language exceeds our expressive language.

Question 50

One of the interventions that has had some success helping children with dyslexia improve their reading skills is

A) dialogic reading training.
B) systematic training in phonics.
C) family-based therapy.
D) a cognitive processing intervention.

Question 51

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders have difficulty with

A) both verbal and nonverbal communication.
B) only verbal communication.
C) only nonverbal communication.
D) reading and writing, but not with speaking.

Question 52

Balanced reading is an approach to teaching reading that

A) combines the whole language and phonics approaches.
B) recommends that we not teach reading before children enter kindergarten.
C) allows the child decide for himself or herself what the child wants to read.
D) allows the adult decide what the child will read, but lets the child decide how much he or she will read.

Question 53

When a child frequently repeats what others say, they are showing a condition called

A) mimicking.
B) echolalia.
C) parroting.
D) gestural speech.

Question 54

Which of the following statements regarding bilingualism is true?

A) Unlike a first language, there appears to be a critical period for learning to speak a second language.
B) Different parts of the brain are used when learning a second language compared to learning a first language.
C) The same parts of the brain are used when learning a second language, but they may be used less efficiently.
D) Learning to speak a second language is easier than learning to speak a first language because we use the same parts of our brain for both.

Question 55

B.F. Skinner believed that learning occurs through the process of classical conditioning.

Question 56

Learning a second language at a young age is makes it more likely that a child will

A) be better at learning a third language in high school.
B) not show a detectable accent.
C) be less likely to learn to read in their first language on time.
D) be better at performing on standardized tests.

Question 57

Joy wrote a short paper on whales. The first sentence of the paper is "Whales are big and eat in the ocean." This is an example of

A) knowledge transforming.
B) reading sight words.
C) phonics.
D) knowledge telling.

Question 58

In __________________ programs students receive some of their academic instruction in their native language while they receive concentrated instructions to help them learn English.

A) immersion
B) transitional bilingual education
C) developmental bilingual
D) dual language

Question 59

Maria's parents want her to continue to speak Spanish, even though they have lived in the United States for five years. The type of language that this refers to is called

A) whole language.
B) immersion language.
C) heritage language.
D) primary language.

Question 60

Children who have difficulty producing sounds or using sounds correctly for their age are diagnosed with a

A) childhood-onset fluency disorder.
B) language disorder.
C) speech sound disorder.
D) pragmatic communication disorder.

Question 61

Compare the following two theories of language development: Nativism as described by Noam Chomsky and cognitive processing theory.

Question 62

In their first six months, infants are able to discriminate phonemes that exist in languages that are not in their environment.

Question 63

Researchers have found that children use certain principles or constraints to figure out what words mean and how to use them. Describe three of these principles.

Question 64

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders never develop the ability to speak.

Question 65

Systematic training in phonics can improve a child's reading skills if they have dyslexia.

Question 66

Echolalia can be a normal part of language development.

Question 67

The process of acquiring emergent literacy skills begins in infancy.

Question 68

Phonological skills are the best predictors of a child's success in learning to read.

Question 69

Frequent texting does not appear to harm an adolescent's ability to spell correctly.

Question 70

Is there a critical period for language learning after which we are unable to learn language? Give evidence for your opinion.

Question 71

Children all around the world learn to use nouns before they learn to use verbs.

Question 72

How do children who grow up bilingual from birth and attend bilingual education programs compare to children growing up monolingual? Discuss language milestones, later cognitive milestones, school success, and language success as older children and/or adults.

Question 73

Babies as young as three to five days old sound like the language they have been hearing when they cry.

Question 74

Children who are dyslexic have the greatest problem with comprehending language.

Question 75

Children who learn two languages simultaneously have smaller vocabularies in each language than children who speak one language.

Question 76

From birth, parents can identify why babies are crying.

Question 77

Describe the differences in the language environment between infants and young children in low income families as compared to middle or high income families. What are the consequences of these differences? Design an intervention program to promote language development for children in low income families.

Question 78

Infants who are taught to use sign language have a slight advantage in their early spoken language.

Question 79

Three four-year-olds are sitting at a table coloring. One says, "I have the red crayon." The second one says "I'm making a blue bird." The third one says, "I like coloring." How would Piaget and Vygotsky each explain what is going on?

Question 80

Describe the five basic aspects of language that researchers commonly study?