Deck 6: Development of Language and Symbol Use

Question 1

Johnson and Newport's study of the English proficiency of Korean and Chinese immigrants in the United States demonstrated that knowledge of English grammar was associated with the

A) length of time individuals had lived in the United States.
B) age at which individuals began learning English.
C) individuals' motivation to learn English.
D) length of time individuals had lived in the United States and the age at which individuals began learning English.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

What can parents do to positively influence their preschoolers' ability to produce narratives?

A) ask elaborative questions during conversations
B) teach grammatical rules when reading books
C) encourage the child to think about future events
D) model complex word combinations

Answer 2

A

Question 3

A study by Baldwin in which an experimenter showed 18-month-olds two novel objects and then concealed them in containers demonstrated that children

A) use adults' focus of attention as a cue to word meaning.
B) are influenced by the grammatical category of new words.
C) often make incorrect assumptions about the meaning of new words.
D) are unable to use intentionality when interpreting the meaning of novel words.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Using the distributional properties of language is an example of what type of learning?

A) statistical learning
B) habituation
C) perceptual learning
D) instrumental conditioning

Question 5

The fact that only humans acquire language in the normal course of development indicates that language is

A) species-specific.
B) species-universal.
C) pragmatic.
D) syntactic.

Question 6

Which of these factors is NOT a pragmatic cue?

A) focus of the speaker's attention
B) grammatical category of the word
C) speaker's intention
D) speaker's emotional response

Question 7

Research examining the association between infants' ability to detect differences among speech sounds at the age of 6 months and their later language skills has demonstrated that 6-month-old infants

A) who were better able to detect differences scored higher on some tests of language skills at later ages.
B) who were better able to detect differences scored lower on some tests of language skills at later ages.
C) varied in their ability to detect differences, but there was no association between this ability and later language skills.
D) did not vary in their ability to detect differences, and thus there was no association between this ability and later language skills.

Question 8

Children's semantic development refers to their learning of the

A) meaning system and words of their language.
B) cultural rules for how their language is used.
C) rules for combining the words in their language.
D) sound system of their language.

Question 9

Which word is one of the first words spoken in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese?

A) daddy
B) hi
C) milk
D) no

Question 10

Kayla is talking to her infant daughter. Based on what you know about IDS, you can expect Kayla to do all of these EXCEPT

A) use slower speech.
B) enhance the clarity of vowel sounds.
C) show less pitch variability.
D) use exaggerated facial expressions.

Question 11

Which idea is used as evidence to support Skinner's view of language development?

A) Children acquire language very rapidly and with no direct instruction.
B) The sounds produced by infants are affected by parents' smiling and touching in response.
C) Human languages share many characteristics.
D) Groups of deaf children not exposed to language invented their own sign language.

Question 12

Bergelson and Swingley demonstrated that when 6-month-old infants were shown pictures of common items and researchers named one item, infants

A) could point to the named item.
B) behaved the same whether the word was in their native language or not.
C) did not recognize the label.
D) looked at the correct picture more often than at the other pictures.

Question 13

Children's phonological development refers to their learning of the

A) meaning system and words of their language.
B) cultural rules for how their language is used.
C) rules for combining the words in their language.
D) sound system of their language.

Question 14

When caregivers follow the baby's lead, looking at and commenting on whatever the infant is looking at, _____ has occurred.

A) judgement
B) orientation
C) joint attention
D) prosody

Question 15

Which cue would a young child NOT be able to use when interpreting the meaning of a novel word used by an adult?

A) where the adult is looking or pointing
B) whether the novel word was used as a noun, an adjective, or a verb
C) the intentionality of the adult using the novel word
D) Young children are capable of using all these cues to interpret word meaning.

Question 16

Descriptions of past events that have the basic structure of a story are referred to as

A) collective monologues.
B) anecdotes.
C) cooperative dialogues.
D) narratives.

Question 17

The average 5-year-old child is _____ the average college student at the basic grammatical structure of his or her native language.

A) much less competent than
B) slightly less competent than
C) as competent as
D) more competent than

Question 18

A _____ is a symbol.

A) word
B) person's smile
C) computer
D) color

Question 19

Children's syntactic development refers to their learning of the

A) meaning system and words of their language.
B) cultural rules for how their language is used.
C) rules for combining the words in their language.
D) sound system of their language.

Question 20

The cultural practice of referring to ships as female is an example of something an individual would learn with _____ development.

A) semantic
B) metalinguistic
C) pragmatic
D) syntactic

Question 21

Samantha is experiencing a "vocabulary spurt." How old is she likely to be?

A) 6 months
B) 12 months
C) 18 months
D) 24 months

Question 22

Theorists who have disputed Chomsky's view of language development by pointing out that the communicative function of language is key to understanding language development would be MOST interested in

A) electrical activity in the brain taking place while speaking.
B) deaf children's development of their own sign language with a regular grammatical structure in the absence of language exposure.
C) children's ability to use social context to interpret others' speech.
D) the statistical regularities of speech.

Question 23

Which statement about children's use of private speech is TRUE?

A) Young children's use of private speech when in the presence of others is a possible sign of developmental delay.
B) Young children talk to themselves primarily as a form of entertainment.
C) Private speech typically ceases at about the same time children begin to string three words together.
D) Private speech eventually becomes internalized as thought.

Question 24

Toddler Seth calls all his stuffed animals, including teddy bears, bunnies, dogs, and ducks, "bear." When shown pictures of a teddy bear and a toy stuffed rabbit and asked to point to the bear, which behavior is Seth's MOST likely response?

A) He will point to both the rabbit and the bear.
B) He will point to neither the rabbit nor the bear.
C) He will point to only the bear.
D) It is unclear whether he will point to the bear or the rabbit, but he will point to one and only one of the objects.

Question 25

Children's first sentences can often be described as _____ speech.

A) holophrastic
B) telegraphic
C) overregulated
D) pragmatic

Question 26

Which idea is NOT used as evidence to support nativist views of language development?

A) Children acquire language very rapidly and with no direct instruction.
B) Nonhumans are unable to learn language.
C) Children are motivated to use language to communicate with others.
D) Groups of deaf children not exposed to language invented their own sign language.

Question 27

Which speech sound is LEAST likely to be uttered by an infant who has not yet begun to babble?

A) goo
B) gaga
C) aaah
D) oooh

Question 28

Which statement is the BEST evidence of a sensitive period for language development?

A) Deaf adults who learned ASL as their native language are more proficient than those who learned ASL as a second language.
B) Genie eventually learned to comprehend and speak English after intensive training.
C) Adults are more likely than children to suffer permanent language impairment from brain damage.
D) The length of time Chinese and Korean immigrants had been in the United States was more strongly associated with their English proficiency than was the age at which they had come to the United States.

Question 29

Which statement about the vocalizations and babbling of deaf infants is TRUE?

A) Until approximately 6 months of age, deaf infants produce vocalizations similar to those of hearing infants.
B) The vocal babbling of deaf infants begins at the same time as that of hearing babies.
C) Deaf infants exposed to ASL begin babbling manually at about 12 months of age.
D) Deaf infants do not engage in vocal babbling.

Question 30

Of these phrases, which is MOST likely to be spoken by a child in the telegraphic speech phase?

A) "ouch head"
B) "the bunny"
C) "apple eat"
D) "baby sleeping"

Question 31

The English language uses _____ of the approximately _____ sounds used in the world's languages.

A) 26; 50
B) 22; 400
C) 34; 75
D) 45; 200

Question 32

Which phrase is an example of overregularization?

A) referring to all four-legged animals as "doggie"
B) calling a rabbit "wabbit"
C) using the word "gooses"
D) using the word "elbow" to refer to a knee

Question 33

Danny is an American English-speaking child and just said his first word. Which of these is MOST likely to be that word?

A) mommy
B) go
C) bunny
D) tree

Question 34

The utterances of nonhuman communicators are considered to have limited or no _____, which is a defining feature of language.

A) semantics
B) morphemes
C) phonemes
D) syntax

Question 35

The ability to understand what another person says is called language

A) comprehension.
B) knowledge.
C) construction.
D) production.

Question 36

Which of these skills typically develops LATEST?

A) reciprocal conversation
B) comprehension of multiple meanings of words
C) ability to use information about others' perspectives in conversation
D) production of narratives

Question 37

_____ refers to the fact that certain sounds are more likely to appear together than are others in language.

A) Distributional properties
B) Voice onset time
C) Categorical perception
D) Word segmentation

Question 38

A broad interpretation of the meaning of a word is referred to as

A) overextension.
B) underextension.
C) babbling.
D) pragmatics.

Question 39

Using signs to communicate is referred to as

A) comprehension.
B) knowledge.
C) construction.
D) production.

Question 40

In studies by DeLoache and her colleagues, 2½-year-olds who cannot use the information from the scale model to find the large version of the toy in the large room are having trouble representing the model as

A) a real object.
B) a symbol.
C) either a real object or a symbol.
D) a communicative device.

Question 41

According to Noam Chomsky, babies are born with

A) a learning module that controls language acquisition and other aspects of cognitive functioning.
B) knowledge of the specific sounds involved in language.
C) knowledge of the general grammatical rules of all languages.
D) a genetic predisposition to acquire non-native language.

Question 42

The _____ perspective is oriented around computational modeling.

A) connectionist
B) nativist
C) innate
D) interactionist

Question 43

Morphemes refer to the

A) rules for combining words of a language.
B) elementary units of sound.
C) pairs of words in a language that have the same sound but different meanings.
D) smallest units of meaning.

Question 44

Which bit of conversation is an example of a narrative?

A) "Grandma, please take me to the park. I want to go to the park and do the twisty slide."
B) "Daddy and I went to the park today. I went on the big twisty slide."
C) "Yay, I love the park. This twisty slide is so much fun."
D) "Kelsey said she will take me to the park tomorrow. I am going to go down the twisty slide."

Question 45

Research has demonstrated that viewing of infant educational videos by infants around the age of 12 months is

A) related to increases in vocabulary only when caregivers view the videos with the infants.
B) positively associated with vocabulary size.
C) negatively associated with vocabulary size.
D) unrelated to vocabulary size.

Question 46

When preschool children were shown a picture of a catlike animal and an experimenter either simply labeled the animal "dog" (group A) or said, "You're not going to believe this, but this is actually a dog" (group B), how likely were the children to extend the word to other catlike stimuli?

A) Both groups of children readily extended the word.
B) Both groups of children were similarly reluctant to extend the word.
C) Group A was more reluctant than was group B to extend the word.
D) Group B was more reluctant than was group A to extend the word.

Question 47

The distinctive mode of speech used when speaking to infants and toddlers is referred to as

A) infant-directed speech.
B) prosody.
C) pragmatics.
D) syntax.

Question 48

What is the MOST common drawing subject for young children?

A) tree
B) house
C) person
D) sun

Question 49

Which theorist proposed Universal Grammar?

A) Skinner
B) Newport
C) Chomsky
D) Pinker

Question 50

Based on the research reviewed in the text, which statement is the BEST advice one could give new parents regarding viewing of educational videos by their infants?

A) Keep viewing under 1 hour per day.
B) There is no amount of video viewing that has been demonstrated to be valuable.
C) View educational videos with your baby.
D) Ensure that your baby watches only educational videos.

Question 51

The Eimas and colleagues study that examined infants' comprehension of speech sounds demonstrated that 1- and 4-month-old infants differentiated between

A) /pa/ with a VOT of 60 ms and /pa/ with a VOT of 80 ms.
B) /ba/ with a VOT of 20 ms and /pa/ with a VOT of 40 ms.
C) /pa/ with a VOT of 20 ms and /pa/ with a VOT of 40 ms.
D) /ba/ with a VOT of 60 ms and /pa/ with a VOT of 80 ms.

Question 52

Jaimson is right-handed. This means that language is primarily represented in

A) the left hemisphere of the brain.
B) the right hemisphere of the brain.
C) the left and right hemispheres of the brain equally.
D) either hemisphere of the brain, as individuals differ greatly as to which part of their brain controls language.

Question 53

The length of time between when air passes through the lips and when the vocal cords start vibrating is referred to as

A) prosody.
B) voice onset time.
C) categorical perception.
D) word segmentation.

Question 54

Which word is generally the first word spoken by infants who speak English?

A) daddy
B) hi
C) milk
D) no

Question 55

Which statement about infants' ability to distinguish between speech sounds is TRUE?

A) Newborns can discriminate only between speech sounds they have heard before.
B) Newborns possess an innate ability to discriminate between speech sounds they have never heard before.
C) Babies must learn to distinguish between speech sounds as they learn which contrasts are important for their native language.
D) Babies gain the ability to distinguish between speech sounds that are not used in their native language as they mature.

Question 56

In the study by Brown in which preschool children were shown hands kneading material in a container, young children tended to interpret "some sib" as the

A) material.
B) container.
C) act of kneading.
D) any of these.

Question 57

The number of words children know is NOT related to

A) the number of words that they hear.
B) their caregivers' vocabularies.
C) their socioeconomic status.
D) their genetic predisposition to acquire language.

Question 58

The history of Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) and its status as a true language with its own grammar is evidence for the _____ view of language development.

A) interactionist
B) nativist
C) connectionist
D) gestural-language specificity

Question 59

Imagine that a young child is presented with a novel word, "encyclopedia," when her grandmother says, "Oh, look at the encyclopedia." In front of the child are two objects, a bright pink-covered book-"book" is a word the child already knows-and a green onion, an object the child has never seen before. The child is MOST likely to make the assumption that the novel word refers to the

A) book.
B) pages of the book.
C) onion.
D) color of the onion.

Question 60

_____ is a way in which parents play a role in their children's grammatical development.

A) Explicit instruction
B) Filling in missing parts of incomplete utterances
C) Correcting grammatical errors
D) Direct teaching of the native language

Question 61

Learning _____ is considered part of semantic development.

A) how to produce the "r" sound
B) the rules of negation
C) how to take turns during conversations with others
D) the contrast between the meanings of the words "table" and "desk"

Question 62

Which ability is subject to perceptual narrowing?

A) infant-directed talk
B) sound discrimination
C) word segmentation
D) metalinguistic knowledge

Question 63

Research examining groups of deaf children who had no exposure to formal spoken or signed languages has demonstrated that

A) children rarely go beyond the linguistic input they receive.
B) although children sometimes go beyond the linguistic input they receive, their spontaneous language remains far from qualifying as a true language.
C) children do go beyond the linguistic input they receive, and their spontaneous language can develop into a true language.
D) children who are not exposed to a formal language are unable to comprehend or produce language.

Question 64

Which statement is an indicator that babbling by older infants depends on experience?

A) Babies babble sounds that are not in their native language.
B) Deaf infants babble vocally and manually.
C) French adults were able to distinguish between babbling by babies from French-speaking families and babbling by babies from Arabic- and Cantonese-speaking families.
D) Infants and toddlers who babble do so in their native language.

Question 65

Research conducted by Fernald on infants' comprehension of the meaning of the emotional tone of infant-directed speech indicated that

A) infants cannot differentiate between positively toned and negatively toned speech.
B) although infants can differentiate between positively toned and negatively toned speech, they do not behave as if they comprehend the meaning of the emotional tone.
C) infants exhibit appropriate facial emotion when listening to positively toned and negatively toned speech.
D) infants can differentiate between positively toned and negatively toned speech only in their native language.

Question 66

Two-year-old Shana is shown a novel object. The object is 6 inches wide, is made out of blue wire, and is in the shape of an octagon. An adult tells Shana, "This is a glub." Of these objects, which is Shana MOST likely to later believe is a glub?

A) a 12-inch octagonal object made out of red felt
B) a 6-inch square object made out of green ceramic
C) a 2-inch triangular object made out of blue plastic
D) a 10-inch rectangular object made out of orange wire

Question 67

Of these phrases, which is LEAST likely to be spoken by a child in the telegraphic speech phase?

A) "more cup"
B) "a dog"
C) "up me"
D) "baby sleep"

Question 68

In a study by Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff, when infants were shown two videotaped scenes, one with a woman kissing keys while holding a ball and the other with a woman kissing a ball while holding keys, and heard, "She's kissing the keys," infants

A) were sensitive to word order.
B) learned from syntactic bootstrapping.
C) used intention to comprehend meaning.
D) did all of these.

Question 69

The phenomenon that in any language, certain sounds are more likely to occur together than are others is referred to as

A) prosody.
B) pragmatics.
C) word segmentation.
D) distributional properties.

Question 70

_____ is NOT a symbolic artifact.

A) A map
B) A scale model
C) The written word "tree"
D) A phone

Question 71

Which statement about children who are exposed to two languages from birth is NOT true?

A) Children exposed to two languages often confuse the grammar of the two languages.
B) Children exposed to two languages may appear to lag behind monolingual children on some language measures.
C) Children exposed to two languages tend to perform better than monolingual children on cognitive measures.
D) Children exposed to two languages correctly use the phonological systems of each language to pronounce words in that language and not words in the other language.

Question 72

Branson and Amanda want to make sure that their child speaks both English and Spanish. Which statement is the BEST advice for these parents?

A) As long as the child is exposed to the second language for an extended period of time, it does not matter when exposure to the language begins.
B) Wait to expose the child to a second language until he or she is old enough to be motivated to learn the language.
C) Expose the child to the second language as early as possible.
D) Begin exposure to the second language well after you are sure the child has learned the native language completely and proficiently.

Question 73

Which statement about the results of Janet Werker's research on 6- to 12-month-old infants' ability to distinguish between speech sounds that are not important in their native language is TRUE?

A) Infants of all ages were able to distinguish between the speech sounds.
B) Infants of all ages were unable to distinguish between the speech sounds.
C) Infants 6 to 8 months old were unable to distinguish between the speech sounds, but 10- to 12-month-olds were able to make the distinctions.
D) Infants 6 to 8 months old were able to distinguish between the speech sounds, but 10- to 12-month-olds were unable to make the distinctions.

Question 74

The words a child can say are referred to as the child's

A) distributional properties.
B) productive vocabulary.
C) categorical perception.
D) word segmentation.

Question 75

Bilingual infants are less likely than are monolingual infants to

A) abide by the whole-object assumption.
B) follow the mutual-exclusivity principle.
C) learn words with fast mapping.
D) use pragmatic cues.

Question 76

Studies of congenitally deaf American and Chinese children who had never been exposed to any formal sign language demonstrated that the children

A) learned only a small number of "home signs," and did so by modeling their parents.
B) invented only a small number of "home signs" in order to communicate just their basic needs.
C) spontaneously imposed a rudimentary grammar using their "home signs."
D) combined their "home signs" in a structure similar to that of their parents' spoken language.

Question 77

Which factor is NOT involved in learning language?

A) phonological development
B) semantic development
C) pragmatic development
D) production development

Question 78

Avi is 13 months old and has a large vocabulary for her age. The words she can say are referred to as her

A) distributional properties.
B) productive vocabulary.
C) categorical perception.
D) word segmentation.

Question 79

Which child is demonstrating overextension?

A) Mandi uses the word "cup" for any container that holds liquid, including vases and birdbaths.
B) Carla substitutes easier sounds for ones that are hard to say, such as "tuck" for "stuck."
C) Eddie expresses his desire for his parents to read to him by using a single word, "book."
D) Robbie leaves out difficult parts of words, as when he uses "tend" for the word "pretend."

Question 80

The finding that infants pay attention to the speaker's intentions when interpreting the meaning of the speaker's words supports the importance of _____ in language development.

A) the simultaneous activity of interconnected processing units
B) Universal Grammar
C) a language-specific learning module
D) social interaction