Deck 11: Development of Language and Communication Skills

Question 1

Which of the following best summarizes Noam Chomsky's view of language acquisition?

A)It is heavily dependent on imitation and social interaction.
B)Biological factors play a relatively minor role.
C)An inborn linguist processor guides the process.
D)Reinforcement of correct language structure is crucial.

Answer 1

An inborn linguist processor guides the process.

Question 2

Lochlain uses the Gaelic word for truck when conversing in English with his English-speaking grandparents.What does this represent?

A)morphological misunderstanding
B)an overregularization
C)an underextension
D)code-mixing

Answer 2

code-mixing

Question 3

Which type of language knowledge has been acquired when a child knows how to take turns in a conversation and adjusts his or her vocabulary to fit the listener's needs?

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

Answer 3

pragmatic

Question 4

Which theory of language development emphasizes the notions of sensitive periods and linguistic universals?

A)learning
B)nativist
C)interactionist
D)empiricist

Question 5

How do bilingual children compare to socioeconomically equivalent monolingual children with respect to language proficiency and acquisition?

A)Bilingual children fail to acquire normal levels of proficiency in either language.
B)Bilingual children show significant language delays when compared to monolingual children of the same socioeconomic status.
C)Bilingual children show no language delays, but do display lower levels of metalinguistic knowledge.
D)Bilingual children acquire normal levels of language proficiency and show some cognitive advantages.

Question 6

In addition to several other pieces of evidence, Lenneberg and others have cited commonalities in structure of Creolized languages as evidence for which theory of language acquisition?

A)interactionist
B)learning
C)nativist
D)empiricist

Question 7

When Petrov told his 3-year-old sister that "I hit the bat that flew into the attic with my baseball bat," his sister was very confused and wondered how the long wooden stick that her brother often carried could possibly fly.When Petrov's sister can recognize that the word bat can have two different meanings, what aspect of language knowledge will she have acquired?

A)phonology
B)syntax
C)pragmatics
D)semantics

Question 8

Stefan's parents are very articulate and provide an environment that is rich in verbal stimuli.Stefan's mother states that because of this environment, he began to use telegraphic speech when he was only 6 months old.Would a developmentalist accept the mother's statement as plausible?

A)No, but only if he or she supports the nativist view of language development.
B)Yes, but only if he or she supports the learning view of language development.
C)No, regardless of his or her view of language development.
D)Yes, but only if he or she supports the interactionist view of language development.

Question 9

Which theory best accounts for the apparent ease of language acquisition in infancy and early childhood?

A)nativist
B)sociocultural
C)learning
D)information-processing

Question 10

Which theory of language development emphasizes the processes of imitation and reinforcement?

A)learning theory
B)Chomsky's theory
C)nativist theory
D)language-making capacity

Question 11

The sentence "The speeding the raced city through streets car" would be difficult for an English speaker to understand because it violates a basic set of rules of the English language.What rules are violated?

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

Question 12

Which of the following is the most accurate description of the nativist approach with respect to language development?

A)The nativist approach is incomplete and it describes, rather than explains, language learning.
B)The nativist approach focuses too heavily on the environment while ignoring the biological mechanisms that underlie language development.
C)The nativist approach is the most complete description of language acquisition available at the present time.
D)The nativist approach can explain the development of phonology and semantics but cannot account for the emergence of syntax or pragmatics.

Question 13

Which of the following best describes an overextension of word meaning?

A)A child uses a general word to refer to a small range of objects or events.
B)A child knows more than one word for the same object or event.
C)A child attempts to describe an object or event that he or she has never seen.
D)A child uses a word incorrectly to describe a wide variety of objects or events.

Question 14

Which of the following are the most likely words to be omitted in telegraphic speech?

A)adjectives and prepositions
B)adjectives and auxiliary verbs
C)articles and auxiliary verbs
D)articles and adjectives

Question 15

Which of the following best summarizes the research findings of Nelson regarding the type of words that infants were first to use?

A)action words
B)question words
C)object words
D)a random mixture of action words and questions

Question 16

When a child advances from utterances such as "No he going" to "He's not going," what aspect of language knowledge has he or she acquired?

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

Question 17

In one popular science-fiction movie, the Jedi master uses sentences such as, "When 900 years old you are, look so good you will not." When he speaks in this way, the Jedi master can convey meaning, but his sentences do not conform to which of the following rules of the English language?

A)syntax
B)phonology
C)morphology
D)pragmatics

Question 18

On average, how many new words do infants add to their vocabulary between the ages of 18 and 24 months?

A)approximately one per week
B)up to 10 words per day
C)between 10 and 20 per week
D)approximately 100 per week

Question 19

By the age of 2 to 2 1/2, how do most children use terms such as big and little?

A)to draw proper normative conclusions and to make appropriate functional judgments
B)to draw proper normative conclusions and perceptual inferences
C)to draw proper perceptual inferences and to make appropriate functional judgments
D)to make appropriate functional judgments and draw upon spatial contrasts

Question 20

Sometimes children will correctly use irregular words such as feet or went for a time and then begin making errors such as foots or goed.What do these errors indicate?

A)that the child is spending too much time hearing other children's errors
B)that the parents have not provided sufficient reinforcement and feedback for correctly using these words
C)that the child is highly motivated
D)that there has been an advance in the child's syntactical knowledge

Question 21

Which Piagetian concept is illustrated by a toddler's overextension of words to describe new objects and events that he or she encounters?

A)organization
B)assimilation
C)egocentric speech
D)accommodation

Question 22

When do infants first show a preference for speech that contains natural breaks and pauses?

A)birth
B)2 months of age
C)7 months of age
D)15 months of age

Question 23

Which of the following best summarizes current research findings regarding the role of imitation in syntax acquisition?

A)It is central for the acquisition of syntactic knowledge.
B)It facilitates acquisition of syntactic knowledge, but it is not essential.
C)The more imitation a child displays, the more advanced his or her syntactic structures will be.
D)Imitation is not as important to the development of syntax as reinforcement.

Question 24

Quentin is a 2-year-old living in Toronto.He is an only child.Based on research conducted by Nelson, what language style is Quentin likely to have?

A)expressive
B)imperative
C)referential
D)declarative

Question 25

Which of the following best defines an object scope constraint?

A)Words refer to whole objects rather than to parts of objects or to object attributes.
B)Each object has one label, and different words refer to separate, nonoverlapping categories.
C)Each word has a unique meaning.
D)Novel words refer to previously unnamed referents.

Question 26

Which of the following statements regarding bilingual children is supported by research findings?

A)Early sequential bilinguals acquire the phonology of their second language and speak exactly like monolinguals.
B)Learning two languages in infancy is significantly more challenging than learning one language.
C)Sequential bilinguals acquire vocabulary at the same rate as monolingual speakers.
D)Learning two languages prior to age of 2 years confuses children about when to use their different languages.

Question 27

When young children overregularize and produce forms such as tooths, satted, or goed, as well as correct forms (e.g., walked, played, and cars), what are they demonstrating?

A)that they do not yet understand grammatical transformation rules
B)that they have learned a rule for producing word endings, but they have failed to retrieve the correct form of an irregular word
C)that they are imitating the "baby talk" of other young children
D)that their parents must be providing poor language models for them or failing to correct the child's mistakes

Question 28

In addition to several other pieces of evidence, researchers have cited cross-cultural findings of a commonality in structure of early spoken and signed language as evidence for which theory of language acquisition?

A)interactionist
B)learning
C)nativist
D)empiricist

Question 29

Infant babbling often sounds as if the child has learned the "tune" before the words.What aspect of language is being referred to by the word tune?

A)syntax
B)intonation
C)semantics
D)pragmatics

Question 30

Jacque's 4-month-old daughter was upset and fussy, but after listening to her father talk to her for a few minutes she is now calm.Based on the results from Fernald's research, how did Jacque speak to her?

A)with short sentences that had a rising intonation
B)with humming or soft cooing sounds
C)with short sentences that had a falling intonation
D)with an even voice, with little intonation or inflection

Question 31

How does the referential style of early speech compare to the expressive style?

A)It is more common, and consists mainly of words that refer to people or objects.
B)It is less common, and consists mainly of words that refer to people or objects.
C)It is more common, and contains many personal or social words.
D)It is less common, and contains a large number of personal or social words.

Question 32

How does the babbling of children in families using only sign language differ from the babbling of children in families that use spoken language?

A)It is similar, but slower to develop.
B)It is different, and faster to develop.
C)It is manual and characteristic of signing.
D)It is verbal and more persistent.

Question 33

Yuko and Eva are both 3-year-olds who have no older siblings.Yuko lives in Tokyo, Japan, and Eva lives in Calgary, Canada.Based on Nelson's research findings, what type of language style would you expect each girl to develop?

A)Yuko would have an expressive language style, whereas Eva would have a referential language style.
B)Both girls would have an expressive language style.
C)Both girls would have a referential language style.
D)Yuko would have a referential language style, whereas Eva would have an expressive language style.

Question 34

Which of the following would be most likely to appear in a 2-year-old's spontaneous conversation?

A)use of what, where, and who questions, because these all have concrete referents
B)use of why, when, and how questions, because the referents are abstract
C)use of all the wh- question words, but incorrectly
D)little use of wh- question words at all at this age

Question 35

Which of the following best describes why effective communication progresses during childhood?

A)It is due to the growth of vocabulary and cognitive skills.
B)It is due to the growth of sociolinguistic understanding.
C)It is due to the growth of cognitive skills and sociolinguistic understanding.
D)It is due to advances in vocabulary and metalinguistic awareness.

Question 36

Why do parents of young children use child-directed speech, recasts, and expansions?

A)to deliberately attempt to facilitate acquisition of grammar
B)to provide simple language models for their children to imitate
C)to optimize effectiveness of communication with their child
D)to provide negative evidence of ungrammatical speech

Question 37

According to the learning perspective, what accounts for a child's early speech?

A)The language acquisition device is triggered.
B)The parents selectively reinforce aspects of babbling that resemble words.
C)The child's frontal lobes are now fully mature.
D)The child has mastered the basic syntax of his or her native language.

Question 38

What is suggested by the fact that coos of all infants sound the same, regardless of whether the infant can hear?

A)Such sounds arise from the infant's mutual exclusivity constraint.
B)Such sounds reflect the parents' recasts and extensions.
C)Such sounds convey self-generated meanings for adult listeners.
D)Such sounds develop with maturation of the brain and vocal organs.

Question 39

Based on Janet Werker's research, how is vocabulary size related to an infant's ability to discriminate similar-sounding words?

A)It is less important than age for predicting performance.
B)It is more important than age for predicting performance.
C)It is less important than phonological awareness for predicting performance.
D)It is more important than phonological awareness for predicting performance.

Question 40

If a 2-year-old child uses the word car in a situation where her dad is washing the car, again when she is sitting in the car, and yet again when she is looking out the window, each time with different inflection, what does research indicate that this toddler is probably doing?

A)expressing three different messages about the car
B)simply practising use of the new label that she has learned
C)using the word car syntactically
D)underextending the use of the word car

Question 41

Suppose the mother of a young infant claimed that she could keep her baby in a happy mood just by maintaining one kind of rhythmic intonation.Based upon research evidence, how likely is this mother's claim?

A)It is not very likely, because intonation is one of the last aspects of language to be acquired.
B)It is not very likely, because infants show no differential response to adult intonation until they are capable of producing a variety of intonational patterns themselves.
C)It is very likely, because infants show discrimination of intonational patterns very early and seem to recognize that they carry different meanings.
D)It is very likely, because infants show remarkably adult intonation patterns themselves within the first week of life.

Question 42

Which of the following characterizes the acquisition of American Sign Language (ASL)?

A)It follows stages very different from those of spoken language.
B)It can be more difficult to acquire than spoken language and hence is typically acquired considerably later.
C)It interferes with the acquisition of spoken language.
D)It follows stages similar to those of spoken language.

Question 43

Which of the following has been found to be essential, and sufficient, if the acquisition of syntax is to proceed normally?

A)exposure to other people conversing
B)a high rate of imitation of adult language
C)one-to-one conversations with a proficient speaker
D)parental reinforcement of correct grammatical usage

Question 44

Which of the following observations has been interpreted as providing compelling support for a nativist perspective of language development?

A)the emergence and use of pidgin languages by adults in multicultural communities
B)the ability of chimpanzees to acquire as many as 100 American Sign Language gestures
C)the ability for young animals of a variety of mammalian species to make subtle auditory discriminations
D)the use of linguistic universals that are evident in early language development

Question 45

Which of the following best characterizes vocabulary development after infants speak their first word?

A)Vocabulary growth is slow for several months and then speeds up dramatically.
B)Vocabulary immediately grows at an extremely rapid rate.
C)No further vocabulary growth takes place until the child is nearly 18 months of age.
D)Further increases in vocabulary occur at a slow, steady pace.

Question 46

What is the term for the assumption that words label categories of similar objects that share common perceptual features?

A)object scope constraint
B)category constraint
C)taxonomic constraint
D)lexical contrast constraint

Question 47

Linguistic universals are a joint product of which processes?

A)biological maturation, the language acquisition device, cognitive development, and the linguistic environment
B)biological maturation, cognitive development, and the linguistic environment
C)the language acquisition device and cognitive development
D)biological maturation and the language acquisition device

Question 48

According to the empiricist perspective, how do children develop language skills?

A)through reinforcement, shaping, and imitation
B)from the maturation of their language acquisition device
C)as their information-processing skills improve
D)only after myelinization is complete in the temporal lobes of the brain

Question 49

What is the invariant sequence of acquisition of grammatical morphemes, such as -ing, -ed, -'s, believed to reflect?

A)the frequency of usage of each morpheme in adult speech to children
B)the tendency of children to overregularize
C)the effects of semantic and syntactic complexity
D)the late acquisition of transformational grammar rules

Question 50

What is the general effect of linguistic interactions among siblings on the development of communication skills?

A)They enhance those of younger siblings but have little impact on those of the older siblings.
B)They interfere with the development of those of the younger siblings.
C)They interfere with those of the older siblings.
D)They enhance those of both the older siblings and the younger siblings.

Question 51

What have studies of the acquisition of questions and negatives shown?

A)Children do not typically produce utterances containing question words or negative markers until near school age.
B)They are produced only after children have perfected auxiliary verbs and verb endings.
C)Negative and question words emerge during the holophrastic stage.
D)Initially children use a wh- questions or negative markers (no, not) during the early telegraphic period.

Question 52

What would an interactionist theorist place the most emphasis on in guiding language development?

A)cognitive development and the language acquisition device
B)the language acquisition device and biological maturation
C)cognitive development and biological maturation
D)cognitive development, biological maturation, and the language environment

Question 53

In one experiment, children were asked to "argue" with a puppet by transforming all the puppet's statements into negative forms.What were the results of this experiment?

A)Children did not use negative auxiliaries correctly until the elementary school years.
B)Preschoolers could convey nonexistence but not denial or rejection.
C)Most preschoolers could use a wide variety of negative auxiliaries.
D)Preschoolers could convey denial or rejection but not nonexistence.

Question 54

What does it mean to say that children use holophrases?

A)They overextend usage of words.
B)They create their vocabulary using nouns.
C)They use a single word to represent a whole idea.
D)They use language in a telegraphic manner.

Question 55

Which of the following accomplishments of middle childhood is due to increases in morphological knowledge?

A)production of more complex passive and conditional sentences
B)better detection of ambiguities or the absence of important information in conversations
C)analysis of the structure and meaning of unfamiliar words
D)adjustments to their speech to the listener's level of understanding

Question 56

Research conducted to assess language acquisition in early and late second-language learners has reported which of the following findings?

A)The same brain areas are involved in processing speech in bilinguals, regardless of when they acquired their second language.
B)Increases in brain density are observed in the left parietal lobe in late bilinguals who acquired their second language between 10 and 15 years of age.
C)Chinese children who were adopted by French families before 2 years of age and learned French as a first language lagged behind their French-speaking peers.
D)Bulgarian children adopted into Norwegian homes showed increases in the density of their grey matter if the adoption occurred after the age of 5-years.

Question 57

Caretakers will often respond to their infant's vocalizations and smiles with similar behaviours.What is the function of such interchanges?

A)They are playful responses that have no other function than to strengthen the caretaker-infant bond.
B)They are informal lessons on conversational turn-taking.
C)They are playful interchanges that serve no other function than to reinforce vocalization.
D)They are entertaining, incidental interactions that play no particular role in language development.

Question 58

What does research on factors predicting reading achievement in 5- to 6-year-olds suggest about reading readiness?

A)Having had literary experiences such as stories read to them is the best predictor of reading readiness and later achievement.
B)Some degree of metalinguistic awareness may be necessary before a child can learn to read.
C)Metalinguistic awareness is not a prerequisite for learning to read.
D)The best predictor of reading readiness is a child's level of pragmatic skills.

Question 59

Which of the following is the best example of telegraphic speech?

A)"doggie is"
B)"the doggie"
C)"see doggie"
D)"my doggie"

Question 60

Five-year-old Samantha often modifies the complexity of her speech when talking with her classmate Georges because he is just learning English.The development of which of the following accounts for the shift in her speech pattern when speaking to Georges?

A)syntactical bootstrapping
B)vocable knowledge
C)taxonomic constraints
D)pragmatic knowledge

Question 61

Margrete holds up her arms to indicate that she wants her dad to pick her up, and her dad lifts her onto his shoulders.Margrete's behaviour is an example of which of the following processes?

A)imperative gestures
B)contextual turn-taking
C)declarative gestures
D)metalinguistic communication

Question 62

Which of the following best summarizes the research evidence regarding the development of proficiency with semantic integrations?

A)It is evident in 6- to 8-year-olds, although they are typically not aware that they have drawn an inference.
B)It is well developed in 6- to 8-year-olds.
C)It improves over the elementary years so that by 10 to 11 years of age children are making inferences easily but still not recognizing them as inferences.
D)It is not evident until early adolescence.

Question 63

According to most psycholinguists, what is the effect of the use of child-directed speech?

A)It provides the child with an optimal model that may facilitate language acquisition.
B)It interferes with language acquisition and does not provide the child with correct models of language.
C)It is essential for normal language acquisition.
D)It is an important way of communicating with children that may facilitate acquisition.

Question 64

Aini is babysitting her 3-month-old nephew.She is trying to interest him in one of his toys, but he keeps looking away from her.Based on the results from Fernald's research, how should Aini speak to him to recapture his attention?

A)with short sentences that have a falling intonation
B)with short sentences that have a rising intonation
C)with an even tone with little inflection
D)with babbling and cooing sounds

Question 65

When comparing language production and language comprehension, what general pattern of development has been revealed?

A)There is no general pattern because production and comprehension each depend on the specific item or syntactic structure being considered.
B)Production and comprehension generally proceed at about the same rate.
C)Production is typically ahead of comprehension.
D)Comprehension is typically ahead of production.

Question 66

Which of the following best summarizes the research findings regarding communication effectiveness in younger children?

A)They are often more effective than older children because they do not make assumptions about what others know and are more detailed in their descriptions.
B)They are incapable of inferring the needs of their listeners.
C)They are better than older children at capturing the essence of an object or situation and communicating well with fewer words.
D)They show some awareness of the needs of their listeners; however, their ability to do so improves markedly over childhood.

Question 67

David uses the Cree word for blanket when conversing in English with his English-speaking grandparents.What does this represent?

A)code-mixing
B)an overregularization
C)an underextension
D)morphological misunderstanding

Question 68

Which of the following is a strong predictor of the child's reading skill in grade school?

A)holophrastic pidginization
B)underextensions of meaning
C)syntactical bootstrapping
D)phonological awareness

Question 69

Children younger than 9 or 10 years of age would have the most difficulty interpreting which of the following passive-voice sentences?

A)The yellow car was hit by the green car.
B)The tiny kitten was hit by the green car.
C)The yellow car was washed by the two boys.
D)The red-haired boy was chased by the brown horse.

Question 70

What does the morphology of a language refer to?

A)the basic sounds that make up a language
B)the expression of meaning
C)the rules that specify how words are combined to form meaningful phrases
D)the rules governing the formation of meaningful words from sounds

Question 71

If an English-speaking child shows a preference for the nonsense word blek over bkel, of which component of language has he or she acquired knowledge?

A)phonology
B)semantics
C)syntax
D)pragmatics

Question 72

Why don't younger children perform as well as older children in communication tasks?

A)They are incapable of detecting ambiguities or the absence of important information.
B)They tend to guess what they think the message means.
C)They do not adjust their speech to the listener's level of understanding.
D)They lack the syntactical skills to effectively communicate their meaning.

Question 73

Which of the following best describes the expansion of children's vocabularies between 6 and 10 years of age?

A)Their receptive vocabularies expand at the rate of approximately 10 words per week.
B)Their productive vocabularies expand at the rate of approximately 10 words per week.
C)Their productive vocabularies expand at the rate of almost 20 words per day.
D)Their receptive vocabularies expand at the rate of almost 20 words per day.

Question 74

What is the term for the assumption that each object has one label, and that different words refer to separate, nonoverlapping categories?

A)object scope constraint
B)mutual exclusivity constraint
C)category constraint
D)taxonomic constraint

Question 75

Why do adults simplify the vocabulary, structure, and length of their utterances when speaking to children?

A)so that their speech matches the level of the utterances produced by the child
B)so that their speech is just below the level of the utterances produced by the child
C)so that their speech is just above the level of the utterances produced by the child
D)so that their speech is characteristic of the order of the words in a child's utterances

Question 76

Suppose you make a preposterous request to a child, such as saying "Bring me the moon." Around what age are children first likely to question the feasibility of the request?

A)3 years
B)5 years
C)7 years
D)11 years

Question 77

When a child learns that saying "please" to grandma with a smile will get him a cookie, what aspect of language knowledge has the child acquired?

A)phonology
B)syntax
C)semantics
D)pragmatics

Question 78

Which of the following does not involve grammatical overregularization?

A)"I goed home."
B)"I patted the sheeps at the petting zoo."
C)"Daddy finded a cookie."
D)"Doggie ate his water."

Question 79

Which type of sentences are parents most likely to respond to and reinforce when a child is first learning to speak?

A)those that are grammatically correct, even if those same sentences are factually incorrect
B)those that are both grammatically and factually correct
C)those that are factually correct, even if those same sentences are grammatically incorrect
D)those that are pronounced clearly and accurately

Question 80

Bilingual children often score as high, or higher, than their monolingual peers on which of the following types of tasks?

A)language proficiency
B)short-term memory
C)spatial memory
D)contextual intelligence