language development

What is the difference between expressive and receptive language?

Expressive is the ability to communicate thoughts and needs (production); receptive is the ability to understand and interpret language (comprehension)

What are the four domains of language?

Phonology (sounds), semantics (meaning), grammar (syntax/morphology), and pragmatics (social use)

What is the nativist approach to language proposed by Chomsky?

The theory that language is innately specified and that children are born with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) containing universal grammar

What is the "poverty of the stimulus" argument?

The empiricist critique that children produce language they have never heard, suggesting they don't learn purely through imitation

What is the difference between a pidgin and a creole?

Pidgin is a simplified mixture of languages; Creole is a stable natural language that develops from a pidgin and becomes a child's first language

What did the case of Genie (1970) suggest about language?

It provided evidence for a critical period; despite learning some words, she never acquired normal, fluent language after being isolated until age 13

What are the language functions of Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas?

Broca’s is associated with grammatical processing and speech production; Wernicke’s is associated with lexical comprehension

What is statistical learning in infants?

The process of detecting statistical regularities in speech, such as word segmentation (knowing where one word ends and another begins)

Define a phoneme

The smallest sound unit that can signal a change in meaning, such as the difference between "pa" and "ba”

What are protodeclarative and protoimperative gestures?

Protodeclarative brings an object to someone’s attention; protoimperative is used to get someone to do something, like give the child an object

What are the characteristics of infant-directed speech (Motherese)?

Short sentences, high pitch, exaggerated expression, clear pronunciation, and repetition

What is fast mapping?

The ability to acquire partial word knowledge after only a few exposures, which is enhanced over time

What are over-extensions and under-extensions?

Under-extensions apply a word too narrowly (e.g., "cat" only for the family pet); over-extensions apply it too broadly (e.g., "ball" for a marble or egg)

What is telegraphic speech?

Early two-word combinations appearing at 1.5 to 2 years that consist mostly of high-content nouns and verbs (e.g., "eat cake")

What are over-regularisation errors?

Applying grammatical rules to exceptions, such as saying "breaked" instead of "broke" or "foots" instead of "feet"