Language Development Exam 1 Practice questions

_____________study the structures and functions of the nervous system that relate to language

Neurolinguists

On the horizontal axis, ____________ refers to the top of the brain.

dorsal

_______________ pathways carry information away from the brain

efferent

each neuron has a single efferent nerve extensions, the _____________ , which carries nerve impulses away from the cell body

Axon

The _____________ is where two neurons meet.

synapse

the ______________ contributes to the rapid relay of impulses particularly within white matter, and also helps protect the neuron.

myelin sheath

_________________ circulates in the subarachnoid space.

cerebrospinal fluid

there are ___________ pairs of cranial nerves

12 pairs

___________________ means that the right side of the brain processes information from the left side of the body, and vice versa

contralateral

The ____________ is the location of the most unique human qualities, reasoning, problem solving, planning, and hypothesizing.

cerebrum

The ________________ is a band of fibers that connects the two cerebral hemispheres.

corpus collosum

__________________ is one's ability to attribute mental states to others.

theory of mind

the _________________ controls initiation of skilled, delicate voluntary movements.

Primary motor cortex

________________ is responsible for the fine coordination of speech output.

Broca's Area

Key functions of the _____________________________ include(s) perceiving and integrating sensory and perceptual information, comprehending oral and written language, and performing mathematical calculations.

parietal loves

_________________ is a site in the left temporal lobe that is a critical for language comprehension

wernike's area

The ________________ is primarily responsible for regulating motor and muscular activity.

Motor strip

An individuals ability to rapidly and automatically process the rules of syntax and morphology has long been viewed as something that is hard wired in the brain referred to as the

Language instinct

Rapid analysis of the temporal characteristics of speech sounds occurs in the auditory centers of the _____________________________.

left temporal lobe

pragmatic ability draws primarily on ________________ functions

frontal lobe

a(n) _____________ is a time frame of development during which a particular aspect of neuroanatomy or neurophysiology underlying a given sensory or motoric capacity undergoes growth or change

sensitive period

_______________ relates to the capacity of the sensory and motor systems to organize and reorganize themselves by generating new synaptic connections or by using existing synapses for alternative means.

neural plasticity

________________ occurs when a child develops with little or no exposure to a spoken or sign language

linguistic isolation

Describe the neuraxis

The horizontal axis runs from the anterior (frontal) pole of the brain to the posterior (occipital) pole. The vertical axis extends from the superior portion of the brain downward along the entire spinal cord.

What is Gray Matter and white matter?

gray matter consists of of the cell bodies of neurons and the dendrites. White matter is the tissue that carries information among gray matter tissues.

Name the 3 layers of Meninges

dura mater, arachnoid mater, pia mater

What is CN X (vagus nerve) responsible for?

Taste sensation; palatal, pharyngeal, and laryngeal movement, including voicing.

what are the three parts of the brainstem?

midbrain, pons, medulla oblongata

How does the right hemisphere contribute to semantic processing?

by processing figurative and abstract language

describe experience -expectant plasticity and experience- dependent plasticity.

Experience-expectant plasticity refers to the ongoing sculpting of the brain structures that occur as a result of normal experiences. Experience-dependent plasticity is unique to a given individual; it requires highly specific types of experiences for change to occur.

_____________________________ occurs when an individual communicates about a specific entity, and the relationship between the entity and its referent is arbitrary.

symbolic communication

____________ refers to the use of pitch, loudness, and pausing.

Paralinguistic feedback

_________ refers to the rules of a language governing the sounds that make syllables and words.

phonology

_____________ pertains to the rules governing language use for social purposes.

pragmatics

___________________________ allows humans to share what happened before this moment or what may happen after this moment.

Semanticity

Today, about _______________ of Americans speak a language other than English at home.

1/5

_________ are more likely to have language impairment.

boys

If one monozygotic twin has a language impairment, the other twin has about a(n) ______________ likelihood of also having the impairment.

85%

Higher degrees of caregiver ___________________________ during infancy and early toddlerhood are associated with accelerated rates of language development in children.

responsiveness

_______________________________ is the most common type of communication impairment affecting children.

specific language impairment

Annually, about _____________________________ children aged 0-14 years in the U.S. experience traumatic brain injury.

500,000

For what reasons do language communities emerge?

- geographic circumstances

-sociological reasons

-economic reasons

what is the difference between domain-specific modules and domain general modules?

domain-specific modules are regions of the brain developed to process specific types of information. domain-general modules carry out very general tasks like memory and reasoning.

Speech involves the precise activation of muscles in what four systems?

respiration, phonation, resonation , and articulation

What are the four acoustic events involved in the transmission and reception of speech?

creation of sound source, vibration of air particles, reception by the ear, and comprehension by the brain

For what three basic purposes do people share information?

to request, to reject, and to comment

Define language form, content, and use.

Form: how words sentences and sounds are organized and arranged to convey content.

Content: meaning of language- words used and the meaning behind them

Use: pertains to how people draw on language functionally to meet personal and social needs

What is the five-component system used to represent and organize major dimensions of language?

Phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

Explain the term universality as it pertains to language.

suggests all persons around the world apply the same cognitive infrastructure to the task of learning language and that this cognitive infrastructure is particularly suited to the task of developing symbolic representations for objects and actions.

quality and quantity of language

quantity refers to sheer amount of language a child experiences

quality refers to the characteristics of the language spoken in the child's caregiving environment.

how is social communication disorder distinct from autism spectrum disorder

social communication disorder have particular difficulty in the use of social communication such as following the rules of conversation and comprehending more complex and abstract language. It is distinctive from ASD in that individuals normally have higher levels of language skill and do not show the repetitive and restrictive behavior characteristics of ASD.

Words that differ by only one phoneme, such as "low" and "row," are called ______________________________.

Minimal pairs

______________________________ is/are the child's acquisition of internal representation of the phonemes composing his or her native language.

phonological knowledge

Children's phonological knowledge and production are sufficiently well developed by age ________________ year(s) to provide for fully intelligible speech.

3-4

A contributing factor to the struggle some children have in developing basic word-reading skills is underdeveloped ______________________________.

phonological awareness

______________________________ is the importance of a phoneme in the phonemic inventory of a language.

functional load

What is the earliest-appearing grammatical morpheme?

present progressive -ing

When a child includes a grammatical morpheme in ___________ or more of obligatory contexts, he or she has mastered the morpheme.

75%

Children who can readily switch between dialects may have heightened ____________________________, which can support reading development.

metalinguistic awareness

One hallmark feature of SLI is difficulty with __________________________.

grammatical morphology

by age ___________ a child's utterances are nearly as long as those of adults

6

Name three tasks that can be used to examine a child's phonological awareness.

1. Syllable counting

2. rhyme detection

3. initial sound identification

4. initial sound elision

5. phoneme counting

what is the difference between bound morphemes and free morphemes?

free morphemes can stand alone

bound morphemes cannot stand alone and must be attached to other morphemes

what are the three earliest developing wh- words ?

what, where, why

what is complex syntax?

refers to the use of phrase and clause structures, as well as conductive devices for organizing internal structures of sentences.

describe beliefs about vocabulary growth in terms of the vocabulary spurt vs a linear growth

vocabulary spurt believes that kids undergo a transition from a slow stage of development to a rapid state of development with an inflection point differentiating the stages.

another opinion is that kids just show continuous linear increase in their vocabulary size.

how many morphemes in the word disability

3

give an example of a derivational morhpeme

un

dis

re

pre

uni

ly

less

ful

... etc.

Researchers who study ___________________________ typically present auditory stimuli to participants and measure their response to the stimuli.

speech perception

______________ allow researchers to conduct direct, real-time investigations of speech perception by identifying the exact areas of the brain where speech perception occurs.

brain imaging studies

______________________________ link brain areas to the type of auditory stimuli they process.

tonotopic maps

In ______________________________, experts compile data from multiple individuals on a certain aspect of language development and chart the ages by which children meet certain milestones.

normative research

For prelinguistic infants, researchers generally use ____________________________ as a measure of language comprehension.

visual fixation

_____________________________ rest on the notion that humans gain all knowledge through experience.

nurture-inspired theories

_____________________________ generally hold that much knowledge is innate and genetically transmitted rather than learned by experience.

nature-inspired theories

______________________________ theories lie somewhere between the nature and nurture ends of the continuum.

interactionist

In ______________________________, behaviors that are reinforced become strengthened, and behaviors that are punished become suppressed.

operant conditioning

_____________________________ describes the system of grammatical rules and constraints consistent in all world languages, as proposed by Noam Chomsky.

universal grammer

_____________________________ describes the process by which children use the syntactic frames surrounding unknown verbs to successfully constrain or limit the possible meanings of the verbs.

syntactic bootstrapping

With ____________________________, children deduce grammatical structures by using word meanings they acquire from observing events around them.

semantic bootstrapping

______________________________ suggests infants use their sensitivity to the acoustic properties of speech to make inferences about units of language.

prosodic bootstrapping

The ____________________________ is the difference between a child's actual developmental level and his or her level of potential development.

zone of proximal development

According to the _____________________________, children must take strides to engage in social interaction and then must put forth effort to construct linguistic representations for the ideas they want to express and then act to express those ideas.

intentionality model

Overgeneralization, as in when children learning language make an irregular past tense verb regular by adding a past tense morpheme, illustrates how the __________________________ works.

competition model

________________________________ are related to an individual's confidence with language learning and his or her propensity to take risks with respect to language.

affective principles

________________________________ describe the role of a person's native language in simultaneously facilitating and interfering with second language acquisition.

linguistic principles

The goal of __________________________ is to inhibit language difficulties from emerging.

prevention

_______________________________ is the process through which professionals provide children, adolescents, and adults with an enhanced language-learning environment.

enrichment

what is the difference between basic research and applied research

Basic Research aims to further basic understanding about language as a human phenomenon. It focuses primarily of generating and refining the existing knowledge base.

Applied Research is used to address specific problems in society and to inform practices relevant to language development

name two human reflexes that researchers examining speech perception can take advantage of

orientation to sound and sucking

what is the difference between observational studies conducted in naturalistic versus semistructured settings?

in naturalistic settings the researcher does not manipulate the context. In semi structured settings researchers manipulate the environment in which they are observing children's language form content and use.

Briefly discuss linguistic competence and linguistic performance in the context of universal grammar

implicit knowledge children have is called linguistic competence. the actual comprehension and production of language in specific situations is called linguistic performance

explain the cognition hypothesis as it relates to language development

certain cognitive achievements must be in place for language achievements to emerge.

describe networks of nodes and connections in terms of the connectionist model

language is organized in a network containing nodes and connections. the network of nodes and connections undergoes constant transformation in response to language input.

nodes are simple processing units that can be likened to brain neurons. they receive input from external sources through connections.

why is intention reading important

intention reading, which emerges during infancy, refers to the child's ability to recognize the intentions and mental states of other people, corresponding to the increasing capacity of the infant to engage communicatively with other persons.m

T/F The concept that individuals are born with an innate ability for language is a part of the modularity theory.

False

What are three nature-inspired theory proponents?

Universal grammar, Modularity, Bootstrapping

________ studies helps researchers learn about how children use their speech perception to draw information from and ultimately learn language.

speech perception

What theory deals with the zone of proximal development?

social interactionist theory

what are the three direct applications of language theory to practice

Prevention

intervention and remediation

enrichment