CDIS 2250 Speech and Language Development and Acquisition Exam Study Guide

These flashcards include key vocabulary terms and definitions relevant to Speech and Language Development and Acquisition.

ASD

Autism Spectrum Disorder, a range of conditions related to development of social skills, communication, and behavior.

inflectional morphology

The process of altering a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, mood, or number.

attention getters

Strategies used to capture a listener's attention, commonly used in early language development.

language delay

A condition where a child's language development is slower than expected.

one-word stage

The phase in language acquisition when children begin to use single words to convey whole thoughts.

challenges in assessment

Difficulties encountered when evaluating a child's language and communication skills.

back-channeling

Verbal and non-verbal cues that signal a listener's engagement or understanding during a conversation.

maintaining the topic

The ability to keep a conversation focused on a specific subject.

semantic awareness

Understanding the meaning of words and how they relate to one another.

metalinguistic awareness

The ability to think about and reflect upon the nature and functions of language.

blending

The ability to combine individual sounds or syllables to form words.

morphological awareness

Understanding the structure of words and the meaningful units (morphemes) they contain.

child-directed speech

A style of speaking that adults use when talking to young children, characterized by a higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, and slower tempo.

production theory of mind

The understanding that others have thoughts, beliefs, and perspectives different from one's own.

comprehension

The ability to understand spoken or written language.

turn taking

The practice of exchanging speaking roles within a conversation.

neurodiversity

The idea that neurological differences such as autism are to be recognized and respected as a social category on par with gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.

cohesive devices

Linguistic tools that help connect ideas within discourse, like conjunctions and pronouns.

phonological awareness

The skill of recognizing and manipulating sounds in spoken language.

concomitant

Occurring at the same time; often used in the context of multiple disorders existing alongside each other.

social pragmatic disorder

A communication disorder that affects the social use of verbal and nonverbal communication.

SLI/DLD

Specific Language Impairment / Developmental Language Disorder, a condition characterized by difficulties with language skills.

pragmatic awareness

The understanding of how to use language in a social context.

conversational repair

Strategies used to fix misunderstandings or communication breakdowns in conversation.

pragmatics

The study of how context influences the way language is interpreted.

syntactic awareness

Understanding the structure of sentences and the rules governing sentence construction.

preferential looking paradigm

A research method used to study cognitive processes in children, often examining their preferences for visual stimuli.

decoding

The process of interpreting written language to understand its meaning.

pronoun case errors

Mistakes that occur when the wrong form of a pronoun is used, such as using 'him' instead of 'he'.

derivational morphology

The process of creating new words by adding prefixes or suffixes to existing words.

proto-conversations

Early forms of communication where infants engage in turn-taking with caregivers.

echolalia

The repetition of phrases or sentences heard, often seen in children with autism.

referential communication

Communication aimed at conveying specific information clearly to a listener.

semantic roles

The functions that words play in the context of a sentence based on their meanings.

segmentation

The ability to break down spoken language into smaller, manageable parts, such as words or syllables.

etiology

The study of causes or origins, often used in the context of language disorders.

productive use of morphemes and word combinations

The ability to use morphological forms and combine them to create meaningful phrases.

grammaticality

The acceptability of a sentence according to the rules of grammar.

holophrase

A single word that conveys a complete thought or sentence, common in early language development.

early semantic relations

The basic relationships between words and their meanings that young children begin to understand.

APA/DSM-5 criteria for Autism

The standardized guidelines used by clinicians to diagnose Autism Spectrum Disorder.

neurotypical

Describing individuals who have typical neurological development, as opposed to those with neurodevelopmental disorders.

methods of reading instruction

Different approaches to teaching reading, including phonics and whole language.

phonics

A method of teaching reading by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters.

whole language/3-cueing

An approach to reading instruction that emphasizes comprehension and using context cues.

An SLP tests a student’s understanding of the social aspects of spoken language. What skill
is she assessing?
A. Morphological awareness
B. Phonological awareness
C. Pragmatic awareness
D. Syntactic awareness

C. Pragmatic awareness

Which attention getter is used by a parent who points to the object she is talking about for
her baby?
A. Exclamations
B. Gestures
C. Modulations
D. Names

B. Gestures

Two-year-old children are generally successful with first order Theory of Mind tasks.
A. True
B. False

False

What approach to reading instruction teaches students to link letters to sound

phonics

Define the term metalinguistic awareness

is the ability to think about and reflect on the nature and functions of language itself—beyond simply using it for communication. It involves understanding that language is a system with rules and that words and structures can be manipulated, analyzed, or discussed.

Explain why an SLP should write a therapy goal for increasing semantic relations instead of a goal for increasing MLU

An SLP should focus on increasing semantic relations instead of just MLU because semantic relations help children learn to express different meanings, like asking for more or showing who is doing what. While MLU tells us how long a child's sentences are, it doesn’t show whether the child understands or uses language meaningfully. Teaching semantic relations helps children use language in real ways to talk about people, actions, and things, which is more useful for communication. It also builds a strong foundation for longer and more complex sentences later on.