Infant & Childhood Development - Exam 2

Chapter 6: What are symbols?

Systems of representing thoughts, feelings, and knowledge, and communicating them to others.

What is language comprehension?

Understanding what others say, sign, or write.

What is language production?

Speaking, signing, or writing.

What does it mean that a language system is generative?

A finite set of words can generate an infinite number of sentences.

What are phonemes?

The smallest units of meaningful sound.

What are morphemes?

The smallest units of meaning in a language, composed of phonemes.

What is syntax?

Rules specifying how words from different categories can be combined.

What is pragmatics?

Knowledge about how language is used.

What is a dialect?

A language form based in a specific region or social group.

Which brain hemisphere controls language for 90% of right-handers and lifelong signers?

The left hemisphere.

What is the sensitive period for language learning?

The early years until around age 5.

How are infants' auditory preferences fine-tuned?

Through experience with human language.

What is infant-directed speech (IDS)?

A distinctive speech mode adults adopt when talking to babies and toddlers.

What pitch characteristic distinguishes infant-directed speech?

Greater pitch variability.

How does utterance length in infant-directed speech compare to typical speech?

Utterances are shorter.

What rate of speech characterizes infant-directed speech?

Slower speech.

When does language learning begin for bilingual infants?

In the womb.

How does speech sound discrimination speed in bilingual infants compare to monolingual infants?

It occurs at the same pace.

What visual cue do bilingual infants use better than monolinguals to discriminate unfamiliar languages?

A silent talking face.

On what type of performance measures do bilingual infants perform better?

Cognitive control measures.

How is language acquired?

By listening and speaking, or watching and signing.

What is prosody in speech perception?

The characteristic rhythm, tempo, cadence, melody, and intonational patterns of spoken language.

What is categorical perception in speech?

The perception of speech sounds as belonging to discrete categories.

What is voice onset time (VOT)?

The time between air passing through lips and vocal cords vibrating.

What is word segmentation?

The process of discovering where words begin and end in fluent speech.

What are the distributional properties of language?

The phenomenon that certain sounds are more likely to appear together than others.

Why is infants' categorical perception of speech sounds considered experience-independent?

They can discriminate between speech sounds they have never heard before.

When does word segmentation begin in infant development?

During the second half of the first year.

How early can infants use predictable sound patterns to identify words?

Just after birth.

What syllable structure characterizes babbling?

A consonant followed by a vowel repeated in strings.

How do learners of sign language produce babbling?

Through hand movements.

Which two social capacities are required for successful early communication?

Intersubjectivity and joint attention.

How does infant word comprehension compare to word production?

Word comprehension exceeds word production.

How do parents typically evaluate their infant's language comprehension competence?

They underestimate it.

What do older children use to aid word recognition?

Context.

Around what age do infants produce their first words?

Around 10 to 15 months.

What categories do infants' earliest words typically refer to?

Family members, pets, and important objects.

What is overextension in early word production?

An overly broad interpretation of the meaning of a word.

What is underextension in early word production?

An overly narrow interpretation of the meaning of a word.

What adult behaviors influence early word learning?

Talking to children, naming, playing, and maintaining spatial consistency.

What caregiver factor is linked to the number of words children hear?

Caregivers' vocabularies.

What did seminal research find regarding socioeconomic status and words spoken at home?

Fewer words were spoken in welfare families and more in professional families.

What did recent research find regarding earlier estimates of SES-related word-gap disparities?

The estimates were exaggerated.

Which SES-related factors show average variations that affect language development?

Amount of parental input, quality of input, and physical environment including school.

How does the use of mutual exclusivity differ between monolingual infants and bilingual or trilingual infants?

Bilingual and trilingual infants employ mutual exclusivity less.

What are four contributions children make to word learning?

Mutual exclusivity, whole-object assumption, pragmatic cues, and labeling objects using shapes.

What is cross-situational word learning?

Determining word meanings by tracking correlations between labels and meanings across contexts.

What is syntactic bootstrapping?

The strategy of using the grammatical structure of a whole sentence.

Under what screen condition are infants able to learn language?

When actively engaging with another human.

What is the only acceptable technology use for infants under 2 years of age?

Live video chat.

What negative effect can adult device usage have on language opportunities for children?

It detracts from responsiveness and reduces learning opportunities.

By what age do most children combine words into simple sentences?

By the end of the second year.

What is telegraphic speech?

Short utterances leaving out non-essential words, generally consisting of two words.

What linguistic mastery defines grammar development in young children?

Mastery of regularities, pattern recognition, and generalizing to novel words.

What is overregularization?

Speech errors where children treat irregular word forms as regular.

According to Vygotsky, what is private speech?

Speech directed to self rather than to another person.

What are collective monologues?

Conversations between children featuring non-sequiturs unrelated to what the other said.

What are narratives?

Descriptions of past events structured like a story.

By what age can children produce narratives?

By 5 years of age.

What is pragmatic development?

Learning how language is used to communicate.

What two abilities are involved in pragmatic development?

Conversational perspective-taking and using non-word information to assess meaning.

What conversational accomplishment develops beyond age 5 or 6?

Accomplishments in sustaining a conversation.

What is the approximate vocabulary achieved by a 6-year-old child?

10,000 words.

What is the approximate vocabulary achieved by a 5th-grader?

40,000 words

What is the approximate vocabulary achieved by a college student?

150,000 words.

Whose theoretical perspective did Noam Chomsky counter with universal grammar?

B. F. Skinner's behaviorism.

What is universal grammar according to Noam Chomsky?

A hard-wired, unconscious set of abstract rules common to all languages.

How does Chomsky's nativist view characterize surface differences versus underlying structures in languages?

Languages have surface differences but share similar underlying structures.

What shared pattern across cultures supports early parent-child communication in language debates?

Overlap in earliest parent-child communication and acquired words.

What three cues do children attend to when learning language?

Heard language cues, social context, and speaker intentions.

What is the core debate between domain-specific and domain-general language mechanisms?

Whether language mechanisms evolved solely for language or for general learning.

According to Chomsky and Pinker, how specific are the cognitive abilities supporting language development?

They are highly specific to language.

What is the function of distributional learning mechanisms in infants?

They help infants track sequences.

Besides word learning, what other purpose do rapid word-learning mechanisms serve in toddlers?

Learning facts about objects.

What do recent theories regarding developmental language disorders invoke alongside language abilities?

Aspects of general cognitive function.

What do recent theories regarding developmental language disorders invoke alongside language abilities?

Aspects of general cognitive function.

What communicative behavior do infants typically produce before recognizable words?

Recognizable, meaningful gestures.

How does an infant's gesture frequency relate to subsequent vocabulary size?

Infants who gesture more have larger vocabularies months or years later.

Where are the most significant individual differences in language found?

In developmental language disorders.

What early language challenges characterize developmental language disorders?

Speech perception, word segmentation, and sentence comprehension.

Which general cognitive challenges are linked to developmental language disorders?

Working memory, sequence learning, and processing speed.

Which three genetically transmitted disorders are noted for causing delays across all aspects of language development?

Down syndrome, fragile-X syndrome, and ASD.

What percentage of deaf children are born to hearing parents lacking access to sign language?

About 90%.

What is dual representation regarding symbolic artifacts?

Mentally representing an artifact as a real object and as a symbol.

What two domains provide data showing young children's difficulty with self-symbols?

Child forensics data and cross-culture picture perception data.

In the scale-model task, what does a 3-year-old's successful search demonstrate?

An appreciation of the relation between the model and the actual room.

What environmental factor enhances children's creation of pictures and letters?

The presence of pictorial images in the environment.

Why do 2½-year-old children produce simplified scribbles when drawing?

Their artistic impulses outstrip their motor and planning capabilities.

At approximately what age do children begin to understand the difference between writing and drawing?

Around age 4.

What form do children's early drawings of people typically take?

A "tadpole" form.

Chapter 8: What are the key components of intelligence assessed directly by the Binet-Simon Intelligence Test?

High-level abilities such as problem-solving, reasoning, and judgment.

With what academic outcomes do intelligence tests correlate highly according to the Binet-Simon framework?

School grades at the time of testing and grades years later.

What are the three levels of analysis used to conceptualize intelligence?

A single trait, a few basic abilities, and numerous cognitive processes.

How is general intelligence (g) defined when viewed as a single trait?

A trait influencing ability to think and learn on all intellectual tasks.

Which physical brain characteristics correlate positively with measures of general intelligence (g)?

Speed of neural transmission and brain volume.

Which cognitive and knowledge measures correlate positively with general intelligence (g)?

School grades, achievement test performance, information-processing speed, and general world information.

Which two distinct types of intelligence represent the "few basic abilities" perspective?

Fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence.

How many primary mental abilities represent the multi-ability perspective on intelligence?

Seven.

What does the information-processing view of intelligence analyze?

How people solve test items and perform everyday intellectual tasks.

Who proposed the three-stratum theory of intelligence?

John B. Carroll