Chpt 8 and 9 Quiz

Question 1

Intersectionism

Answer 1

incorporates behaviorism and nativism; kids biological readiness to learn language and their experiences with language come together to bring about language development.
According to this theory– language is created socially; interaction between kid and adult.

Example: kid says “more cookie” and mom/dad says “Oh – you want another cookie” Parent now models better language proficiency that kid can now imitate.

Question 2

5 Basic Aspects of Language

Answer 2

Phonology: study of sounds of a language.

Phoneme: smallest distinct sound in a language. For example go has two phonemes: g and o and check has three phonemes: ch, e and ck

Morphology: the way words are formed from these sounds and how words are related to other words.

Semantics: meanings of words and sentences.

Pragmatics: how we use language in social situations. For example – you speak in different ways to your professors friends and your 5 year old niece.

Question 3

Academic Gender Differences

Answer 3

Girls generally lack interest in science, math and technology.

Boys’ Academic Achievement: they usually struggle more than girls in school.
In elementary school – girls outperform boys in reading and writing and they are in more gifted and talented programs
Boys are more likely to be retained in grade, and are 3 times more likely to be in special education and suspended or expelled from school.

In high school – girls have higher GPA’s and boys are more likely to drop out of high school.
In college more women earn BA degrees – and more women attend graduate school

Question 4

Behaviorism and Social Cognitive Learning Theory (Language)

Answer 4

language shaped through operant conditioning and reinforcement.

We respond to a baby’s babbling with a smile – baby babbles more The more we respond to a baby’s vocalizations – the earlier the baby learns the language.

Question 5

Brocas Area

Answer 5

involved in speech production, located near the motor center that produces movement of the lips and tongue
Damage in this area produces problems in producing speech and a tendency to use only essential words (example: ask someone with damage in Broca’s what they are doing this weekend – he/she says “Boston, college football, Saturday”

Question 6

Language of Teenagers

Answer 6

In some ways, adolescent speech becomes more adult-like.

However, adolescents are also more likely to use slang or made-up words, especially when talking among themselves.

Swearing reaches a peak in adolescence too

Adolescents use slang – any examples?

Question 7

Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Answer 7

Linguistics - sensitivity to the meanings and sounds of words, mastery of syntax, appreciation of the ways language can be used

Logical-Mathematical - Understanding of objects and symbols and of actions that be performed on them and of the relations between these actions, ability to identify problems and seek explanations

Spatial - capacity to perceive the visual world accurately, to perform transformations upon perceptions and to re-create aspects of visual experience in the absence of physical stimuli

Musical - Sensitivity to individual tones and phrases of music, an understanding of ways to combine tones and phrases into larger musical rhythms and structures, awareness of emotional aspects of music

Bodily-Kinesthetic - Use of one’s body in highly skilled ways for expressive or goal-directed purposes, capacity to handle objects skillfully

Interpersonal - Ability to notice and make distinctions among the moods, temperaments, motivations, and intentions of other people and potentially to act on this knowledge

Intrapersonal - access to one’s own feelings, ability to draw on one’s emotions to guide and understand one’s behavior, recognition of personal strengths and weaknesses

Naturalistic – sensitivity and understanding of plants, animals, and other aspects of nature

Existential - sensitivity to issues related to the meaning of life, death, and other aspects of the human condition

Question 8

Discourse Skills

Answer 8

the ability to understand whether a story or information they are hearing makes logical sense

Example: they can identify the problem n this sentence:

“On her way, she lost the purse – when she got to the store she took out her purse and bought the candy”

Question 9

How Adults Foster Language Development

Answer 9

When babies look or point at what they see, adults tend to label what it is for them (shared attention).

Gesturing may enhance language learning in several ways, but adults differ in the amount and type of gesturing that they do with their infants.

Families of higher SES use gestures with their infants to communicate a broader range of meaning than parents from lower SES backgrounds.

Children form higher SES use more gestures to communicate
Gesturing may enhance language learning.
Child points to object – parent labels the object and kid learns it and it enters his/her vocabulary earlier.

Question 10

Beginning Language

Answer 10

Beginning from 8 – 18months – kids begin to say words to speak.
Words are symbolic representations: kid says table we know he/she means an object.
Language = a set of symbols used to communicate.
Words can influence the way we think about and understand our experiences.

Question 11

Wernicke’s Area

Answer 11

understanding and creating meaning in speech; in auditory center of brain

Damage to this area: person has no trouble producing words but has difficulty understanding written and spoken language.

These people have impaired ability to comprehend what you are saying.

Produce speech without much meaning, stringing words together that don’t mean anything.

Question 12

Whole Object Bias

Answer 12

a word names a whole object; example is when child sees giraffe and mom says giraffe – the child assumes the word giraffe describes the entire animal – not its neck or skinny legs.

Question 13

Freedom Writers

Answer 13

Erin Gruwell helps gangbangers in racially divided high school find meaning and hope through reading assignments and daily journals.

Question 14

Babbling

Answer 14

Early babbling: repetition of the same sound like bababa

Early words for mom and dad originate from these earliest sounds (i.e., ma, da, ba)

Question 15

Child-Directed Speech

Answer 15

Mom: oh, so you’re hungry, are you?
Baby kicks
Mom: yes, you are hungry, well, let’s give you some milk.
Baby coos
So mommy was right, it’s milk you want, should we change your diaper first?
Baby kicks
Mom – Right, ok a clean diaper. That’s what you want, good girl.

This back and forth exchange is preparing kid for later speech.

Question 16

Poverty on Academic Performance

Answer 16

Childhood poverty is associated with difficulties for children in all areas of development, but the negative impact on cognitive functioning and academic achievement have been most clearly documented.

Recent statistics reveals that 22% of American children (one in four) grow up in poverty.

In 2013  32% of kids in poor families were White, 24% Black and 35% Hispanic.

Problems associated with poverty include:

Poor health because of unavailability of health care, unsafe living conditions, poor diet, little after school activities in poor communities, high rates of depression in the parents, stress in parents contributing to marital discord, safety concerns resulting in kids not playing outdoors.

Parents living in poverty less likely to provide educational stimulation in the home, they have lower expectations of their kids achievement.

Teachers are likely to have lower expectations of minority kids educational attainment

Question 17

SES and language

Answer 17

SES and Language Development
Study followed 42 families over 2.5 years and found the following among welfare families, working class and families with parent holding professional jobs:
Findings: amount of language kids exposed to was striking:
Parents on welfare used 600 words an hour with their toddlers
Working class parents used 1,300
Parents with professional jobs used 2,100
By the time the kids were 3 years old- children in professional families were exposed to 8 million more words on average than children in welfare families.

Also looked at quality of language spoken and interactive nature of the communication, professional families were more responsive to their kids communication.
At 18 months – kids from disadvantaged families show less comprehension of simple words

Question 18

Infant Intelligence

Answer 18

Difficult because infants cannot understand test instructions or provide verbal responses.

Most tests of infant intelligence assess physical, motor, sensory, and/or early language development. Newer approaches also incorporate information processing.

These tests can identify intellectual disability and developmental delays.

Information Processing tests : include measures of infant attention, attraction to novelty and habituation to familiar stimuli (remember what this word means?)
These measures are good predictors of later intelligence.

Attention, processing speed and memory in infancy can predict general intelligence at age 11.

Question 19

Headstart

Answer 19

Headstart was established in the 1960’s

To narrow the gap between low SES kids and their more advanced peers.

It is more than a preschool program.

Headstart designed to help the whole family and child.

A caseworker helps each family find resources and kids are given nutritious meals in school and dental care, vision care.

Parents enroll in parenting classes and their kids actually improve in their academic program.

Findings show that these students show some significant cognitive gains that prepares them for kindergarten – but these gains are modest.

Question 20

Mutual Exclusivity

Answer 20

there is only one name for an object, so any other name must refer to a different object.

Question 21

Intellectual Disability

Answer 21

: a type of intellectual impairment that begins early in life which includes deficits in intellectual, social and adaptive functioning.

Between 1% and 3% of kids are diagnosed

Includes deficits in 3 areas of functioning: conceptual, social and practical.

The more severe the intellectual disability – the more likely the child will have other disabilities such as impaired vision, hearing loss, cerebral palsy or seizure disorder.

Question 22

Egocentric Speech

Answer 22

children’s inability to take the role of other people in conversations; example is:

When child says I went to that place and saw people going round and round

The child has no idea you don’t know where that place is or what is meant by round and round

Question 23

g

Answer 23

(general intelligence) that underscores all cognitive abilities.

Question 24

Three Ring Model of Giftedness

Answer 24

a conception of giftedness as the intersection of above average intellectual ability, creativity, and task commitment.
Can include optimism, courage, physical and mental energy and a sense of destiny.
Talent Development Approach: TDA

Some think this gift is permanent because kid is born with it; then there’s not much we can do to nurture or develop it more.
TDA sees giftedness as a characteristic that can be supported and nurtured by environment; challenge is for schools to design an environment that can accomplish this goal.

Question 25

Telegraphic Speech

Answer 25

sounds like a telegram because the inconsequential words are left out – example is when child says:

“want bear” instead of “I want bear”

Question 26

Ethnic Differences in School

Answer 26

An achievement gap exists between students from different ethnic, racial and socioeconomic backgrounds
White students on average outperform minority students and kids from higher socioeconomic status outperform minority kids from poor families.
The reasons – they are based on our expectations for different children.

Expectancy effects- the effect that the expectations of others can have one the child’s self-perception and behavior.

Self-fulfilling prophecy: The process by which expectations or beliefs lead to behaviors that help ensure that you fulfill the initial prophecy or expectation

Question 27

Toddler Language

Answer 27

At 1 year, babies typically have only a few words in their vocabulary, but by 2 years of age they generally have between 200 and 500 words.

Question 28

Cooing

Answer 28

Starts between 2 and 4 months
Soft vowel sounds like ooh and aah
Beginnings of conversational rules
Starting to learn how to use language
Beginning to laugh

Question 29

Intelligence

Answer 29

Hard to define

the ability to adapt to the environment, to think and learn, and to understand oneself and others

Many factors effect it: quality of school instruction, school policies, classroom, etc

Question 30

Nativism

Answer 30

theory says human brains are innately wired to learn language and hearing spoken language triggers activation of universal grammar.

Universal Grammar means set of grammatical rules that is thought to underlie all languages and is hardwired in the brain.
Noam Chomsky is the founder of this theory: Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Question 31

Theories of Language Development

Answer 31

Behaviorism and Social Cognitive Learning Theory:

Nativism:

Interactionism:

Cognitive Processing Theory

Question 32

First Head Transplant

Answer 32

Sergio Canavero

Question 33

Wechsler IQ

Answer 33

WISC-V is widely used gives a full scale IQ and 5 composite index scores:

1) verbal comprehension 4) fluid reasoning
2) visual spatial 5) processing speed
3) working memory

Question 34

Stand and Deliver

Answer 34

where a math teacher Jaime Escalante stays after school, on weekends to help his Hispanic students from the LA barrio learn calculus.

Question 35

High school dropout rates

Answer 35

Smaller classes in the early grades helps.
The benefits are strongest for minority students and from low income families.

Grade Retention: African American and Latino students are more likely of being retained a grade than among Anglo students.
Students are retained because they have not mastered the material at a certain grade level.

Retained students are likely to be more aggressive when looking at longitudinal studies – especially in adolescence and they will be more likely to drop out of high school.

One study found that 63% of students who drop out of high school eventually pass their GED test within 8 years if their anticipated graduation date.

Question 36

Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Answer 36

Example: Dyslexia: difficulties specific to language skills, particularly reading, writing, arithmetic or a combination of these.

These kids score below the average on standardized test and problem cannot be explained by another issue such as a head injury or a motor disturbance.

These kids are not intellectually disabled –and have average to above average IQ
About 2.4 million kids in US have a SLD

Some SLD’s run in families like reading and spelling deficits.

Other causes are: prenatal exposure to toxins (smoking, alcohol), premature birth, lack of oxygen during birth, head injury after birth.
In some cases – cause is unknown.
Cannot cure a SLD

Question 37

Giftedness

Answer 37

represents children who are functioning at a very high level and have an extraordinary amount of potential for their development

Question 38

Taxonomic Constraints

Answer 38

two objects with features in common can have a common name, but each object also needs an individual name;
example: dogs and cats have 4 legs and fur and tail so they are both animals But they each have unique characteristics that distinguish them – and they can also have their individual names.

Question 39

Constraints

Answer 39

Children use constraints to form hypotheses about the names for things in the environment.
It limits or constrains the alternatives the child considers when learning a new word.

Question 40

Dropout Stats

Answer 40

About one third of students who graduate high school do not go on to higher education
It may be because these students do not see the connection between what they are studying and opportunities in the workplace.

About two thirds of high school graduates enroll in college after graduating.

The transition to college can be difficult for some students who are going out of state to school.

Thus – colleges provide lots of support to students such as operating a student success center.

Question 41

Cognitive Processing Theory

Answer 41

Statistical Learning*

Language learning is a process of ‘data crunching”: children take in and process the language they hear much as a computer would.

The actual process of learning words and their meanings relies more on the computational ability of the brain.

So – kids are constantly figuring out statistically how likely it is certain sounds will follow each other.

This is called the “transitional probability”

For example – if we hear ele we think either elephant or elevator