Test Bank
Chapter 5: Infancy – Let the Language Achievements Begin
Multiple Choice
1. _____________________________ is the prominence placed on certain syllables that
applies to entire phrases and sentences.
a. Stress
b. Intonation
c. Prosody
d. Duration
2. By age ____________, infants learning English prefer to listen to words containing strong-
weak stress patterns.
a. 3 months
b. 6 months
c. 9 months
d. 1 year
3. _____________________________ allow(s) listeners to distinguish between phonemes so
they can quickly and efficiently process incoming speech by ignoring those variations that
are nonessential or nonmeaningful in their language.
a. Categorical perception
b. Phonetic regularities
c. Statistical learning
d. Prosodic regularities
4. Infants’ ability to differentiate between permissible and impermissible sound sequences in
their native language is present by about age _____________.
a. 3 months
b. 6 months
c. 9 months
d. 1 year
5. ____________________________ is/are the interval(s) between the release of a stop
consonant and the onset of vocal fold vibration.
a. Temporal difference
b. Allophones
c. Aspiration
d. Voice onset time
6. ____________________________ terms describe specific concepts in a category.
a. Superordinate
b. Subordinate
c. Basic
d. Superlative
7. By age __________, infants learn that their noncry vocalizations elicit reactions from social
partners.
a. 3 months
b. 5 months
c. 7 months
d. 9 months
8. “Raspberries” are examples of sounds made in the _________________________ stage.
a. Reflexive
b. Control of phonation
c. Expansion
d. Basic canonical syllables
9. ______________________________ consists of repeating C-V pairs, as in “ma ma ma.”
a. Reduplicated babbling
b. Variegated babbling
c. Nonreduplicated babbling
d. Marginal babbling
10. _____________________________ is a special type of babbling containing at least two
syllables and at least two different consonants and vowels, as well as varied stress or
intonation patterns.
a. Complex disyllables
b. Marginal babbling
c. Jargon
d. Reduplicated babbling
11. Paralinguistic features of _____________________________ include a high overall pitch,
exaggerated pitch contours, and slower tempo.
a. Child-directed speech
b. Adult-directed speech
c. Infant-directed speech
d. Adolescent-directed speech
12. The extent to which mothers use strategies to __________________________ their infant’s
attention is negatively related to an infant’s ability to engage in sustained attention.
a. Redirect
b. Support joint engagement
c. Focus
d. Alternate
13. Intentional communication begins to emerge around age ____________.
a. 3 months
b. 6 months
c. 9 months
d. 12 months
14. Caregiver ____________________________ is/are linked to the time at which infants reach
important language milestones, including saying their first word.
a. Routines
b. Phonotactics
c. Engagement
d. Responsiveness
15. When do infants begin to produce sound?
a. At birth
b. Within the first couple of days after birth
c. At 1 week
d. At 3 weeks
16. One-year-olds can comprehend an average of ______________ words.
a. 10
b. 20
c. 40
d. 80
17. ______________________________ use language primarily for social exchanges.
a. Referential language users
b. Late talkers
c. Early talkers
d. Expressive language learners
18. Children are considered to be late talkers if they produce fewer than 50 words by age
______________.
a. 9 months
b. 12 months
c. 18 months
d. 24 months
19. Males are about _______________ times more likely to be late talkers than females.
a. 2
b. 3
c. 4
d. 5
20. ______________________________ of an infant consists of presenting the same stimulus
repeatedly until his or her attention to the stimulus decreases by a predetermined amount.
a. Habituation
b. Redirection
c. Dishabituation
d. Bombardment
21. ______________________________ involves systematically observing and analyzing an
infant’s communicative behavior in everyday situations.
a. The switch task
b. The intermodal preferential looking paradigm
c. Naturalistic observation
d. Neuroimaging
22. Using the ____________________________, researchers analyze an infant’s electrical or
hemodynamic brain response to various stimuli to determine the extent to which infants
detect differences in the sounds.
a. Interactive intermodal preferential looking paradigm
b. Oddball paradigm
c. Phonetic paradigm
d. Acoustic paradigm
23. Early talkers produce an average of ____________ words at 21 months of age.
a. 100
b. 265
c. 475
d. 690
24. On average, infants produce their first true word around age __________.
a. 9 months
b. 12 months
c. 15 months
d. 18 months
Essay
1. Why is infants’ awareness of movement and understanding of the goals underlying actions
important for language development?
2. What are the three levels of object category formation?
3. What are the three major developmental phases infants go through with respect to joint
reference and attention?
4. What criteria are necessary for an infant’s vocalization to be considered a true word?
5. Name one neuroimaging technique used to measure changes in the brain’s electrical activity
and one used to measure the hemodynamic response.
6. Briefly discuss the value of parent report measures in regard to infant language development.
ANSWER KEY
Chapter 5: Infancy – Let the Language Achievements Begin
Multiple Choice