DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY COMPREHENSIVE
2025/2026 GRADED A+ 125 QUESTIONS WITH 100%
CORRECT ANSWERS EXAM NEW EDITION
Phonology - sound system of language; how the sounds are used and combined
Phoneme - The smallest unit of sound
Morphology - The units of meaning involved in word formation
-Overgeneralization is evidence that a child is mastering this set of rules.
Syntax - The way words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences
Semantics - Meanings of words and sentences
-The cup dropped the boy- violates this language rule system
Pragmatics - Refers to your ability to adjust your language appropriately to different contexts.
Over-extension - Calling all four-legged creatures doggy; calling all men daddy
Child calling all four-legged animals 'bow-wows'
Under-extension - Child learns the word flower in connection to a rose, but fails to extend the
meaning to other types of flowers; child might use this term when using the verb "sit" and only use it
in reference to the family dog's sitting and no one else's
Mean length utternace - Measure of linguistic productivity in children. It is traditionally calculated by
100 utterances spoken by a child and dividing the number of morphemes by the number of
utterances. Roger Brown uses this measure to reflect linguistic complexity.
Broca's Area - Region of the brain responsible for spoken and written language.
Broca's Aphasia - Damage to the broca's area, characterized by hesitant and fragmented speech with
little grammatical structure.
, Wernicke's area - Region of the brain concerned with the comprehension of language.
Wernicke's Aphasia - Damage to the Wernicke's area, characterized by superficially fluent,
grammatical speech but an inability to use or understand more than the basic nouns and verbs.
What is LASS? - Language Acquisition Support System
What are LASS's components? - -Child directed speech (parentese)
-Echoing
-Recasting
-Expanding
-Labeling
What is parentese? - High frequency, diminutives, rate of speech slows, increased prosody
Environmental influences on language development - -Communication and sentence structure
-Parental vocabulary
-Childcare setting and vocabulary
Parental and SES influences on language development - SES is linked to language development.
-Welfare parents talk less to their children
-Maternal language and literacy skills positively related to child's vocabulary; not talkativeness
-Mother's education level is positively correlated to number of books in the home
-Single-parent and welfare families had fewer books than two-parent and affluent families
-Kindergartener had better language skills if parents read to them 3 or more times a week
What does LAD stand for and who founded it? - Language Acquisition Device, founded by Noam
Chomsky
What is LAD? - Language Acquisition Device= a hypothetical module of the human mind posited to
account for children's innate predisposition for language acquisition. The LAD concept is an
instinctive mental capacity, which enables an infant to acquire and produce language.
2025/2026 GRADED A+ 125 QUESTIONS WITH 100%
CORRECT ANSWERS EXAM NEW EDITION
Phonology - sound system of language; how the sounds are used and combined
Phoneme - The smallest unit of sound
Morphology - The units of meaning involved in word formation
-Overgeneralization is evidence that a child is mastering this set of rules.
Syntax - The way words are combined to form acceptable phrases and sentences
Semantics - Meanings of words and sentences
-The cup dropped the boy- violates this language rule system
Pragmatics - Refers to your ability to adjust your language appropriately to different contexts.
Over-extension - Calling all four-legged creatures doggy; calling all men daddy
Child calling all four-legged animals 'bow-wows'
Under-extension - Child learns the word flower in connection to a rose, but fails to extend the
meaning to other types of flowers; child might use this term when using the verb "sit" and only use it
in reference to the family dog's sitting and no one else's
Mean length utternace - Measure of linguistic productivity in children. It is traditionally calculated by
100 utterances spoken by a child and dividing the number of morphemes by the number of
utterances. Roger Brown uses this measure to reflect linguistic complexity.
Broca's Area - Region of the brain responsible for spoken and written language.
Broca's Aphasia - Damage to the broca's area, characterized by hesitant and fragmented speech with
little grammatical structure.
, Wernicke's area - Region of the brain concerned with the comprehension of language.
Wernicke's Aphasia - Damage to the Wernicke's area, characterized by superficially fluent,
grammatical speech but an inability to use or understand more than the basic nouns and verbs.
What is LASS? - Language Acquisition Support System
What are LASS's components? - -Child directed speech (parentese)
-Echoing
-Recasting
-Expanding
-Labeling
What is parentese? - High frequency, diminutives, rate of speech slows, increased prosody
Environmental influences on language development - -Communication and sentence structure
-Parental vocabulary
-Childcare setting and vocabulary
Parental and SES influences on language development - SES is linked to language development.
-Welfare parents talk less to their children
-Maternal language and literacy skills positively related to child's vocabulary; not talkativeness
-Mother's education level is positively correlated to number of books in the home
-Single-parent and welfare families had fewer books than two-parent and affluent families
-Kindergartener had better language skills if parents read to them 3 or more times a week
What does LAD stand for and who founded it? - Language Acquisition Device, founded by Noam
Chomsky
What is LAD? - Language Acquisition Device= a hypothetical module of the human mind posited to
account for children's innate predisposition for language acquisition. The LAD concept is an
instinctive mental capacity, which enables an infant to acquire and produce language.
