PSY-357 GCU EXAM 3 COMPREHENSIVE
STUDY GUIDE 2026 VERIFIED ANSWERS
◉ Some evidence that deaf children learning ASL produce first-word
sooner than same-aged English learners. Answer: Not due to the
iconicity of ASL, iconic signs were used as early as other ones.
Earlier signs are not used to communicate.
Conclusion- no cognitive advantage for signers, but there is a motor
advantage
◉ Overextensions. Answer: When children use a word in a broader
way than the adult usage Ex- horse for all 4 legged animals.
◉ Undergeneralization Answer: When children use a word in a more
narrow way than the adult usage
Ex. round is used only to refer to balls
◉ Mapping problem Answer: How does the kid know what the word
goes with in the word
Solved the mapping problem 1-CDS 2-assumption: named object is
whole object 3- language itself
◉ At the park, a father sees a tree and tells his son, "Look at that
tree! See that tree?" Identify:
,a) the problem the father is trying to help the child solve
b) how the father is trying to help him Answer:
◉ Regarding MLU (mean length of utterances), be able to identify:
__its primary function as a measure Answer: Most commonly used
measure- MLU
Method
Collect 100 spontaneous utterances
Count the number of morphemes in each utterance and divide by
100
◉ Regarding MLU (mean length of utterances), be able to identify:
__how it might be problematic as a measure Answer: Rationale- a
measure of ability to combine morphemes "productively"
The measure is a "conservative" estimate of grammatical
understanding. Not measure of comprehension, a measure of
production. Still not sure if it is a good measure at all, quite possible
that the syntactic representations children can comprehend at
various stages of MLU outpace what they're producing
◉ Know and understand the "Sesame Street" evidence collected by
Golinkoff and colleagues (1987) regarding the comprehension
abilities of children, and understand how it demonstrates that
children who produce only one-word utterances are capable of fully
comprehending far more complex ones Answer:
, ◉ Be familiar with the factors that may influence the order of
acquisition of grammatical morphemes Answer: Grammatical
morphemes distinguished from content words
Included tenses and inflections
Possible explanations
Frequency of use by parents, within a limited subset, morpheme
frequency in parental speech correlates with the age of acquisition,
criticized by pinker
Complexity, Brown found no evidence for parental frequency
◉ Be able to identify a statement that best summarizes the
results/conclusions of Berko's "wug" study Answer: Preschool
children answered wugs, but what about irregular cases like fish?
◉ overextension Answer:
◉ ovverregularization Answer: mouses instead of mice, ringed
instead of rang
Why does it occur? Rules for regular forms, Store exceptions in
memory, no rules, rather a network that tunes its connections
according to the input it receives
STUDY GUIDE 2026 VERIFIED ANSWERS
◉ Some evidence that deaf children learning ASL produce first-word
sooner than same-aged English learners. Answer: Not due to the
iconicity of ASL, iconic signs were used as early as other ones.
Earlier signs are not used to communicate.
Conclusion- no cognitive advantage for signers, but there is a motor
advantage
◉ Overextensions. Answer: When children use a word in a broader
way than the adult usage Ex- horse for all 4 legged animals.
◉ Undergeneralization Answer: When children use a word in a more
narrow way than the adult usage
Ex. round is used only to refer to balls
◉ Mapping problem Answer: How does the kid know what the word
goes with in the word
Solved the mapping problem 1-CDS 2-assumption: named object is
whole object 3- language itself
◉ At the park, a father sees a tree and tells his son, "Look at that
tree! See that tree?" Identify:
,a) the problem the father is trying to help the child solve
b) how the father is trying to help him Answer:
◉ Regarding MLU (mean length of utterances), be able to identify:
__its primary function as a measure Answer: Most commonly used
measure- MLU
Method
Collect 100 spontaneous utterances
Count the number of morphemes in each utterance and divide by
100
◉ Regarding MLU (mean length of utterances), be able to identify:
__how it might be problematic as a measure Answer: Rationale- a
measure of ability to combine morphemes "productively"
The measure is a "conservative" estimate of grammatical
understanding. Not measure of comprehension, a measure of
production. Still not sure if it is a good measure at all, quite possible
that the syntactic representations children can comprehend at
various stages of MLU outpace what they're producing
◉ Know and understand the "Sesame Street" evidence collected by
Golinkoff and colleagues (1987) regarding the comprehension
abilities of children, and understand how it demonstrates that
children who produce only one-word utterances are capable of fully
comprehending far more complex ones Answer:
, ◉ Be familiar with the factors that may influence the order of
acquisition of grammatical morphemes Answer: Grammatical
morphemes distinguished from content words
Included tenses and inflections
Possible explanations
Frequency of use by parents, within a limited subset, morpheme
frequency in parental speech correlates with the age of acquisition,
criticized by pinker
Complexity, Brown found no evidence for parental frequency
◉ Be able to identify a statement that best summarizes the
results/conclusions of Berko's "wug" study Answer: Preschool
children answered wugs, but what about irregular cases like fish?
◉ overextension Answer:
◉ ovverregularization Answer: mouses instead of mice, ringed
instead of rang
Why does it occur? Rules for regular forms, Store exceptions in
memory, no rules, rather a network that tunes its connections
according to the input it receives
