Leech, K.A., Salo, V.C., Rowe, M.L., and Cabrera, N.J (2012) Father input and Child Vocabulary Development: The Importance of Wh Questions and Clarification Requests. Seminars in Speech & Language, 34:249-259.
Questions:
- Research presented in this article describes father’s input to children as
- being similar to mother’s input.
- using more yes/no questions.
- having wide variability.
- using less clarification requests.
- Research has documented that differences in the size of lower and higher-income children’s vocabularies
- grows over time.
- carries over into reading abilities.
- remains static.
- A and B
- B and C
- Some of the factors that influence the input mothers offer their children include
- maternal literacy skills.
- maternal working environment.
- maternal depression.
- maternal education.
- A, B and C
- A, C and D
- Children from higher income homes hear an estimated more words than children from lower income homes by the time they are 4 years old.
- 30 million
- 80%
- 25 000
- 100 000
- The authors argue that examining the associations between father input and child language development within a low income sample may help inform us of several factors that contribute to variability in children’s early language skills within these populations.
- True
- False
- In the study by Ratner, it was reported that
- there were differences between mother’s and father’s vocabulary diversity.
- fathers’ quantity of word tokens was similar to that of mothers’ when interacting with their child.
- fathers used more “rare” words than mothers.
- fathers used more common vocabulary words than mothers.
- In this article, the authors looked at three measures on which maternal and paternal speech patterns are often compared:
- Complexity, maternal depression and diversity.
- Quantity, diversity and complexity.
- Diversity, education levels and income.
- Quantity, quality and responsiveness.
- Conversation eliciting devices do not include
- requests for clarification.
- repetitions.
- questions.
- non specific clarification requests.
- In a study by Pancsofar and Vernon-Feagans (2010), the vocabulary diversity of fathers from low-income backgrounds used during a book reading task
- related to children’s vocabulary concurrently.
- related to children’s vocabulary predictively.
- made a significant contribution to children’s expressive language skills.
- All the above
- None of the above
- Requests for clarification
- allow the child to repeat him-/herself and therefore practice his/her newly acquired vocabulary skills.
- require the child to make him-herself understood.
- Both of the above
- None of the above
- With regard to quantity of speech, the authors report
- that some studies found differences between fathers and mothers, while others did not.
- that studies showed consistently that fathers talk less to their children than mothers do.
- that studies consistently showed that, in father-child dyads, the number of word tokens was less than in mother-child dyads.
- that studies showed consistently that there were no differences in quantity of child-directed speech between fathers and mothers.
- A and C
- Use of wh questions is associated with language development as
- children who hear wh questions are more able to comprehend and produce these question types.
- exposure to these questions during the 3rd year of life predicts growth in preposition development.
- book reading styles that include a lower proportion of caregiver questions relate to higher expressive vocabulary skills.
- use of wh questions directly relates to school readiness after kindergarten entry.
- Wh-questions are conversation eliciting because they require a response from the child that often includes one word only.
- True
- False
- In the current study reported by the authors, the number of were used as measures of quantity of talk.
- word tokens and total utterances
- word types and total utterances
- word types and word tokens
- wh questions and word tokens
- Verbatim reading from the text of a book was included in the analyses reported in this study.
- True
- False
- Question categories used in this study included
- wh questions.
- tag questions.
- indirect directives.
- All of the above
- None of the above
- Word types served as a measure of lexical diversity in this study.
- True
- False
- An example of a tag question is :
- Who are you calling on the phone?
- Do you want it open or closed?
- Huh? What did you say?
- This is the big one, right?
- What percentage of father’s clarification requests were non-specific?
- 75%
- 95.6%
- 22.3%
- 8.7%
- Fathers in this study used mainly what questions with their children. The authors suggest that such questions are appropriately challenging for 2-year-old children because
- they elicit object labels.
- they result in children talking more.
- they serve as an important opportunity to learn and reinforce new words.
- A and B
- A and C