AP Psychology: Social-Emotional Development and Language (Drill 15)

Question 1. At about 6 months old, Nicholas spends long stretches of time making repetitive sounds like "ba-ba-ba" and "ma-ma-ma," seemingly for his own enjoyment, without yet using these sounds to refer to anything. This vocal behavior is best described as:

• A) Telegraphic speech
• B) Babbling ✓
• C) Overgeneralization
• D) Holophrastic speech

Explanation: Babbling is the stage, typically starting around 4–6 months, in which infants produce repeated consonant-vowel combinations that do not yet carry meaning. (A) is wrong because telegraphic speech refers to the toddler stage of two-word phrases like "want milk." (D) describes the one-word stage in which a single word functions as a whole idea, also later in development. (C) is an error pattern in grammar acquisition (e.g., "goed" for "went"), not a description of infant vocalization.

Question 2. In the Strange Situation, a toddler cries intensely when her mother leaves the room and then goes to her mother for comfort when she returns and is quickly soothed. Ainsworth would classify this pattern as:

• A) Secure attachment ✓
• B) Insecure-avoidant attachment
• C) Insecure-resistant (ambivalent) attachment
• D) Disorganized attachment

Explanation: Secure attachment is defined by visible distress at separation and, crucially, being readily comforted upon reunion, which is exactly what the toddler does here. (B) is wrong because an avoidant toddler typically does not show distress at separation and does not seek the caregiver out upon return. (C) involves intense distress but also ambivalent behavior on reunion, the child seeks contact but then resists it and is difficult to soothe, not quickly soothed. (D) refers to contradictory, confused behavior that does not fit one of the organized patterns.

Question 3. A 3-year-old named Hugo says "I goed to the park yesterday." His older sister laughs and says he should have said "went." Hugo's mistake most directly illustrates:

• A) That Hugo has not yet mastered semantics
• B) That Hugo is applying a grammatical rule more broadly than it actually applies ✓
• C) That Hugo is imitating an adult he has heard use the word "goed"
• D) That Hugo's language development is delayed and may require intervention in this case

Explanation: Hugo's error is a textbook case of overgeneralization (also called overregularization): he has learned the rule "add -ed to form the past tense" and is applying it to an irregular verb. This is actually a sign of healthy language development. (C) is wrong because adults do not model "goed"; the child is generating the error on his own, which is strong evidence against pure imitation-based accounts of language acquisition. (D) is factually wrong for the age described. (A) is tempting because the error involves word form, but semantics refers to meaning rather than grammatical form, a true-but-irrelevant description of what Hugo is getting wrong.

Question 4. A researcher argues that human infants are born with an innate language acquisition device (LAD), citing the fact that children across cultures reach language milestones in roughly the same sequence and at roughly the same ages despite very different input. A critic challenges this interpretation. Which of the following would be the strongest evidence against the pure nativist view that the critic could offer?

• A) Children who experience severe social and linguistic deprivation often fail to develop fully typical language, especially when the deprivation extends past a critical period. ✓
• B) All known human languages share certain structural features such as nouns and verbs.
• C) Chomsky proposed the LAD based on observations of young children.
• D) Brain imaging studies identify Broca's and Wernicke's areas as involved in language.

Explanation: The nativist view holds that the biological capacity for language is the main driver of development. The strongest challenge comes from cases in which biology is intact but environmental input is absent, deprived children often fail to develop typical language, showing that environmental input is also necessary and supporting an interactionist critique. (B) actually supports nativism. (C) is a historical fact about the theory, not evidence against it. (D) is true-but-irrelevant: the existence of dedicated language regions in the brain is consistent with nativism, if anything.

Question 5. A researcher administers an Erikson-inspired questionnaire to adults at four different ages and reports the percentage of respondents who score high on "resolved a coherent sense of identity":

• Age 18: 22%
• Age 25: 54%
• Age 40: 78%
• Age 65: 81%

A student draws four conclusions from the table. Which is the most defensible interpretation of these data?

• A) The data show that resolving identity causes greater life satisfaction in later adulthood.
• B) The data directly prove that Erikson's stage of identity vs. role confusion is correctly placed in adolescence.
• C) The data are consistent with identity resolution increasing from late adolescence into adulthood. ✓
• D) The data contradict Erikson's stage theory because only 22% of 18-year-olds have resolved identity.

Explanation: The numbers show identity scores rising sharply from age 18 into middle adulthood and then leveling off, a reasonable description of what the data actually show. (B) overreaches: the data show a developmental trend but do not "prove" any one stage is correctly placed. (D) misreads Erikson, who held that identity formation typically continues into young adulthood; a 22% resolution rate at 18 is consistent with his framework, not a contradiction. (A) is true-but-irrelevant: the study does not measure life satisfaction at all, so no causal claim about satisfaction can be drawn from these numbers.