telegraphic speech

1. condensed or abbreviated speech in which only the most central words, carrying the highest level of information, are spoken. Nouns and verbs are typically featured, whereas adjectives, adverbs, articles, and connective parts of speech are omitted.

2. the speech of children roughly between the ages of 18 and 30 months. This is usually in the form of two-word expressions up to the age of about 24 months (see two-word stage) and thereafter is characterized by short but multiword expressions (e.g., dog eat bone). Also called telegraphic stage.

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Psychology term of the day

February 17th 2025

maze-bright and maze-dull rats

two groups of rats that were separated based on their performance in a standardized maze problem. Those that performed best were bred with each other, as were those that performed most poorly. Over relatively few generations, there was a complete separation in performance, with none of the maze-bright rats overlapping in scores with maze-dull rats. However, the selective breeding appeared to be specific to the maze tests that were used and did not affect learning ability more generally; moreover, maze-dull rats reared in an enriched environment (see enrichment) could perform as well as maze-bright rats.