Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T11:21:07.021Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What counts as effective input for word learning?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2012

LAURA A. SHNEIDMAN ,
MICHELLE E. ARROYO ,
SUSAN C. LEVINE  and
SUSAN GOLDIN-MEADOW
LAURA A. SHNEIDMAN*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
MICHELLE E. ARROYO
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
SUSAN C. LEVINE
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
SUSAN GOLDIN-MEADOW
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
*
Address for correspondence: Laura Shneidman, Center for Early Childhood Research, University of Chicago, 5848 S. University Ave., Chicago, IL, 60637. e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The talk children hear from their primary caregivers predicts the size of their vocabularies. But children who spend time with multiple individuals also hear talk that others direct to them, as well as talk not directed to them at all. We investigated the effect of linguistic input on vocabulary acquisition in children who routinely spent time with one vs. multiple individuals. For all children, the number of words primary caregivers directed to them at age 2 ; 6 predicted vocabulary size at age 3 ; 6. For children who spent time with multiple individuals, child-directed words from all household members also predicted later vocabulary and accounted for more variance in vocabulary than words from primary caregivers alone. Interestingly, overheard words added no predictive value to the model. These findings suggest that speech directed to children is important for early word learning, even in households where a sizable proportion of input comes from overheard speech.

Type
Brief Research Reports
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , June 2013 , pp. 672 - 686
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[*]

This research was supported by P01HD40605 to Goldin-Meadow and Levine. We thank K. Schonwald, B. Trofatter and J. Voigt for their administrative and technical help, K. Brasky, E. Croft, K. Duboc, B. Free, J. Griffin, S. Gripshover, C. Meanwell, E. Mellum, M. Nikolas, J. Oberholtzer, L. Rissman, M. Ryan, B. Seibel, K. Uttich and J. Wallman for help in data collection and transcription. We are grateful to the parents and children who participated in the study. Portions of this research were presented at the annual meeting of the Boston University Conference on Language Development, November 2006. This article is dedicated to the memory of Michelle E. Arroyo.

References

REFERENCES

Akhtar, N. (2005). The robustness of learning through overhearing. Developmental Science 8, 199–209.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Akhtar, N., Jipson, J. & Callanan, M. A. (2001). Learning words through overhearing. Child Development 72, 416–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barnes, S., Gutfreund, M., Satterly, D. & Wells, G. (1983). Characteristics of adult speech which predict children's language development. Journal of Child Language 10, 65–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blum-Kulka, S. & Snow, C. E. (eds) 2002. Talking to adults: The contribution of multiparty discourse to language acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, P. (1998). Children's first verbs in Tzeltal: Evidence for an early verb category. Linguistics 36(4), 713–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpenter, M., Nagell, K. & Tomasello, M. (1998). Social cognition, joint attention, and communicative competence from 9 to 15 months of age. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 63(4), 176.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chavajay, P. & Rogoff, B. (1999). Cultural variation in management of attention by children and their caregivers. Developmental Psychology 35, 1079–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Leon, Lourdes. (1998). The emergent participant: Interactive patterns in the socialization of Tzotzil (Mayan) infants. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 8, 131–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunn, L. M. & Dunn, L. M. (1997). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, 3rd edn. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.Google Scholar
Floor, P. & Akhtar, N. (2006). Can 18-month-old infants learn words by listening in on conversations? Infancy 9, 327–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gleitman, L. R., Newport, E. L. & Gleitman, H. (1984). The current status of the motherese hypothesis. Journal of Child Language 1, 43–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, B. & Risley, T. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore: Brooks.Google Scholar
Hoff, E. (2003). The specificity of environmental influence: Socioeconomic status affects early vocabulary development via maternal speech. Child Development 74, 1368–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huttenlocher, J., Haight, W., Bryk, A., Seltzer, M. & Lyons, T. (1991). Early vocabulary growth: Relation to language input and gender. Developmental Psychology 27, 236–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huttenlocher, J., Vasilyeva, M., Cymerman, E. & Levine, S. (2002). Language input and child syntax. Cognitive Psychology 45, 337–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huttenlocher, J., Vasilyeva, M., Waterfall, H. R., Vevea, J. L. & Hedges, L. V. (2007). The varieties of speech to young children. Developmental Psychology 43, 1062–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jones, C. P. & Adamson, L. B. (1987). Language use in mother–child and mother–child–sibling interactions. Child Development 58, 356–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieven, E. V. M. (1994). Crosslinguistic and crosscultural aspects of language addressed to children. In Gallaway, C. & Richards, B. J. (eds), Input and interaction in language acquisition, 56–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newport, E. L., Gleitman, H. & Gleitman, L. R. (1977). Mother, I'd rather do it myself: Some effects and non-effects of maternal speech style. In Snow, C. E. & Ferguson, C. A. (eds), Talking to children, 109–149. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Oshima-Takane, Y. & Robbins, M. (2003). Linguistic environment of second born children. First Language 23, 21–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowe, M. L. (2008). Child-directed speech: Relation to socioeconomic status, knowledge of child development, and child vocabulary skill. Journal of Child Language 35, 185–205.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Saffran, J., Hauser, M., Seibel, R., Kapfhamer, J., Tsao, F. & Cushman, F. (2008). Grammatical pattern learning by human infants and cotton-top tamarin monkeys. Cognition 107(2), 479–500.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shimpi, P. & Akhtar, N. (2011). Learning actions and words from third-party interactions. Unpublished paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development.Google Scholar
Shneidman, L. A., Shimpi, P. M., Sootsman-Buresh, J., Knight-Schwartz, J. & Woodward, A. L. (2009). Social experience, social attention and word learning in an overhearing paradigm. Language Learning and Development 5(4), 266–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (1995). Joint attention as social cognition. In Moore, C., Dunham, P. & Philip, J. (eds), Joint attention: Its origins and role in development, 103–130. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. & Farrar, M. J. (1986). Joint attention and early language. Child Development 57, 1454–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M. & Todd, J. (1983). Joint attention and lexical acquisition style. First Language 4, 197–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wellen, C. J. (1985). Effects of older siblings on the language young children hear and produce. Journal of Speech & Hearing Disorders 50, 84–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed