BABIES LEARN WORDS DIFFERENTLY AS THEY AGE
Research has shown
that most 18-month-olds learn an average of two to five new words a day;
however, little is known about how children process information to learn new
words as they move through the preschool years. In a new study, a University of
Missouri researcher has found that toddlers learn words differently as they
age, and a limit exists as to how many words they can learn each day. These
findings could help parents enhance their children's vocabularies and assist
speech-language professionals in developing and refining interventions to help
children with language delays.
"We found that
babies' abilities to accurately guess the meaning of new words increases
between 18 and 30 months of age, and by 24 to 36 months, toddlers are able to
accurately guess the meanings of new words at a significantly higher
level," said Judith Goodman, an associate professor in the MU School of
Health Professions and chair of the Department of Communication Science and
Disorders. "Interestingly, we observed that even from the time children
mature from 18 to 30 months of age, the cues toddlers use to learn new words
change."
In the study,
researchers taught six new words to children, who ranged in age from 18 to 36
months, using three types of cues. The cues were presented alone or in pairs,
and the researchers recorded the children's ability to accurately guess what
the words meant.
"When children
were presented with a new word and asked to choose between an item for which
they already had a name and an unfamiliar object, they appropriately assigned
the new word to the unfamiliar object, and this ability improved as children
aged," Goodman said. "The toddlers' ability to infer a word's meaning
from linguistic context, such as figuring out that a 'kiwi' must be a food item
when they hear, 'Sammy eats the kiwi,' also improved as the children aged. However,
using social cues, such as eye gaze, became less effective as the children
matured. By 36 months of age, children were less likely to assume a word
referred to the particular object a speaker was looking at -- looking at a kiwi
when teaching the child the word 'kiwi' -- than younger children were."
Goodman also found
that a limit exists as to how many words toddlers can retain. A day after the
children learned the six words, the researchers tested whether the children
remembered the words. The children better remembered the first three words they
had learned the first day, Goodman said.
Children who are
struggling with learning language may benefit from being presented with
specific cues, Goodman said. Additionally, the research reinforces the importance
of providing children with rich word-learning environments, in which toddlers
are exposed to many words and are provided with a variety of cues to help them
learn and remember those words and what they represent, Goodman said.
"When you're
working with young children who are learning language, it's important to talk
to them all the time and label everything in their environments," Goodman
said. "At home, parents can name household items or foods the children are
eating. If out on an excursion, such as a trip to the zoo, parents can label
the animals they see."
The research was
supported in part by the Student Research Grant in Early Childhood Language
Acquisition from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation.
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