What makes a word easy to acquire? The effects of word class, frequency, imageability and phonological neighbourhood density on lexical development

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pernille Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Robust Regression ◽  
Age Of Acquisition ◽  
Word Class ◽  
Lexical Database ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Lexical Development ◽  
Communicative Development ◽  
Class Frequency ◽  
Lexical Effects ◽  
The Individual

This article analyses how a set of psycholinguistic factors may account for children’s lexical development. Age of acquisition is compared to a measure of lexical development based on vocabulary size rather than age, and robust regression models are used to assess the individual and joint effects of word class, frequency, imageability and phonological neighbourhood density on Norwegian children’s early lexical development. The Norwegian Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) norms were used to calculate each CDI word’s age of acquisition and vocabulary size of acquisition. Lexical properties were downloaded from the lexical database Norwegian Words, supplemented with data on frequency in adult and child-directed speech. Age of acquisition correlated highly with vocabulary size of acquisition, but the new measure was more evenly distributed and more sensitive to lexical effects. Frequency in child-directed speech was the most important predictor of lexical development, followed by imageability, which seems to account for the dominance of nominals over predicates in Norwegian.

Lexical Development in Bilingual French/ Portuguese Speaking Toddlers

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Kern ◽  
Daniela Valente ◽  
Christophe Dos Santos
Keyword(s):  
Vocabulary Acquisition ◽  
Developmental Stages ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Lexical Development ◽  
Language Dominance ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
Communicative Development ◽  
Almost All

In this study, we explore if French-European Portuguese (EP)-speaking bilingual toddlers produce the same number of words as their monolingual peers, in French, in EP, or in both languages. Furthermore, we explore the link between language dominance and lexicon size. We tested 53 bilingual French-EP children, among which 16 were 16–18 months old, 16 were 24–25 months old and 21 were 30–35 months old. The parents completed the French and the EP Communicative Development Inventory (adaptations of MacArthur–Bates CDI [Fenson et al., 2007]), the PaBiQ (Tuller, 2015) to evaluate language dominance and the ASQ-3 (Squires et al., 2009) to assess their developmental stages. The total vocabulary (both language combined, TV?F+EP), the total vocabulary (TV) in each language (TV?EP and TV?F) and the conceptual vocabulary (CV) were calculated. These vocabulary measures were compared with the monolingual norms in French and EP. The results showed that almost all participants had the same performance in vocabulary acquisition as their monolingual peers in French and EP, measured through the CDI in each language respectively. Their TV?F+EP and CV exceeded the vocabulary of monolinguals and language dominance was correlated with vocabulary size.

A crosslinguistic study of the relationship between grammar and lexical development

2005 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-786 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTONELLA DEVESCOVI ◽  
MARIA CRISTINA CASELLI ◽  
DANIELA MARCHIONE ◽  
PATRIZIO PASQUALETTI ◽  
JUDY REILLY ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Lexical Development ◽  
Significant Variance ◽  
Grammatical Development ◽  
Communicative Development ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
Italian Children ◽  
Mean Length Of Utterance ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between grammatical and lexical development was compared in 233 English and 233 Italian children aged between 1;6 and 2;6, matched for age, gender, and vocabulary size on the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI). Four different measures of Mean Length of Utterance were applied to the three longest utterances reported by parents, and to corrected/expanded versions representing the ‘target’ for each utterance. Italians had longer MLUs on most measures, but the ratio of actual to target MLUs did not differ between languages. Age and vocabulary both contributed significant variance to MLU, but the contribution of vocabulary was much larger, suggesting that vocabulary size may provide a better basis for crosslinguistic comparisons of grammatical development. The relationship between MLU and vocabulary size was non-linear in English but linear in Italian, suggesting that grammar ‘gets off the ground’ earlier in a richly inflected language. A possible mechanism to account for this difference is discussed.

Prespeech Vocalizations and the Emergence of Speech: A Study of 1005 Spanish Children

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Karousou ◽  
Susana López-Ornat
Keyword(s):  
Gradual Transition ◽  
Parental Report ◽  
Vocal Development ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Lexical Development ◽  
Linguistic Development ◽  
Asynchronous Development ◽  
Parental Questionnaire ◽  
Communicative Development

AbstractThis study investigates 12 prespeech vocal behaviors which are taken to reflect children´s phonological, communicative and early symbolic development. It explores their development (onset, duration and extinction) and their relation to early lexical development. A structured parental questionnaire on prespeech vocalizations was developed, validated and used for the evaluation of 1005 Spanish children’s early vocal development (8–30 months). In parallel, the same children’s productive vocabulary was assessed using the vocabulary section of the European-Spanish MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. Results highlight a global inverted U-shaped developmental pattern which emerges from the asynchronous development of the vocal behaviors examined, relating both their emergence and extinction to advances in linguistic development. Moreover, the protracted coexistence of prespeech vocalizations with early speech and their significant correlations with vocabulary size reveal a gradual transition into language. Overall results reinforce and extend previous findings on the development of prespeech vocalizations and establish their relevance as early indexes of linguistic development. Finally, positive evidence on the use of an assisted parental report method for reliably evaluating these developments is provided. Results are discussed within theoretical frameworks that conceive language as the emergent product of complex developmental processes.

scholarly journals Are Young Children With Cochlear Implants Sensitive to the Statistics of Words in the Ambient Spoken Language?

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 987-1000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ling-Yu Guo ◽  
Karla K. McGregor ◽  
Linda J. Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Cochlear Implants ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Neighborhood Density ◽  
Statistical Characteristics ◽  
Archival Data ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Phonotactic Probability ◽  
Lexical Development ◽  
Communicative Development ◽  
Sensitivity Changes

Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine whether children with cochlear implants (CIs) are sensitive to statistical characteristics of words in the ambient spoken language, whether that sensitivity changes in expected ways as their spoken lexicon grows, and whether that sensitivity varies with unilateral or bilateral implantation. Method We analyzed archival data collected from the parents of 36 children who received cochlear implantation (20 unilateral, 16 bilateral) before 24 months of age. The parents reported their children's word productions 12 months after implantation using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories: Words and Sentences (Fenson et al., 1993). We computed the number of words, out of 292 possible monosyllabic nouns, verbs, and adjectives, that each child was reported to say and calculated the average phonotactic probability, neighborhood density, and word frequency of the reported words. Results Spoken vocabulary size positively correlated with average phonotactic probability and negatively correlated with average neighborhood density, but only in children with bilateral CIs. Conclusion At 12 months postimplantation, children with bilateral CIs demonstrate sensitivity to statistical characteristics of words in the ambient spoken language akin to that reported for children with normal hearing during the early stages of lexical development. Children with unilateral CIs do not.

Early lexical development in Spanish-speaking infants and toddlers

1993 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Jackson-Maldonado ◽  
Donna Thal ◽  
Virginia Marchman ◽  
Elizabeth Bates ◽  
Vera Gutierrez-Clellen
Keyword(s):  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Parent Report ◽  
Infants And Toddlers ◽  
Personal Interview ◽  
Waiting Room ◽  
Lexical Development ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Communicative Development ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Spanish Language Acquisition

ABSTRACTThis paper describes the early lexical development of a group of 328 normal Spanish-speaking children aged 0;8 to 2;7. First the development and structure of a new parent report instrument,Inventario del Desarollo de Habilidades Communcativasis described. Then five studies carried out with the instrument are presented. In the first study vocabulary development of Spanish-speaking infants and toddlers is compared to that of English-speaking infants and toddlers. The English data were gathered using a comparable parental report, theMacArthur Communicative Development Inventories. In the second study the general characteristics of Spanish language acquisition, and the effects of various demographic factors on that process, are examined. Study 3 examines the differential effects of three methods of collecting the data (mail-in, personal interview, and clinic waiting room administration). Studies 4 and 5 document the reliability and validity of the instrument. Results show that the trajectories of development are very similar for Spanish-and English-speaking children in this age range, that children from varying social groups develop similarly, and that mail-in and personal interview administration techniques produce comparable results. Inventories administered in a medical clinic waiting room, on the otherhand, produced lower estimates of toddler vocabulary than the other two models.

Comparing productive vocabulary measures from the CDI and a systematic diary study

1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
BYRON F. ROBINSON ◽  
CAROLYN B. MERVIS
Keyword(s):  
Growth Curves ◽  
Diary Study ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Early Language ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Early Language Development ◽  
Closed Class ◽  
Communicative Development ◽  
Best Fitting ◽  
Fitting Model

Expressive vocabulary data gathered during a systematic diary study of one male child's early language development are compared to data that would have resulted from longitudinal administration of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories spoken vocabulary checklist (CDI). Comparisons are made for (1) the number of words at monthly intervals (9;10.15 to 2;0.15), (2) proportion of words by lexical class (i.e. noun, predicate, closed class, ‘other’), (3) growth curves. The CDI underestimates the number of words in the diary study, with the underestimation increasing as vocabulary size increases. The proportion of diary study words appearing on the CDI differed as a function of lexical class. Finally, despite the differences in vocabulary size, logistic curves proved to be the best fitting model to characterize vocabulary development as measured by both the diary study and the CDI. Implications for the longitudinal use of the CDI are discussed.

Early lexical development: comprehension and production

1979 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Benedict
Keyword(s):  
Word Class ◽  
Class Analysis ◽  
Lexical Development ◽  
Word Acquisition ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Production Development ◽  
Comprehension Development

ABSTRACTLists of the first 50 words comprehended and produced by eight infants between 0; 9 and 1; 8 were compared. Comprehension development began earlier (around 0; 9) and reached the 50-word level (age 1; 1) earlier than production development (ages 1; 0 and 1; 6 respectively) and rate of word acquisition for comprehension was twice that of production, confirming the hypothesis that comprehension precedes production for lexical development. Word-class analysis revealed differences in the proportion and type of action words in comprehension and production vocabularies. It is suggested that action is central to lexical development but is expressed differently in comprehension, where action words are used to initiate actions, and production, where non-action words accompany the child's actions.

scholarly journals Infant-directed speech from seven to nineteen months has similar acoustic properties but different functions

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 1035-1053 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina KALASHNIKOVA ◽  
Denis BURNHAM
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Vocabulary Development ◽  
Speech Quality ◽  
Acoustic Properties ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Communicative Development ◽  
Three Components

AbstractThis longitudinal study assessed three acoustic components of maternal infant-directed speech (IDS) – pitch, affect, and vowel hyperarticulation – in relation to infants’ age and their expressive vocabulary size. These three individual components were measured in IDS addressed to infants at 7, 9, 11, 15, and 19 months (N = 18). All three components were exaggerated at all ages in mothers’ IDS compared to their adult-directed speech. Importantly, the only significant predictor of infants’ expressive vocabulary size at 15 and 19 months was vowel hyperarticulation, but only at 9 months and beyond, not at 7 months, and not pitch or affect at any age. These results set apart vowel hyperarticulation in IDS to infants as the critical IDS component for vocabulary development. Thus IDS, specifically the degree of vowel hyperarticulation therein, is a vehicle by which parents can provide the most optimal speech quality for their infants’ linguistic and communicative development.

Parental reports of communicative development at the age of 36 months: The Estonian CDI-III

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-83
Author(s):  
Tiia Tulviste ◽  
Astra Schults
Keyword(s):  
Day Care ◽  
Parent Report ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Communicative Skills ◽  
Communicative Development ◽  
Language Difficulties ◽  
Parental Reports ◽  
Language Measures ◽  
The Impact

Parental reports are a widely-used source of information about infants’ and toddlers’ communicative skills, but parent-report instruments valid for children older than 30 months are less known. This study explored individual variability in children’s communicative skills at the age of 3;0 via parental reports using the Estonian (E) CDI-III. The validity of ECDI-III was established through correlations with another parent-report instrument (ECDI-II) and a standardized examiner-administered language assessment (New Reynell Developmental Language Scales; NRDLS). A hundred Estonian-speaking children ( M age = 35.77 months, age range from 34 to 39 months; 20 of them with reported language difficulties) participated in the study. Relations between different communicative skills and the impact of such factors as the child’s gender, maternal and paternal education, reported language difficulties, the number of siblings, and day care attendance on variability in vocabulary size were also considered. The results showed that the ECDI-III components were moderately to strongly associated with each other, with the ECDI-II and NRDLS. Children with reported language difficulties scored lower on all language measures, except for orthographic awareness. Girls, children of more educated mothers, children with older siblings, and those who had attended day care for more months obtained higher vocabulary scores.

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