In this study, I examined preschool storybook apps for the affordances they may provide for young children's vocabulary development. Specifically, I sought to understand (a) the degree to which storybook apps introduce new words, (b) the types of words children can learn, and (c) the degree to which digital enhancements align with new words in the…

Children can acquire novel word meanings by using pragmatic cues. However, previous literature has frequently focused on in-the-moment word-to-meaning mappings, not delayed retention of novel vocabulary. Here, we examine how children use pragmatics as they learn and retain novel words. Thirty-three younger children (mean age: 5.0, range: 4.0-6.0,…

This study investigates the levels of social language and vocabulary characteristics of three- to six-year-old children with autism in Vietnam. The research is based on analysis of the developmental assessment reports of 151 children with autism, and 42 parents' reports on their children's vocabulary (recorded using the Child Word Inventory form).…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of Augmented Reality (AR) technology on vocabulary development and attitudes toward AR in pre-school English instruction. The study, which was grounded on a pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental design, included 36 pre-school children aged from 4 to 5. While the participants in…

In a recent study, preschoolers adapted their syntactic expectations about a familiar phrase in French; this adaptation affected later word learning. In two experiments, we probed the generality of this finding by replicating the experiment and extending it to a different expression in English. We examined the ambiguous phrase "the…

Cross-situational word learning, the ability to decipher word-referent links over multiple ambiguous learning events, has been documented across development and proposed to be key to vocabulary acquisition. However, this work has largely focused on learning from one-to-one structure, where each referent is consistently linked with a single label.…

Very large numbers words such as "hundred," "thousand," "million," "billion," and "trillion" pose a learning problem for children because they are sparse in everyday speech and children's experience with extremely large quantities is scarce. In this study, we examine when children acquire the…

Iconic words imitate their meanings. Previous work has demonstrated that iconic words are more common in infants' early speech, and in adults' child-directed speech (e.g., Perry et al., 2015; 2018). This is consistent with the proposal that iconicity provides a benefit to word learning. Here we explored iconicity in four diverse language…

Relatively little work has focused on why we are motivated to learn words. In adults, recent experiments have shown that intrinsic reward signals accompany successful word learning from context. In addition, the experience of reward facilitated long-term memory for words. In adolescence, developmental changes are seen in reward and motivation…

Phonological awareness is taught from preschool onwards because of its impact on later reading skills. Numerous assessments and training sessions are available to guide childcare professionals. Most of them offer phonological sessions based on the use of pictures or visual aids. However, only few studies have shown the benefits of using this type…

The collocation frequency of words in the language environment contributes to early vocabulary development. Vocabulary size, in turn, predicts children's reading comprehension skills later in development. Both collocation frequency and reading comprehension have been connected to inferential reasoning at different time points in development. Here,…

Purpose: Systematic reviews of literature are routinely conducted to identify practices that are effective in addressing educational and clinical problems. One complication, however, is how best to combine data from both group experimental design (GED) studies and single-case experimental design (SCED) studies. Percent of Goal Obtained (PoGO) has…

Purpose: Systematic reviews of literature are routinely conducted to identify practices that are effective in addressing educational and clinical problems. One complication, however, is how best to combine data from both group experimental design (GED) studies and single-case experimental design (SCED) studies. Percent of Goal Obtained (PoGO) has…

Emotion words allow us to identify, describe and regulate our emotional states. Emotion vocabulary grows through childhood, but little research has considered emotion words in the context of children's written language. To address this gap, we used a cross-corpus developmental approach to chart the emergence of emotion words in children's reading…

Rehearsal is a form of self-talk used to support short-term memory. Historically, the study of rehearsal development has diverged from the study of self-talk more generally. The current experiment examines whether two characteristics of self-talk (impact of task difficulty and self-talk's narrative vs. planning purpose) are also observed in…