Learning always happens from input that contains multiple structures and multiple sources of variability. Though infants possess learning mechanisms to locate structure in the world, lab-based experiments have rarely probed how infants contend with input that contains many different structures and cues. Two experiments explored infants' use of two…

The purpose of this meta-analytic review is to investigate the relation between statistical learning (SL) and language-related outcomes, and between SL and reading-related outcomes. A comprehensive search of peer-reviewed published research resulted in 42 articles with 53 independent samples and 201 reported effect sizes (Pearson's r). Results of…

Although an abundant literature documents preliterate children's word learning success from shared storybook reading, a full synthesis of the factors which moderate these word learning effects has been largely neglected. This meta-analysis included 38 studies with 2,455 children, reflecting 110 effect sizes, investigating how reading styles, story…

Asking children to gesture while being taught a concept facilitates their learning. Here, we investigated whether children benefitted equally from producing gestures that reflected speech (speech-gesture matches) versus gestures that complemented speech (speech-gesture mismatches), when learning the concept of palindromes. As in previous studies,…

This article reports on an individual differences study that investigated the role of implicit statistical learning in the acquisition of syntax in children. One hundred children ages 4 years 5 months through 6 years 11 months completed a test of implicit statistical learning, a test of explicit declarative learning, and standardized tests of…

In everyday word learning words are only sometimes heard in the presence of their referent, making the acquisition of novel words a particularly challenging task. The current study investigated whether children (18-month-olds who are novice word learners) can track the statistics of co-occurrence between words and objects to learn novel mappings…

When teaching children part terms, adults frequently outline the relevant part rather than simply point. This pragmatic information very likely helps children interpret the label correctly. But the importance of gestures may not negate the need for default lexical biases such as the whole object assumption and mutual exclusivity. On this view,…

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have been gaining attention, partly as an example of unusual developmental trajectories related to early neurobiological differences. The present investigation addressed the process of learning new words to explore mechanisms of language delay and impairment. The sample included 21 typically developing toddlers…

In three experiments, 9-month-olds were given the opportunity to induce specific phonological patterns from manipulated syllable structure, consonant voicing position, and segmental position. Infants were then familiarized with fluent speech containing words that either fit or violated these patterns. Subsequent testing revealed that infants…

Three studies investigated 3-year-olds' comprehension of indirectly and directly learned words after a 2-day delay. Found indirectly and directly learned proper and common names resulted in proper name mappings that picked out individual and common name mappings that could be extended to another category member. When additional, sometimes…

Results were taken to confirm the importance of environmental factors in language acquisition. (Authors)

Examined 2-year-olds' comprehension and production of novel nouns, verbs, or actions at 3 intervals after training conducted in massed or distributed exposures. Found that for comprehension, children learned all item types in all training conditions at all retention intervals. Production was better for nonverbal actions than for either word type…

Three experiments explored infants' attention to conflicting cues at different ages. Found when stress and statistical cues indicated different word boundaries, 9-month-olds used syllable stress as a cue to segmentation while ignoring statistical cues. Seven-month-olds attended more to statistical cues than to stress cues. Results suggested…

Examined the effects of print exposure on growth of declarative knowledge and vocabulary in 133 college students and 49 elderly adults. Compared groups on two general knowledge tasks, vocabulary, working memory, syllogistic reasoning, and print exposure. Found that exposure to print was a significant predictor of declarative and vocabulary…

Examined the extent to which maternal linguistic input enabled children to use syntactic bootstrapping. Studied uses of 25 common verbs in speech of 57 mothers to their 1-year olds and 2-year olds. Found that verbs can be used to create informative syntactic frames, syntactic frames can cue appropriate verb class, and multiple syntactic framing…