How early do children produce multiword utterances? Do children's early utterances reflect abstract syntactic knowledge or are they the result of data-driven learning? We examine this issue through corpus analysis, computational modeling, and adult simulation experiments. Chapter 1 investigates when children start producing multiword utterances;…

We trained a computational model (the Chunk-Based Learner; CBL) on a longitudinal corpus of child-caregiver interactions in English to test whether one proposed statistical learning mechanism--backward transitional probability--is able to predict children's speech productions with stable accuracy throughout the first few years of development. We…

In 'Against Stored Abstractions,' Ambridge uses neural and computational evidence to make his case against abstract representations. He argues that storing only exemplars is more parsimonious -- why bother with abstraction when exemplar models with on-the-fly calculation can do everything abstracting models can and more -- and implies that his…

Ambridge argues that there is widespread agreement among child language researchers that learners store linguistic abstractions. In this commentary the authors first argue that this assumption is incorrect; anti-representationalist/exemplar views are pervasive in theories of child language. Next, the authors outline what has been learned from this…

Focusing on children's production of the dative alternation in English, we examine whether children's choices are influenced by the same factors that influence adults' choices, and whether, like adults, they are sensitive to multiple factors simultaneously. We do so by using mixed-effect regression models to analyse child and child-directed…

This article investigates the acquisition of object shift in Norwegian child language. We show that object shift is complex derivationally, distributionally, and referentially, and propose a new analysis in terms of IP-internal topicalization. The results of an elicited production study with 27 monolingual Norwegian-speaking children (ages…

This study examined effects of lexical status and neighborhood density of constituent syllables on children's nonword repetition and interactions with nonword length. Lexical status of the target syllable impacted repetition accuracy for the longest nonwords. In addition, children made more errors that changed a nonword syllable to a word syllable…

Examines spontaneous conversations between adults and children. Findings indicate that adults' altered mean length of utterance and type-token ratio were based on their age. Contrary to the researcher's expectations, the adults did not choose their words from the 10,000 most common word types in an age-dependent manner. (Author/CB)

Presents a hybrid ACT-R model that shows U-shaped learning of the English past tense without direct feedback, changes in vocabulary, or unrealistically high rates of regular verbs. Illustrates that the model can learn the default rule, even if regular forms are infrequent. Shows that the model can explore the question of why there is a distinction…

A range of language use model is proposed as an alternative conceptual framework to a stage model of egocentric speech. The range of language use model is proposed to clarify the meaning of the term egocentric speech, to examine the validity of stage assumptions, and to explain the existence of contextual variation in the form of children's…

Examined relation of social-pragmatic and data- providing features of input to productive vocabulary of 63 two-year-olds. Found benefits of data provided in mother- child conversation, but no effects of social aspects of those conversations. Properties that benefited lexical development were quantity, lexical richness, and syntactic complexity.…

The development of the speech production system was investigated among 120 children (ages 4-14 years) and 20 adults. Aerodynamic and acoustic results suggest that men and 14-year-old boys function differently than women and all other groups of children. Data generally suggest that laryngeal and respiratory behavior of children is not easily…

Children improve at word learning during the 2nd year of life--sometimes dramatically. This fact has suggested a change in mechanism, from associative learning to a more referential form of learning. This article presents an associative exemplar-based model that accounts for the improvement without a change in mechanism. It provides a unified…

The purpose of this review is to provide a model for studying genetic association of response to intervention in child language disorders. In addition to a theoretical overview and review of different approaches to studying candidate genes, a specific methodology for completing this type of analysis is presented. The goal of the analysis is to…

This study examines the production of regular and irregular participle forms of German with high and low frequencies using a speeded production task. 40 children in two age groups (five- to seven-year olds, eleven- to twelve-year olds) and 35 adult native speakers of German listened to stem forms of verbs presented in a sentential context and were…