Previous research showed that short-term second language training modulates children's brain responses to language processing. However, little is known about whether short-term training from language-immersion apps would have the same effect on young children's neural processing of a newly learnt language. We examined the auditory event-related…

This study examined how Mandarin-speaking preschoolers with and without a history of late talking (LT) process familiar monosyllabic words with unexpected lexical tones, focusing on both phonological and semantic violations. This study initially enrolled 64 Mandarin-speaking toddlers: 31 with a history of LT (mean age: 27.67 months) and 33 without…

This dissertation investigates the interaction of developing extralinguistic cognitive systems with early language learning and processing through the case study of verb argument structure. The interaction of these systems with the linguistic system underpins fundamental theories of language learning and use: language does not exist in isolation.…

Little is explored regarding the modality-specific differences in recall abilities of preschool children. Understanding modality-specific differences in the recall at an early age might give an insight into age-linked trends, which can lay a foundation for later development. The current study used a cross-sectional design to investigate the…

Perception verbs and mental verbs have significant overlap in their syntax and semantics; both reference mental representations when taking embedded clauses, as in "I see that Maria was here" and "I think that Maria was here." Some have suggested that perception is more accessible for young children than mental states, raising…

The current study examined the effect of speaker variability on children's cross-situational word learning (XSWL). The study also examined the role of bilingual experience and sustained attention. Forty English monolingual children and 40 Spanish-English bilingual children ages 4-7 completed a XSWL task in a Single Speaker Condition and a Multiple…

Purpose: Developmental language disorder (DLD) is defined by persistent difficulties with language, but a growing body of evidence suggests that it is also associated with domain-general and nonverbal information-processing deficits. However, the interconnections between cognitive functions, both nonverbal and language related, are still unclear.…

Previous studies have shown a robust bias to express the goal path over the source path when describing events ("the bird flew into the pitcher," rather than "… out of the bucket into the pitcher"). Motivated by linguistic theory, this study manipulated the causal structure of events (specifically, making the source cause the…

Four tasks (N = 191, 3- to 6-year-olds) examined the effect of instrumental versus conventional language cues on children's imitative fidelity of a necklace-making activity, their memory and transmission of the activity, and their perceptions of functional fixedness. Children in the conventional condition imitated with higher fidelity, transmitted…

This dissertation focuses on when and how children learn about the meanings of the propositional attitude" verbs know" and "think". "Know" and "think" both express belief. But they differ in their veridicality: "think" is non-veridical and can report a false belief; but "know" can only…

This study investigated the relationship between specific cognitive patterns of strengths and weaknesses (PSWs) and the errors children make in reading, writing, and spelling tests from the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement-Third Edition (KTEA-3). Participants were selected from the KTEA-3 standardization sample based on five cognitive…

We investigated how preschoolers use their understanding of the actions available to a speaker to resolve referential ambiguity. In this study, 58 3- and 4-year-olds were presented with arrays of eight objects in a toy house and were instructed to retrieve various objects from the display. The trials varied in terms of whether the speaker's hands…

Prior research suggests that preschoolers can generalize object properties based on category information conveyed by semantically-similar labels. However, previous research did not control for co-occurrence probability of labels in natural speech. The current studies re-assessed children's generalization with semantically-similar labels.…

Since Broca's studies on language processing, cortical functional specialization has been considered to be integral to efficient neural processing. A fundamental question in cognitive neuroscience concerns the type of learning that is required for functional specialization to develop. To address this issue with respect to the development of neural…

In three experiments, children listened to a story and were asked to repeat "the last word" or "the last thing" they heard. Found that children as young as 4.5 to 5 years treat both open and closed categories as words and clearly differentiate between words and things, contradicting the notion that children cannot focus on…