The delayed acquisition of Spanish "ser" and "estar" is generally understood as rooted in the cognitive demands imposed by the integration of semantic-pragmatic and world-knowledge factors associated with their lexical meanings. Here we ask (1) what is the nature of this language world-knowledge integration? and (2) what is the…

Preschoolers can learn vocabulary through shared book reading, especially when given the opportunity to predict and/or reflect on the novel words encountered in the story. Readers often pause and encourage children to guess or repeat novel words during shared reading, and prior research has suggested a positive correlation between how much readers…

Efficient visual exploration in infancy is essential for cognitive and language development. It allows infants to participate in social interactions by attending to faces and learning about objects of interest. Visual scanning of scenes depends on a number of factors, and early differences in efficiency are likely contributing to differences in…

High rates of error and variability in early word production may signal speech sound disorder. However, there is little consensus regarding the degree of error and variability that may be expected in the typical range. Relatedly, while variables including child age, word frequency and word phonological neighbourhood density are associated with…

This study aimed to investigate specific associations between structural and acoustic characteristics of infant-directed (ID) speech and word recognition. Thirty Italian-acquiring children and their mothers were tested when the children were 1;3. Children's word recognition was measured with the looking-while-listening task. Maternal ID speech was…

This study investigated children's narrative evaluations about jealousy in relation to performance on a higher-order perspective-taking task and assessments of receptive vocabulary and nonverbal intelligence. Eighty children (5;0-11;11) narrated a wordless picture book about a jealous frog, answered probe questions about the plot, and generated a…

This study examines the potential benefits of rhyme on young children's word retention during shared reading. In two experiments, 2- to 4-year-old children heard their parent read either a rhymed or non-rhymed version of the same animal story, and were then tested on how many animal names they subsequently recognized from the story in Experiment 1…

This study examined the extent to which receptive and productive vocabulary between ages 12 and 18 months predicted language skills at age 24 months in children born with family risk for dyslexia (FR) and a control group born without that risk. The aim was to identify possible markers of early language delay. The authors monitored vocabulary…

The importance of input factors for bilingual children's vocabulary development was investigated. Forty-seven Argentine, 42 South Korean, 51 European American, 29 Latino immigrant, 26 Japanese immigrant, and 35 Korean immigrant mothers completed checklists of their 20-month-old children's productive vocabularies. Bilingual children's vocabulary…

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the language status of 120 young, Latino dual language learners living in poverty in the United States. Maternal language input and home language and literacy environments were examined with regard to language development at 24 and 36 months. Results suggested that even when combining English and Spanish…