Between 6 and 9 years of age, children's free associations shift from syntagmatic to paradigmatic relationships. "Syntagmatic relations" are words that are syntactically adjacent, thematically related ("summer-vacation"), or both; "paradigmatic relations" are words from the same grammatical class, taxonomic category…

Category-based induction is a hallmark of mature cognition; however, little is known about its origins. This study evaluated the hypothesis that category-based induction is related to semantic development. Computational studies suggest that early on there is little differentiation among concepts, but learning and development lead to increased…

The psychology supporting the use of quantifier words (e.g., "some," "most," "more") is of interest to both scientists studying quantity representation (e.g., number, area) and to scientists and linguists studying the syntax and semantics of these terms. Understanding quantifiers requires both a mastery of the…

Recent studies on the acquisition of semantics have argued that knowledge of the universal quantifier is adult-like throughout development. However, there are domains where children still exhibit non-adult-like universal quantification, and arguments for the early mastery of relevant semantic knowledge do not explain what causes such…

From the field of developmental psycholinguistics and from conceptual development theory there is evidence that excessive linguistic "code-switching" in early school education may pose some hazards for the learning of young multilingual children. In this article the author addresses the issue, invoking post-Piagetian and neo-Vygotskian…

In six analyses using the Child Language Data Exchange System known as CHILDES, we explored whether and how parents and their 1.5- to 5-year-old children talk about writing. Parent speech might include information about the similarity between print and speech and about the difference between writing and drawing. Parents could convey similarity…

Generic sentences (such as "Birds lay eggs") are important in that they refer to kinds (e.g., birds as a group) rather than individuals (e.g., the birds in the henhouse). The present set of studies examined aspects of how generic nouns are understood by English speakers. Adults and children (4- and 5-year-olds) were presented with scenarios about…

Investigates the effect of presentation context, taxonomy, and age of child on mothers' choices of category names in object-naming tasks. Contextual factors had a primary role in determining mothers' selections of category names, and the three independent variables had a complex and dynamic effect on mothers' naming practices. (Author/CI)

Reinterprets Jeannie R. Aschkenasy and Richard D. Odom's findings (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology; v34 n3 Dec 1982) on perceptual and cognitive development. The increasing dimensionalization of stimulus relations rather than the increasing detectability or influence of stimulus differences is argued. (BJD)

In a study using preschool and elementary school children, the children's judgments of whether brief stories described valid instances of a concept shifted in a manner consistent with the authors' hypothesis that meanings typically develop from representations in which characteristic features predominate to those in which defining features become…

Presents a study that originated from a sociolinguistic research project in Mexico City during interviews with six to seven year old children from sub-proletarian groups. The study focuses on the inability of the children to distinguish between "preguntar" and "decir" ("to ask" and "to tell"). (MES)

Notes young children's fast mapping ability for word and fact learning. Finds children's extension of a new word to novel objects from same category but lack of extension for new facts, as replicated by Waxman and Booth, unsurprising. Poses more interesting question: is word learning done solely through more general cognitive systems or through…

Assesses three papers in this volume, those by Wellman and Estes, Olson and Torrance, and Hall and Nagy, for their treatment of the following: (1) definition of semantic space, (2) defining children's processes of understanding that space, and (3) describing the contexts in which cognitive language is used. (AEW)

Examined how 3- and 5-year-olds and adults extend names for human-made artifacts. Found that even 3-year-olds were more likely to provide artifact names (e.g., "knife") when they believed objects were intentionally created and to provide material-based descriptions (e.g., "plastic") when they believed objects were accidentally…

Expands on study by Brown and Hanlon which showed that parents seemed more attuned to semantic value of their child's speech rather than grammatical form. However, this more recent study suggests that language learning environment presents subtle cues, distinguishing between well-formed and ill-formed sentences, evidenced by mothers' inclinations…