Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:18:40.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early lexical development: the contribution of parental labelling and infants' categorization abilities*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Diane Poulin-Dubois ,
Susan Graham  and
Lorrie Sippola
Diane Poulin-Dubois*
Affiliation:
Concordia University
Susan Graham
Affiliation:
Concordia University
Lorrie Sippola
Affiliation:
Concordia University
*
Department of Psychology, PY Building, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West, Montréal, Québec, Canada, H4B 1R6.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the present longitudinal study, we examined changes in parental labelling and infants' categorization skills as potential predictors of vocabulary composition, the age of the naming explosion, and the acquisition of subordinate labels. Sixteen French- and English-speaking parent–child dyads were videotaped during a 2O-minute free-play session every month beginning when the child was 1;0 and ending at 2;0. The children received object-manipulation tasks every three months and their vocabulary growth was recorded. Parental labelling practices were assessed monthly using a picture-book reading task. Both parental labelling and children's categorization skills predicted the content of children's lexicon, with children with more names in their vocabulary having better categorization skills. Furthermore, the naming explosion was found to coincide with improvement of categorization skills. These findings suggest that the influence of each factor varies as a function of the stage and aspect of lexical development considered.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , June 1995 , pp. 325 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[*]

This research was supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Fonds FCAR to the first author. The second and third authors were supported by NSERC and FCAR predoctoral fellowships. We would like to thank the parents and children who participated in this study. We thank Véronique Lacroix, Ingrid Östling, Wendy Seifen, Mary E. Sissons and Manon St-Germain for their assistance with this research. We also thank James Forbes and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

References

REFERENCES

Adams, A. K. & Bullock, D. (1986). Apprenticeship in word use: social convergence processes in learning categorically related nouns. In Kuczaj, S. A. II & Barrett, M. D. (eds), The development of word meaning. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Anglin, J. M. (1977). Word, object, and conceptual development. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Bates, E., Benigni, L., Bretherton, I., Camaioni, L. & Volterra, V. (1979). The emergence of symbols: cognition and communication in infancy. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bates, E., Bretherton, I. & Snyder, L. (1988). From first words to grammar: individual differences and dissociable mechanisms. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Barrett, M., Harris, M. & Chasin, J. (1991). Early lexical development and maternal speech: a comparison of children's initial and subsequent use of words. Journal of Child Language 18, 21–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benedict, H. (1979). Early lexical development: comprehension and production. Journal of Child Language 6, 183–200.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blewitt, P. (1983). Dog versus collie: vocabulary in speech to young children. Developmental Psychology 19, 602–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, L., Lifter, K. & Broughton, J. (1985). The convergence of early cognition and language in the second year of life: problems in conceptualization and measurement. In Barrett, M. (ed.), Children's single word speech. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Callanan, M. (1985). How parents label objects for young children: the role of input in the acquisition of category hierarchies. Child Development 56, 508–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callanan, M. (1991). Parent-child collaboration in young children's understanding of category hierarchies. In Gelman, S. A. & Byrnes, J. P. (eds), Perspectives on language and thought: interrelations in development. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Corrigan, R. (1978). Language development as related to Stage 6 object permanence development. Journal of Child Language 5, 173–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunham, P. & Dunham, F. (1992). Lexical development during middle infancy: a mutually driven infant–caregiver process. Developmental Psychology 28, 414–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furrow, D. & Nelson, K. (1984). Environmental correlates of individual differences in language acquisition. Journal of Child Language 11, 523–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldfield, B. A. (1987). The contributions of child and caregiver to referential and expressive language. Applied Psycholinguistics 8, 267–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldfield, B. A. & Reznick, J. S. (1990). Early lexical acquisition: rate, content and the vocabulary spurt. Journal of Child Language 17, 171–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gopnik, A. & Meltzoff, A. N. (1987). The development of categorization in the second year and its relation to other cognitive and linguistic developments. Child Development 58, 1523–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gopnik, A. & Meltzoff, A. N. (1992). Categorization and naming: basic-level sorting in eighteen-month-olds and its relation to language. Child Development 63, 1091–1103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, M., Barrett, M. D., Jones, D. & Brookes, S. (1988). Linguistic input and early word meaning. Journal of Child Language 15, 77–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lifter, K. & Bloom, L. B. (1989). Object knowledge and emergence of language. Infant Behaviour and Development 12, 395–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucariello, J. & Nelson, K. (1986). Context effects of lexical specificity in maternal and child discourse. Journal of Child Language 13, 507–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mandler, J. M. & Bauer, P. J. (1988). The cradle of categorization: is the basic level basic? Cognitive Development 3, 247–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mandler, J. M., Bauer, P. J. & McDonough, L. (1991). Separating the sheep from the goats: differentiating global categories. Cognitive Psychology 23, 263–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mandler, J. M., Fivush, R. & Reznick, J. S. (1987). The development of contextual categories. Cognitive Development 2, 339–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCune-Nicholich, L. (1981). The cognitive bases of relational words in the single-word period. Journal of Child Language 8, 15–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mervis, C. B. & Bertrand, J. (1993). Early language and cognitive development: implications of research with children who have Williams Syndrome or Down Syndrome. Paper presented at the 60th Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Mervis, C. B. & Bertrand, J. (1994). Acquisition of the novel name-nameless category (N3C) principle. Child Development 65, 1646–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelson, K. (1973). Structure and strategy in learning to talk. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 38, (No. 149).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ninio, A. (1980). Ostensive definition in vocabulary teaching. Journal of Child Language 7, 565–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ninio, A. (1983). Joint bookreading as a multiple vocabulary acquisition device. Developmental Psychology 19, 445–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pine, J. & Lieven, E. V. M. (1990). Referential style at thirteen months: why age-defined cross – sectional measures are inappropriate for the study of strategy differences in early language development. Journal of Child Language 17, 625–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poulin-Dubois, D. & Graham, S. A. (1994). Infant categorization and early object word meaning. In Vyt, A., Bloch, H. & Bornstein, M. (eds), Early child development in the French tradition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Poulin-Dubois, D., Graham, S. A. & Riddle, A. (in press). The acquisition of novel object words by young children: the role of object parts. First Language.Google Scholar
Rosch, E., Mervis, C. B., Gray, W. D., Johnson, D. M. & Boyes-Braem, P. (1976). Basic objects in natural categories. Cognitive Psychology 8, 382–439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shipley, E. F., Kuhn, I. F. & Madden, E. C. (1983). Mothers' use of superordinate category terms. Journal of Child Language 10, 571–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shore, C., Dixon, W. E. & Bauer, P. J. (1993). Measures of linguistic and nonlinguistic knowledge of objects in the second year. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Tamis-LeMonda, C. S. & Bornstein, M. H. (1989). Habituation and maternal encouragement of attention in infancy as predictors of toddler language, play, and representational competence. Child Development 60, 738–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M. & Farrar, M. J. (1984) Cognitive bases of lexical development: object permanence and relational words. Journal of Child Language 11, 477–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M. & Farrar, M. J. (1986). Object permanence and relational words: a lexical training study. Journal of Child Language 13, 495–505.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M. & Todd, J. (1983). Joint attention and lexical acquisition style. First Language 4, 197–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wales, R., Coleman, M. & Pattison, P. (1983). How a thing is called: a study of mothers' and children's naming. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 36, 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, R. (1989). Literate discourse and cognitive organization: some relations between parents' talk and 3-year-olds' thought. Applied Psycholinguistics 10, 221–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar