Linguistic, Social, and Cognitive Determinants of Early Word Learning

Project Summary
Early language skills like word learning predict later school, social, and behavioral outcomes. While word learning
improves dramatically in year 2, so too do other social, cognitive, and linguistic skills, leading to debate about
the factors that support word learning, and why it improves. Understanding early word comprehension (which
precedes production) holds promise for clinical applications, where timely diagnosis and intervention is critical.
The proposed work ties early word comprehension to other improving skills within infants, across year 2. Its
overall objective is to establish specific factors that may make older infants better word learners than younger
ones, building the evidence base to support children who struggle with this critical facet of language in future
work.
Aim 1 is to test whether point comprehension is linked to robust word comprehension. Pointing allows child and
caretaker to draw each other’s attention to shared context, much as words do. While prior work links pointing
and language, none uses a fine-grained developmental lens with high-sensitivity tasks. Exp. 1 tests the
hypothesis that point comprehension, i.e. receptive joint attention, precedes and is correlated with robust word
comprehension by testing a longitudinal sample of 10-16 mo’s every 2 weeks on both skills. Aim 2 is to establish
the strength of the relationship between linguistic skills and robust word comprehension. Advancing theory on
whether and how linguistic skills support each other, Exp. 2-4 test 3 cross-sectional samples of 10-16mo’s on
word comprehension alongside their ability to recognize how words sound, and their skill at anticipating the
words and sounds in utterances as they unfold. Results will establish whether robust word comprehension is
correlated with and thus potentially reliant on these linguistic skills. Aim 3 is to disentangle the roles of maturity
and exposure by connecting new word learning to familiar word comprehension. Studies testing familiar word
knowledge have a built-in confound between exposure and maturation, since older infants have heard more
language, with repercussions for word processing. Studies of new word learning rely on overly simplified learning
processes. In an innovative 2-week picture book exposure combined with measures of familiar word knowledge
in 14, 18, and 22 mo’s, Exp. 5 isolates maturity and exposure to build a more cohesive theory of word
comprehension. The proposed work’s unique multi-task multi-age design ensures scientific rigor in providing
insight into exactly what improves over year 2, as infants become better word learners.
Successfully completed, this work will establish an important foundation for supporting children with language
delays and deficits, with particular relevance for ASD, Developmental Language Delay, and hearing loss.

Grant Number: 5R01HD107285-04
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: Elika Bergelson