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Discontinuity of Reference Hinders Children's Learning of New Words
Author(s) -
Schwab Jessica F.,
LewWilliams Casey
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.13189
Subject(s) - object (grammar) , psychology , gesture , linguistics , verbal learning , discontinuity (linguistics) , nonverbal communication , cognitive psychology , word (group theory) , word learning , communication , cognition , vocabulary , philosophy , neuroscience
When referring to objects, adults package words, sentences, and gestures in ways that shape children's learning. Here, to understand how continuity of reference shapes word learning, an adult taught new words to 4‐year‐old children ( N = 120) using either clusters of references to the same object or no sequential references to each object. In three experiments, the adult used a combination of labels and other object references, which provided informative discourse (e.g., This is small and green ), neutral discourse (e.g., This is really great ), or no verbal discourse. Switching verbal references from one object to another interfered with learning relative to providing clustered references to a particular object, revealing that discontinuity in discourse hinders children's encoding of new words.