The child's acquisition of unfamiliar words : an experimental study

The present thesis investigates how preschool children acquire the meanings of unfamiliar words. In an attempt to clarify the notion of word meaning a three-fold distinction between sense, reference and denotation is introduced. It is suggested that knowing the full meaning of a word entails knowing both its sense and its denotation. Two main experimental approaches are implemented - the cross-sectional and the mini-longitudinal. In the first set of experiments (Chapters 2 and 3) children's ability to infer denotation (Chapter 2, n=88) and to identify the referent (Chapter 3, n=60) of a novel term are examined. In both sets of studies children have minimal exposure to the new terms and comprehension is assessed immediately. The results of Chapter 2 suggest that children have greater difficulties discovering the meanings of unknown verbs than they do unknown nouns and that there are considerable difficulties for the young child to coordinate information given about denotation in a 3-series sentence task. On the whole children find the task difficult and there is a suggestion that performance fails to reflect competence. The experimental evidence from Chapter 3 is, in contrast, unambiguous. Firstly, children find it harder to identify the referent of an unknown verb (p < .00001). However, children's responses are not random in this condition they choose the stimulus containing the objects initially associated with the unknown action (p < .001). This is not the case with failures to identify the referent of an unknown noun. Secondly, children have greater difficulties identifying the referent of an unknown noun if it replaces a known lexical item than if it replaces an unknown lexical item (p = .0033). It is argued that establishing reference is pre-empted by the existence of. an appropriate name in the child's vocabulary. Since acquiring the meaning of a new word is rarely a one-trial affair, the second section of this thesis attempts.to trace the acquisition of threenove1word~, an animal term (Chapter 5,n=16), a novel mode of locomotion (Chapter 6, n=12) and a novel shape or colour term (Chapter 7, n=14), in the lexicons of three and four-year old children over a period of several months. The method is based on that of Carey (1978 a & b). Tasks assessing production and comprehension as well as sense and denotation are introduced. In the case of the novel animal term, introduced by linguistic and perceptual contrast, children learn the term quickly and treat it in a similar manner to other known animal terms. Children have greater difficulty learning the new term for a novel mode of locomotion, supporting the earlier evidence suggesting that verbs are harder to learn than nouns. Chapter 7 attempts to assess the importance of solely linguistic contrast on the formation of the child's denotation of a novel term (shape vs. colour term). It is concluded that providing that the novel term is not pre-empted, lexical contrast is an effective manner of restricting denotation. Children's individual hypotheses concerning the meaning of the novel term are discussed in detail. The repercussions of these studies for future work in developmental semantics is discussed and a need to formulate objective criteria for full 'meaning, such as sense reference and denotation, is recognise

Children's acquisition of science terms: does fast mapping work?

About the book: This proceedings contains 99 selected papers from the 8th Conference of the International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL) held in Donostia-San Sebastián in the Spanish Basque Country in July 1999. The proceedings includes the plenary addresses by Jean-Paul Bronckart, Brian MacWhinney, and Miquel Siguan. The other 96 papers are organized into sections on bilingualism, discourse, phonology, language disorders, lexicon, morphology, syntax, and signed languages. Several of these sections include symposia with introductions as well as individual papers

Examining the psychometric properties of the ELLECCT: A commentary on Weadman, Serry and Snow (2022)

Domain-specific observational tools that use valid and objectively measurable items are key to supporting improvement and developing understanding of practice in early years classrooms. The ‘Emergent Literacy and Language Early Childhood Checklist for Teachers’ (ELLECCT) aims to address a current gap in the tools that are available to capture behaviours which support language and literacy during book reading activities. We examine the ELLECCT’s utility as a single observational tool for both researchers and educators seeking to capture extratextual oral language and emergent literacy strategies during shared book reading

Struggling writers in elementary school: Capturing drivers of performance

Conceptualising the difficulties experienced by struggling writers in middle elementary school is of both theoretical and practical importance. To further our understanding of the problems experienced by struggling writers we aimed to identify the writing measure which best discriminated struggling writers from their peers, and the proximal and distal factors which which contributed to performance. The performance of 96 students (Mean age 0;4), 39 of whom were independently identified as struggling writers using a norm referenced standardised test, was examined at word, sentence, and text level. Standardised measures of transcription, oral language and working memory were collected. The extent to which independent product and process writing measures accurately identified the students was tested using ROC analyses. The skills which underpinned performance were examined using regression analyses and path analysis. Written sentence generation was the most sensitive and specific measure to identify struggling writers at this point in development and, was concurrently predicted by both oral sentence level skills, handwriting fluency and listening span. Path models demonstrated that oral language contributed both directly and indirectly to sentence level writing. Implications for developmental models of writing and support for struggling writers are discussed

Written verb use and diversity in children with Developmental Language Disorder: Stepping stones to academic writing

Verb use and the production of verb argument structure in the written texts of children in elementary school is a key stepping stone towards academic writing success that has remained relatively unexplored and is a notable gap in our understanding of writing development. To evaluate the role of verbs in the written narrative texts of children, we compared verb use in 10 year old children that had specific weaknesses in oral language, those with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), and samples of children of the same age (CA) and the same raw scores on an oral language task (language ability or LAb). Standardised measures of oral language, reading fluency, and spelling were completed. Participants then completed a standardised writing task and the texts were examined for verb argument structure, verb production and verb diversity. No between-group differences were found in the written narrative texts in relation to the production of verb argument structures. By contrast, the number of verbs produced, and the number of different verbs used differed significantly. The total number of verbs and number of different verbs produced by the children with DLD was commensurate with their LAb peers but not their CA matched peers. All children relied on a small group of high frequency verbs in their writing, although there was evidence of greater verb diversity in the older typically developing children. Verbs produced and their diversity in narrative writing was predicted by both an oral language formulated sentences task and reading fluency, thus demonstrating the close links between expressive oral language, reading, and writing production in all children

Exploring writing in products in students with language impairments and autism spectrum disorders

Oral language skills scaffold written text production; students with oral language difficulties often experience writing problems. The current study examines the ways in which oral language problems experienced by students with language impairment (LI) and students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) impact on their production of written text. One hundred and fifty seven participants (Mage = 10;2) with LI or ASD completed standardized measures of oral language, transcription, working memory, and nonverbal ability and produced a written narrative text assessed for productivity, grammatical accuracy, and quality. Measures of transcription, productivity, and grammatical accuracy, but not text quality, were poorer for students with LI. Transcription skills accounted for the majority of variance in the writing of the LI cohort. For the ASD cohort, handwriting, oral language and autism symptomatology were significant predictors. When students with ASD also experienced language problems, their performance was equivalent to that observed in the LI cohort

Investigations of excitation energy transfer and intramolecular interactions in a nitrogen corded distrylbenzene dendrimer system.

The photophysics of an amino-styrylbenzene dendrimer (A-DSB) system is probed by time-resolved and steady state luminescence spectroscopy. For two different generations of this dendrimer, steady state absorption, emission, and photoluminescence excitation spectra are reported and show that the efficiency of energy transfer from the dendrons to the core is very close to 100%. Ultrafast time-resolved fluorescence measurements at a range of excitation and detection wavelengths suggest rapid (and hence efficient) energy transfer from the dendron to the core. Ultrafast fluorescence anisotropy decay for different dendrimer generations is described in order to probe the energy migration processes. A femtosecond time-scale fluorescence depolarization was observed with the zero and second generation dendrimers. Energy transfer process from the dendrons to the core can be described by a Förster mechanism (hopping dynamics) while the interbranch interaction in A-DSB core was found to be very strong indicating the crossover to exciton dynamics

Warnock 40 years on : the development of Special Educational Needs since the Warnock Report and implications for the future

The report of the Warnock Committee “Special Educational Needs,” published in 1978, provided the first comprehensive review of special educational needs (SEN) in England and the basis for subsequent legislation, from the Education Act 1981 to the recent Children and Families Act 2014. The Warnock Report has been highly influential with respect to the development of both national and local policy and practice for SEN, primarily in England but also in the UK generally and internationally. We conceived the “Warnock 40 Years On” research topic published in this journal as an opportunity to examine developments for children and young people with SEN or a disability (SEND) since the Report's publication. As editors of this research topic, in this paper we provide an overview of major elements within SEND, drawing on both the individual constituent papers and the broader policy and research literature. We examine the origins and precursors of the Warnock Review, including then current progressive conceptual development and practice, leading to an examination of the Review. We explore the legislative structure arising from the Report and implementation of the SEND system—from the Education Act 1981 onwards. We critically examine a number of key aspects of the Warnock Report and how these developments of the SEND system have taken these forward, including: categorization of SEN; provision made to meet the special needs of children and young people with SEN or a disability, including inclusion; early identification and intervention; the important rights and role of parents; prevalence of different types of SEN and the complex interaction between SEN and a range of factors, including social disadvantage and ethnicity; and a range of SEND research. Finally we consider the implications for future development of the SEND system, in particular whether its limitations can be addressed better by “patching up” the system or by “system change.” Although focused on England, this paper has relevance—as did the Warnock Report—to SEND internationally

Screening for Language Difficulties in Disadvantaged Populations on Entry to Early Years Education: Challenges and Opportunities

Children aged 3–4 years (n = 876) were recruited from deprived areas in England, and a significant minority of the sample were second language learners. Oral language ability was assessed using child administered standardized measures, and parents reported on children’s language. We adapted the Language Use Inventory [LUI; (1)] to capture carer’s reports of the children’s structural language in the language of instruction and their home language (where appropriate). The final measure included six subscales from the original: use of simple words, requests for help, gaining attention, talking about activities/actions, interactions with others, and building sentences. Children’s language abilities and non-verbal abilities were below norms on all standardized tests administered except non-word repetition. Factor analysis indicated that all the six scales of the adapted parent completed measure loaded on one language factor. The revised total scale score correlated significantly (p &amp;lt; 0.0005) with child assessed language measures, specifically expressive vocabulary and grammar. Different patterns across gender, language status and parental education were examined. Sensitivity and specificity of the scale to identify children with the greatest delays were evaluated. These preliminary data indicated that parent-reported information on children’s language skills at 3 years of age has the potential to provide a reliable indicator to inform pedagogy and practice at the start of nursery school. Study limitations are examined and avenues for future development explored