The ability of school children (N = 233) to acquire new scientific vocabulary was examined. Children from two age groups (M = 4;8 and M = 6;5) were introduced to previously unknown words in an educational video. Word knowledge was assessed through accuracy and latency for production and comprehension over a nine month period. A draw and write task assessed acquisition of domain knowledge. Word learning was poorer than has previously been reported in the literature, and subject to influences of word type (domain-specificity) and word class. The results indicate that the acquisition of scientific terms is a complex process moderated by lexical, semantic and pragmatic factors
