Previous work has shown that toddlers readily encode each noun in the sentence as a distinct argument of the verb. However, languages allow multiple mappings between form and meaning that do not fit this canonical format. Two experiments examined French 28-month-olds' interpretation of right-dislocated sentences ("noun"-verb,…

Two language acquisition processes (comprehension preceding production of word order, the noun bias) were examined in 2- and 3-year-old children (n=10) with autistic spectrum disorder and in typically developing 21-month-olds (n=13). Intermodal preferential looking was used to assess comprehension of subject-verb-object word order and the tendency…

Examined role of social-referential context in 13- and 18- month-olds' mapping of verbal and nonverbal symbols to object categories. Found that infants at both ages showed evidence of learning both words and sounds when the experimenter produced a label within a familiar naming routine, and failed to learn when labels were emitted from a baby…

A core task in language acquisition is mapping words onto objects, actions, and events. Two studies investigated how children learn to map novel labels onto novel objects. Study 1 investigated whether 10-month-olds use both perceptual and social cues to learn a word. Study 2, a control study, tested whether infants paired the label with a…