ERIC Number: EJ1460960
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Mar
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1363-755X
EISSN: EISSN-1467-7687
Available Date: 2024-12-30
The Words Children Hear and See: Lexical Diversity Across-Modalities and Its Impact on Lexical Development
Luan Li1,2,3; Ming Song2,4,5; Qing Cai2,4,5
Developmental Science, v28 n2 e13601 2025
Early vocabulary development benefits from diverse lexical exposures within children's language environment. However, the influence of lexical diversity on children as they enter middle childhood and are exposed to multimodal language inputs remains unclear. This study evaluates global and local aspects of lexical diversity in three 1.6-million-word child-directed corpora, representing average Chinese children's speech, print, and media language environments. Additionally, pseudo-multimodal samples were compiled from the three corpora to compare with the unimodal environments on lexical diversity. We then investigated the associations between lexical diversity and the acquisition of 361 words spanning early-to-middle childhood. The findings show that print and pseudo-multimodal language provided the most diverse lexical environments, whereas speech exhibited the least diversity. However, speech diversity most strongly predicted lexical development, particularly before the onset of middle childhood. Exploratory analysis revealed that lexical diversity of other modalities emerged as stronger predictors thereafter. Early lexical development was best predicted by words' variations in connectivity with other words within an immediate context, whereas in middle childhood, variations in words' occurrences in larger context windows became the primary predictor, implicating children's growing ability to attend to linguistic contexts of increasing sizes. Importantly, higher diversity was consistently associated with earlier word acquisition across measures and developmental phases. These findings underscore the critical role of varied lexical experiences in children's language development.
Descriptors: Vocabulary Development, Lexicology, Child Language, Speech Communication, Foreign Countries, Language Acquisition, Language Usage
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www-wiley-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: China
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Data File: URL: https://osf.io/3tc5n/
Author Affiliations: 1Speech-Language-Hearing Center, School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China; 2Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics (Ministry of Education), Affiliated Mental Health Center (ECNU), Institute of Brain and Education Innovation, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China; 3National Research Centre for Language and Well-Being, Shanghai, China; 4Shanghai Changning Mental Health Center, Shanghai, China; 5Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Technology, Shanghai, China