Numerous developmental findings suggest that infants and toddlers engage predictive processing during language comprehension. However, a significant limitation of this research is that associative (bottom-up) and predictive (top-down) explanations are not readily differentiated. Following adult studies that varied predictiveness relative to semantic-relatedness to differentiate associative vs. predictive processes, the present study used eye-tracking to begin to disentangle the contributions of bottom-up and top-down mechanisms to infants’ real-time language processing. Replicating prior results, infants (14-19 months old) use successive semantically-related words across sentences (e.g., eat, yum, mouth) to predict upcoming nouns (e.g., cookie). However, we also provide evidence that using successive semantically-related words to predict is distinct from the bottom-up activation of the word itself. In a second experiment, we investigate the potential effects of repetition on the findings. This work is the first to reveal that infant language comprehension is affected by both associative and predictive processes.

To investigate how a high risk for infant neurological impairment affects the quality of infant verbal interactions, and in particular properties of infant-directed speech, spontaneous interactions between 14 mothers and their 4.5-month-old infants at high risk for neurological disorders (7 female) were recorded and acoustically compared with those of 14 dyads with typically developing infants (8 female). Mothers of at-risk infants had proportionally less voicing, and the proportion of voicing decreased with increasing severity of the infants’ long-term outcome. Follow-up analysis based on manual annotation of phonation style revealed breathy phonation as more common toward infants with more severe long-term outcomes (N=7; 44.7% of speech) than controls (N=14; 22.0%; p=0.005) or at-risk infants with typical or mildly abnormal long-term outcomes (N=7; 16.5%; p=0.002). The results indicate that maternal phonation style during early dyadic interactions is affected by the infant’s neurological condition.

We report findings from a corpus-based investigation of three young children growing up in German-English bilingual environments (M = 3;0, Range = 2;3–3;11). Based on 2,146,179 single words and two-word combinations in naturalistic child speech (CS) and child-directed speech (CDS), we assessed the degree to which the frequency distribution of CDS predicted CS usage over time, and systematically identified CS that was over- or underrepresented in the corpus with respect to matched CDS baselines. Results showed that CDS explained 61% of the variance in CS single-word use and 19.3% of the variance in two-word combinations. Furthermore, the bilingual nature of the over or -underrepresented CS was partially attributable to factors beyond the corpus statistics, namely individual differences between children in their bilingual learning environment. In two out of the three children, overrepresented two-word combinations contained higher levels of syntactic slot redundancy than underrepresented CS. These results are discussed with respect to the role that redundancy plays in producing semiformulaic slot-and-frame patterns in CS.

The present study investigated whether children’s difficulty with non-canonical structures is due to their non-adult-like use of linguistic cues or their inability to revise misinterpretations using late-arriving cues. We adopted a priming production task and a self-paced listening task with picture verification, and included three Mandarin non-canonical structures with differing word orders and the presence or absence of morphosyntactic cues. Forty five-to-ten-year-old Mandarin-speaking children were tested and compared to adults. Results showed that children were indistinguishable from adults in how they used different cues in real-time, although their performance in offline comprehension and production was more prone to errors but improved given the increase of age. These results suggest that the current child sample has adult-like cue-use patterns and use late-arriving cues to revise misinterpretations. The observed worse offline accuracy and production difficulties relative to adults result from their less developed domain-general abilities in performing tasks.

Usage-based theories of children’s syntactic acquisition (e.g., Tomasello, 2000a) predict that children’s abstract lexical categories emerge from their experience with particular words in constructions in their input. Because modifiers in English are almost always prenominal, children might initially treat adjectives similarly to nouns when used in a prenominal position. In this study, we taught English-speaking preschoolers (between 2 and 6 years) novel nouns (object labels) and adjectives (words referring to attributes) in both prenominal and postnominal positions. The children corrected both postnominal adjectives and nouns to prenominal position, but corrected modifying nouns more often than adjectives. These results suggest that children differentiate between nouns and adjectives even when they occur in the same position and serve the same function (i.e., modification). Children were increasingly likely to correct postnominal adjectives (not nouns) with increasing age. We argue that children attend to word order more when it makes a difference in meaning.

This study explored the use of sophisticated vocabulary, complex syntax, and decontextualized language (including book information, conceptual information, past/future experiences, and vocabulary information) in teachers’ instructional interactions with children during the literacy block in prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms. The sample included 33 teachers and 421 children. We examined correlations among these language features and their unique contributions to children’s vocabulary learning. Teachers who used more sophisticated vocabulary also engaged in more decontextualized talk about vocabulary and past/future experiences. Additionally, teachers’ use of complex syntax was uniquely associated with talk about conceptual information. Both complex syntax and conceptual information talk predicted children’s vocabulary learning; however, complex syntax emerged as the sole predictor when accounting for this relationship. This finding suggests that decontextualized talk about concepts, characterized by complex language structures, may facilitate vocabulary acquisition.

Children acquiring Japanese differ from those acquiring English with regard to the rate at which verbs are learned (Fernald & Morikawa, 1993). One possible explanation is that Japanese caregivers use verbs in referentially transparent contexts, which facilitate the form-meaning link. We examined this hypothesis by assessing differences in verb usage by Japanese and American caregivers during dyadic play with their infants (5-22 months). We annotated verb-containing utterances for elements associated with referential transparency and compared across groups. Contrary to our hypotheses, we found that Japanese caregivers used verbs in fewer referentially transparent contexts than American caregivers, or did not significantly differ from American caregivers, depending on the measure. These findings cast doubt on cross-cultural differences in referential transparency between Japanese and American child-directed input.

Factors which impact bilingual language development can often interact with different language features. The current study teases apart the impact of internal and external factors (chronological age, length of exposure, L2 richness, L2 use at home, maternal education and maternal L2 proficiency) across linguistic domains and features (vocabulary, morphology and syntax). Participants were 40 Arabic-speaking sequential bilinguals acquiring English (5;7-12;2, M = 8;4). Length of exposure predicted vocabulary and morphology, while chronological age predicted syntax. L2 richness also predicted vocabulary and syntax, although the impact on syntax was selective across structures. This split between syntax on the one hand, and vocabulary and morphology on the other, reflects the more embedded properties of the former; this contrasts with vocabulary and morphology, where transfer from the L1 and L2 may be more strongly dependent on the availability of shared forms across languages. Further implications are considered for sequential bilinguals in education contexts.

This study investigates the interrelationship between gender-shift in child-directed speech (CDS), child gender, and parenting styles among Arabic-speaking caregivers. A survey of 180 Palestinian parents assessed their parenting styles and reported use of gender-shift in relation to their child’s gender. The findings reveal no significant correlation between gender-shift and child’s gender. However, a positive association exists between gender-shift and indulgence, a characteristic of permissive parenting, while a negative correlation is seen with autonomy granting, regulation, and warmth/support, central to authoritative parenting. These results highlight the need for detailed analysis of parenting dimensions towards deeper understanding of the role of gender-shift use in Arabic CDS, suggesting that broader parenting style categories might overlook crucial differences. The study emphasizes the importance of culturally and linguistically sensitive, interprofessional approaches in language development research, especially in relatively unexplored areas like CDS, while also acknowledging the complexities of exploring such relatively unexamined areas.

This study explored cognitive effects on narrative macrostructure in both languages of 38 Russian-German bilinguals aged 4;6 to 5;1‚ while controlling for demographic factors (sex, socioeconomic status) and language proficiency. Macrostructure was operationalised as story structure (SS) and story complexity (SC) using the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives. Nonverbal cognitive subtasks assessing shifting (Figure Ground), visual memory (Form Completion), and inhibition (Attention Divided) were administered. None of the cognitive skills influenced SS; however, they differentially impacted SC: Figure Ground affected Russian SC, while Form Completion affected German SC. Findings advance our understanding of how cognition affects oral narratives in bilingual preschoolers.