Constraints on Word Learning
The purpose of this project is to explore how people identify the meanings of new words in a supportive and protracted learning context. Our study looks at when children and adults first decide what a word means, whether they revise their initial meaning after additional exposures to contextual information, and the types of errors they make when providing an incorrect meaning. We predict that adults will identify meanings earlier and more accurately and will revise more accurately compared to children. We also expect both adults and children to make more semantically-related errors (e.g., couch for chair) rather than phonological errors (e.g., bear for chair).
Word Learning in Children with Disabilities
Funding: SDSU Undergraduate Research Program
The purpose of this research is to deepen understanding of word-learning processes in children with hearing loss and children with intellectual disabilities between the ages of 5 and 8 years. Specifically, the study compares these groups’ abilities to resolve referential ambiguity and revise initial word-referent mappings, relative to each other and to typically developing peers. Participants complete a word-learning task in which they form new word-referent associations. In some trials, feedback reinforces the child’s initial mapping, while in 50% of trials the feedback contradicts it, requiring revision. Children also complete the CELF-5 to provide a comprehensive assessment of language abilities, and a test of nonverbal intelligence to measure abstract reasoning without relying on linguistic skills. Additional information is gathered through parent surveys, which assess factors such as language history, family background, and executive functioning.