Receptive Vocabulary Development Research Articles

The impact of out-of-school L2 input and interaction on adolescent classroom immersion and community-L2 learners’ L2 vocabulary: opportunities for interaction are key

Abstract Comparing young second-language (L2) learners in different learning contexts is a valuable, but under-researched, design for determining how L2 experiences impact L2 development. This study addressed this gap by comparing the out-of-school L2 experiences of adolescents (N = 64) learning L2-English as either a community majority language or as a foreign language in an immersion classroom, and examining how differences in L2 experience impacted English receptive vocabulary ability. Participant questionnaires yielded information on sources of L2 input and L2 interaction out-of-school. Results showed the groups were comparable for L2 input, but immersion learners experienced less interactional L2 use and also had significantly smaller L2 vocabularies. Out-of-school L2 experience explained more variance in receptive vocabulary for community-L2 participants, with more significant predictor variables than immersion-L2 participants. L2 interaction variables explained more variance than L2 input variables for both groups, indicating that, overall, interaction is a key source of L2 receptive vocabulary development.

Differential effects of gender and ethnicity on children’s receptive language scores after a Canadian two-generation preschool program: follow-up to adolescence

ABSTRACT Preschool programs for socially vulnerable children are believed to affect school readiness and language development but infrequently include follow-up to adolescence; observational measurement of receptive vocabulary is rare. The purpose of this longitudinal cohort study (55 children and 41 parents) was to report the trajectory of receptive vocabulary development for socially vulnerable children of diverse ethnicities (Indigenous, other Canadian-born, and Immigrant) who participated in a two-generation preschool program. English receptive vocabulary scores were measured at 5-time points: (a) program intake, (b) program exit, (c) age 7 years, (d) age 10 years, and (e) adolescence, using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – Third Edition (PPVT-III). For all children, PPVT-III scores increased the most between program intake and exit and positive changes were sustained until adolescence. When the sample was examined by gender, PPVT-III scores were higher for boys than girls at all time points. When the sample was examined by ethnicity, other Canadian-born children scored higher than Indigenous and Immigrant children at all time points. Immigrant children scored lowest until age 7 years, and at age 10 years and adolescence scored higher than Indigenous children. Using mixed-effects modeling, PPVT-III scores increased when English was the primary language spoken at home at intake. PPVT-III scores increased slightly as caregiver age and caregiver Adverse Childhood Experiences score increased. PPVT-III scores were lower for Immigrant girls and Indigenous boys than other sub-groups of children. Differential effects of the two-generation preschool program by gender and ethnicity suggest tailoring programming to increase equitability of receptive vocabulary development for immigrant girls and Indigenous boys. Children with intergenerational adversity may require additional support.

Does Vocabulary Grow in Nature? Exploring the Impacts of Nature-Based Early Learning on Young Children's Receptive Vocabulary Development

Abstract: This study examined the effect of nature-based practices on preschoolers' receptive vocabulary. We administered the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test to 134 children from 11 preschool classes at the beginning and end of the preschool year. Results suggest incorporating nature-based practices into preschool supported significant vocabulary growth, but that effectiveness varied by public vs. private school setting and children's socioeconomic status. This study contributes to the literature regarding effective practices for supporting vocabulary development and adds to the growing body of research surrounding the impact of play in natural environments on child development and school readiness.

Parent inferential questions and child responses during shared reading predict DLLs’ receptive vocabulary development

The present study investigated whether parent–child interactions during shared reading in a diverse sample of 91 three- to five-year-old dual language learners (DLLs) in Norway supported the development of the children’s first (L1) and second language (L2) vocabulary skills. The dyads spoke 11 different L1s (i.e., Arabic, Polish, Somali, and Urdu). The analysis of shared reading was based on predefined story elements in the book, and differentiated between whether central story elements were introduced as parent inferential questions and child responses, or as parent and child narrative statements. The children’s L1 and L2 receptive vocabulary skills were assessed prior to the reading as well as 8 months later. Regression analyses revealed that parent inferential questions predicted children’s L1 vocabulary development across the time-period. Child responses to adult inferential questions predicted their L1 and L2 vocabulary development. These findings support the growing research base that emphasizes the importance of eliciting child reasoning during shared reading.

Socioeconomic Status and its Impact on Receptive Vocabulary and Executive Function in Young Children

This article examines the impact of Socioeconomic Status (SES) on the development of receptive vocabulary and executive function in young children. Integrating current research, the paper highlights the challenges faced by children from low SES backgrounds in terms of language comprehension and executive functioning. Studies indicate a close relationship between SES and a child's receptive language abilities and executive functions, which are crucial for overall learning and development. The article also explores how SES influences cognitive development in children through various pathways, such as home language environment, stress levels, and access to resources. Additionally, the paper discusses early intervention measures and policy recommendations for children from low SES backgrounds to bridge the developmental gap associated with SES.

Development of Metaphor Reasoning Comprehension in Infants

Purpose: This study investigated the development of early metaphor comprehension based on gender and age in preschool children and measured its correlation with vocabulary acquisition.Methods: A total of forty-nine Korean preschoolers aged 4 to 6 years old (17 boys, 32 girls) with normal receptive and expressive vocabulary development were included in this study. Children were divided into three groups depending on age, their mean ages being 4;8, 5;4, 6;3, respectively. Metaphor reasoning comprehension was measured using MRAC(Metaphor and Reasoning Comprehension Test), and children were asked to listen to a sentence and point to one of the three pictures.Results: There was no significant difference among the groups in the metaphor reasoning score by age and gender of preschool children (<i>p</i>>0.05). In addition, the Pearson correlation showed a positive relationship between metaphor and reasoning comprehension scores, as well as receptive vocabulary scores (<i>r</i>=0.302, <i>p</i>=0.035) and a positive relationship between metaphor and reasoning comprehension scores and expressive vocabulary scores (<i>r</i>=0.314, <i>p</i>=0.028). In addition, most errors occur in understanding the literal meaning rather than the implied meaning or metaphor of the sentence.Conclusion: In early young children, vocabulary plays an essential role in the metaphor interpretation process. However, to better understand the development of metaphor language comprehension in preschool children, exploring other factors affecting their ability to understand metaphor language and investigating their relationships is necessary.

Fostering receptive vocabulary development of kindergarten children with the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Fostering receptive vocabulary development of kindergarten children with the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

The Effects of Speech Sound Disorder on Vocabulary Development

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the role of speech sound disorders in the development of children’s vocabulary through longitudinal analysis. Methods: Three hundred and twenty-four 6-year-old children were assessed in severity groups with speech sound disorders (SSD: general level, a slight error, the recommendation for in-depth examination, and suspected speech sound disorder). This study examined whether the model of change in vocabulary (receptive, expressive) original score according to age (3, 5, and 7 years old) of four SSD groups was suitable for the Latent Growth Model. In addition, cross-analysis was used to examine whether there was a significant difference in the classification of receptive and expressive vocabulary development normality (abnormal, normal development, slight delay, and vocabulary development delay) according to age changes in the four groups. Results: Results found that the severity of SSD did not affect vocabulary development continuity, but had a significant effect on the classification of vocabulary development normality standards. The severity of SSD had a significant effect on the development delay of the 7-year-old receptive vocabulary and the development delay of the 3-year-old expressive vocabulary. Conclusion: It would be desirable to check the vocabulary development of children with SSD according to age, understanding that subjects with suspected SSD can show significant differences in expressive vocabulary at the age of 3 and receptive vocabulary development at the age of 7.

Early prelingual auditory and language development in children with simultaneous bilateral and unilateral cochlear implants.

This current study aimed to explore early prelingual auditory development (EPLAD) and early language development in Mandarin-speaking children who received simultaneous bilateral cochlear implants (BICI) during the first year of cochlear implantation and compare the performance of the children who received BICI with those received unilateral cochlear implant (UCI). 39 Mandarin-speaking children who received BICIs simultaneously and 36 children with UCIs were enrolled in this study. To access the EPLAD, the Infant-Toddler Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale (IT/MAIS) was conducted, and a subtest of the simplified short-form version of the Mandarin Communicative Development Inventory (SSF-MCDI) was used to evaluate the development of expressive and receptive vocabulary for the children at indicated time points after surgery. In both the simultaneous BICI and UCI groups, we observed significantly increased scores of the SSF-MCDI and IT/MAIS 1 year after the surgery. There are indications of early advantages in children with BICI in IT/MAIS scores (at 1, 3, and 6 months after activation). For early development of language, a great difference between the expressive vocabulary scores and the receptive vocabulary scores was observed in both groups. We found there were not significant differences between the two groups on expressive or receptive vocabulary scores, the use of more differentiated measures might be required in future research. We further found that the development of the receptive or expressive vocabulary is dramatically correlated with the age at implantation and the total scores of IT/MAIS for children with simultaneous BICIs. These results may supplement the skills development of early language and auditory in Mandarin-native children with simultaneous CIs. It is obvious that children with normal hearing have mastery of receptive vocabulary before that of expressive vocabulary, which is the same as children with unilateral and bilateral CIs in this research. IT/MAIS total scores and age at CI were important factors for early language performance in children with simultaneous BICIs.

Comprehension skills of Chinese-English dual language learners: relations across languages and associations with language richness at home

ABSTRACT Chinese-English dual language learners (Chinese DLLs) are a growing population in the US. Existing studies of preschool-aged Chinese DLLs mostly focused on single-word vocabulary and rarely explored other skills important for school readiness. In the current study, we examined Chinese DLLs’ development of receptive vocabulary and comprehension of semantic concepts (i.e. spatial and quantification expressions) in both English and Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese) during a preschool year. Results indicated that while semantic concept comprehension in both English and Chinese showed significant growth during the year, only English, but not Chinese, receptive vocabulary showed a significant increase. Furthermore, DLLs’ semantic comprehension, but not receptive vocabulary, showed cross-language transfer. Finally, the richness of DLLs’ language experiences (e.g. frequency of book reading, multimedia exposure) at home was a significant predictor of Chinese DLLs’ receptive vocabulary and semantic concept comprehension in the respective language. Supporting families to provide rich language experiences in both English and the home language may hold key to fostering successful dual language development.

Infant attention and maternal education are associated with childhood receptive vocabulary development.

Receptive vocabulary development was examined in 313 children (151 girls; 78% White) as a function of infant attention and maternal education (66% of mothers held a college degree or higher). Attention was measured at 10 months using a dynamic puppet task and receptive vocabulary was measured at 3-, 4-, 6-, and 9 years of age using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. The best-fitting multilevel growth model was a quadratic model as a function of age. Results indicated that both infant attention and maternal education were predictors of receptive vocabulary initial status, with no differences as a function of child sex. In contrast, infant attention, but not maternal education, predicted growth in receptive language skill, and boys demonstrated a faster rate of receptive language development in comparison to girls. These findings illustrate that even after accounting for child sex and maternal education, infant visual attention predicts children's receptive language development starting from the early preschool period into the elementary school years. These findings demonstrate the importance and nature of the role that infant attention and maternal education play with respect to childhood receptive language development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The Relations between Cardinal Number Knowledge and Quantifier Comprehension

ABSTRACT How does linguistic structure affect children’s developing cardinal number knowledge? The bootstrapping theory proposes that children might use syntactic information provided by known words such as quantifiers to bootstrap the meanings of unfamiliar words such as number words. Prior studies of numeral and quantifier development have indicated that the bootstrapping mechanism that children can use to discover numeral meanings might work differently in different languages. Nevertheless, support for this conclusion remains preliminary. The present study explored this hypothesis through an investigation of the possible relations between cardinal number knowledge and quantifier comprehension in Mandarin Chinese-speaking children. Notably, in contrast with previous studies, this study also offered a glimpse into children’s receptive vocabulary development and its relation with cardinal number knowledge and quantifier comprehension. Results showed that cardinal number knowledge did not seem to be correlated with quantifier comprehension (both “exact” and “non-exact” quantifiers) when controlling for such covariates as children’s age, gender, parent education, and family income. Moreover, children’s receptive vocabulary size explained a significant amount of variance in their quantifier knowledge over and above children’s age, gender, parent education, and family income, but not in their cardinal number development over and above these covariates. These results provide further evidence for the hypothesis that while the bootstrapping mechanism may facilitate number word learning in children speaking languages like English, it might play a lesser role in children speaking classifier languages such as Mandarin Chinese. Implications for the role that general receptive vocabulary plays in the acquisition of number words and quantifiers are also discussed.

Receptive and expressive vocabulary development in children learning English as an additional language: Converging evidence from multiple datasets.

Children learning English as an additional language (EAL) are a diverse and growing group of pupils in England's schools. Relative to their monolingual (ML) peers, these children tend to show lower receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge in English, although interpretation of findings is limited by small and heterogeneous samples. In an effort to increase representativeness and power, the present study combined published and unpublished datasets from six cross-sectional and four longitudinal studies investigating the vocabulary development of 434 EAL learners and 342 ML peers (age range: 4;9-11;5) in 42 primary schools. Multilevel modelling confirmed previous findings of significantly lower English vocabulary scores of EAL learners and some degree of convergence in receptive but not expressive knowledge by the end of primary school. Evidence for narrowing of the gap in receptive knowledge was found only in datasets spanning a longer developmental period, hinting at the protracted nature of this convergence.

Vocabulary Growth in Mandarin-Speaking Children With Bilateral Cochlear Implants, Bimodal Stimulation, or Unilateral Cochlear Implants During the First Year After Activation.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate vocabulary development in Mandarin-speaking children with bilateral cochlear implants (CIs), bimodal stimulation (CI plus hearing aids [HAs]), or unilateral CIs during the first year after CI activation. Participants included 23 children with simultaneous bilateral CIs, 23 children with bimodal stimulation, and 15 children with unilateral CIs. They all received CIs before 30 months of age. Parents were asked to endorse words that their child could understand only or understand and say using the Early Vocabulary Inventory for Mandarin Chinese at the day of CI activation and 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after CI activation. Receptive and expressive vocabulary sizes were computed. Growth curve analysis revealed that children with simultaneous bilateral CIs demonstrated faster growth of receptive vocabulary than those with bimodal stimulation, followed by those with unilateral CIs. Moreover, children with simultaneous bilateral CIs reached the 100-word mark for receptive vocabulary earlier than children with bimodal stimulation, followed by those with unilateral CIs. There were no significant differences among the three groups in expressive vocabulary. Bilateral CIs have an advantage over bimodal stimulation in early receptive vocabulary development in Mandarin, a tone language. HA usage is still recommended for those who receive one CI.

Associations between home literacy environment and children’s receptive vocabulary: A meta-analysis

<p id=C6>Home literacy environment (HLE) refers to a variety of resources and opportunities provided to children as well as the parental skills, abilities, dispositions, and resources that determine the provision of such opportunities for children. For more than half a century, a large body of studies have shown that HLE can significantly promote children’s receptive vocabulary development. However, the blurry operationalization of HLE’s construct and the inconsistency of effect sizes (ESs) in recent studies have made it difficult to understand what really works for children’s receptive vocabulary development at home. This meta-analysis systematically reviewed empirical studies published from 1990 to 2021 regarding the relationships between these two variables in order to clarify HLE’s construct, investigate the main effects, and explore potential moderators. <p id=C7>Through literature review, we found that HLE was usually conceptualized from either the perspective of ecological system theory or interaction theory. Ecological system theory was more widely adopted by researchers, which involved home literacy resources, motivational atmosphere, and literacy activities. Next, we completed a comprehensive search of peer-reviewed published research, and 84 articles with 212 effect sizes and 65,550 children were finally included. We used CMA 3.0 for statistical analysis and results showed that: (1) Except for the age children began to be read to, there was no publication bias in the ESs of HLE and other sub-constructs or items. (2) Results of random effects model indicated a significant, moderate relation between HLE and children’s receptive vocabulary development, <italic>r</italic>=0.31, <italic>p</italic><0.01. Among sub-constructs, items related to shared reading, i.e., the number of children’s books, the frequency of shared reading, and the frequency of children’s reading request demonstrated the highest ESs, followed by motivational atmosphere, including parents’ literacy beliefs and parents’ own reading habits. As for literacy activities, the ESs of informal literacy activities were low but significant, while formal literacy activities were not associated with children’s receptive vocabulary development. (3) As the ESs of HLE and the frequency of shared reading had a high level of heterogeneity, we used meta-regression to explore whether time periods, cultural backgrounds, child’s age and measurement methods were potential moderators. Results suggested that the ESs of HLE decreased significantly across time periods. One possible explanation was that the influx of multimedia has significantly changed HLE, and the other may lie in that the time children spent in pre-primary schools has increased significantly. It was also found that the ESs of the frequency of shared reading were stable during past 30 years, which supported previous literature that interactive reading between adults and children was an effective way for children’s receptive vocabulary development. The moderating effects of measurement methods were different for HLE and the frequency of shared reading. Specifically, the ESs of HLE obtained by questionnaires and the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment did not lead to significant differences, while the ESs of the frequency of shared reading obtained by Children’s Title Checklist (CTC) were significantly higher than those obtained by questionnaires. We found that except for problems in understanding deviation, difficulty in recall, and social desirability effect, researchers may have different understandings of CTC measurements over time. Lastly, no moderating effects of cultural backgrounds or child’s age were detected. <p id=C8>Taken altogether, this study supports previous literature that HLE is positively correlated with children’s receptive vocabulary, especially resources and opportunities related to shared reading. Findings also suggest that HLE is a changing and multifaceted construct and more research is needed to extend its conceptualization, especially tech-enabled literacy practices. Furthermore, researchers should also pay more attention to cultural differences in HLE and employ cross-cultural perspectives to improve the reliability and validity of measurements. All these would help advance future HLE research and practice.

Idiosyncratic Development of Receptive and Free Active Vocabulary

The present study seeks to explain the role of different essay types and proficiency level based on receptive vocabulary knowledge on learners’ free active vocabulary. The study includes the works done in a 15-week academic term by 26 EFL students with C1 level English proficiency. At the beginning of the research, the participants are applied Vocabulary Size Test (Nation &amp; Beglar, 2007) to determine their receptive vocabulary knowledge and divided into two groups according to their results from VST: the more proficient group who master 8000 or more word families and the less proficient group who master less than 8000 word families. Throughout the semester, they have written two essays on each of two different essay types: comparison-contrast essay and cause-effect essay. In order to determine the participants’ free active vocabulary, two different scores, i.e., detailed Lexical Frequency Profile (Laufer and Nation, 1995) and condensed Lexical Frequency Profile (Laufer, 1995), are calculated in the writings of the participants. The results indicate that neither essay types nor proficiency based on receptive vocabulary knowledge has any significant effect on learners’ free active productive vocabulary.

A multi-factor study of the development of English receptive skills by young Danish children

AbstractThis longitudinal study examined the influence of child-specific and environmental factors on the development of English receptive vocabulary and grammar by two groups of Danish children: Early Starters (ES) and Late Starters (LS). Age of onset, gender, language aptitude and SES significantly predicted both outcome measures. English competence beliefs (ECB) were positively related to L2 proficiency but only for children with low foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), suggesting a dynamic relationship between ECB and FLCA. Extramural audiovisual viewing and reading played a differential role for ES vs. LS whereas extramural English speaking significantly interacted with gender. Finally, child-specific factors explained more of the variance in English proficiency than environmental factors. This finding, which contradicts results obtained in instructed settings (e.g., Sun, Steinkrauss, Tendeiro &amp; de Bot, 2016) but parallels those in naturalistic settings (e.g., Paradis, 2011), supports the special status of English in countries with a high degree of informal contact with English.

Development of receptive vocabulary and verbal intelligence in Japanese children with unilateral hearing loss

ObjectiveIn the past, it was believed that unilateral hearing loss has a minimal impact on the speech and language development in children. However, several studies have suggested that some school-age children with unilateral hearing loss have learning impairments in language. In the present study, we first examined whether preschool-age children with unilateral severe-to-profound hearing loss (UHL) have delays in the development of receptive vocabulary and verbal intelligence. In the follow-up study, we tested the children again after school admission. The objective of the present study was to reveal the development of receptive vocabulary and verbal intelligence from preschool to school years in children with UHL. MethodsFifteen Japanese preschool-age children with UHL and a control group of 20 age-matched Japanese children with bilateral normal hearing (NH), who were examined because articulation disorder was suspected, were enrolled in this study. The development of receptive vocabulary and verbal intelligence was evaluated using the Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PVT-R) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, respectively. The present retrospective study was approved by the Committee for Medical Ethics of Tokushima University Hospital (#3801). ResultsThe scaled score (SS) of the PVT-R and verbal intelligence quotient (VIQ)/verbal comprehension index (VCI), but not performance intelligence quotient/perceptual reasoning index in children with UHL were significantly lower than those in the control children with NH at preschool-age. The SS of the PVT-R and VIQ/VCI in children with UHL significantly improved after school admission. In the subgroup analysis, the SS of the PVT-R in the lower receptive vocabulary group of children with UHL at preschool-age was significantly increased after school admission, but the SS in the normal and higher receptive vocabulary group of children with UHL at preschool-age were still around the standardized mean of SS after school admission. ConclusionThese findings suggest that the development of receptive vocabulary and verbal intelligence was delayed in preschool-age children with UHL and that most of them caught up to exhibit normal language ability after school admission.

Receptive Vocabulary Acquisition in Pre-Primary Education through Soft-Content and Language Integrated Learning

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has become the focus of Foreign Language (FL) research within the last decades. CLIL provides a more complete, naturalistic, and meaningful context to FL learning, which has proven to brings many benefits to learners, such as a higher motivation and promotion of creativity, and better results in receptive skills, vocabulary, morphology and fluency. Nevertheless, most CLIL research has focused on primary and secondary level students and, thus, more research is needed with younger learners, namely, pre-primary students. The present study examines the learning of FL vocabulary in pre-primary learners following a soft-CLIL program, as compared to their same age peers following Formal Instruction (FI) of English. Over the course of six months, pre-primary students of two grades, namely 4- and 5-year-old students (N=155), took part in such program, aiming at teaching two curricular preschool units, traditionally taught in the mother tongue (L1), in English in the FL sessions. A longitudinal study was conducted, and students were administered a general vocabulary level pre-test, as well as a target words receptive vocabulary post-test after the two units had been worked on. The focus of the research was on receptive vocabulary acquisition, but age and word frequency effects were also analyzed. Results showed positive tendencies in receptive vocabulary development through soft-CLIL, although not statistically significant. A significant frequency effect was found, indicating that high-frequency words are recalled more easily than lower-frequency ones, but no significant differences were found when comparing learners from the two grades.

Language Development in Early Childhood: Quality of Teacher-Child Interaction and Children's Receptive Vocabulary Competency.

High-quality teacher-child interactions in early learning environments have been regarded as a key contributor to children’s early language and cognitive development in international scholarships. Little is known, however, about the longitudinal effects of children’s receptive vocabularies in the Chinese context. In this study, we addressed the question of such longitudinal effects by examining the predictive effect of preschool teacher-child interaction quality on children’s subsequent receptive vocabulary development in 42 kindergartens in Guangdong Province China. The results in a nested design showed that except for the factor of Emotional Support, the other two factors (Classroom Management and Instructional Support) were positive predictors to children’s vocabulary competency from K2 (T1) to K3 (T2) at preschools. Findings contribute to the growing international literature on the critical role teacher-child interaction quality plays in children’s language and literacy learning and development. Implications for enhancing communication channels between early childhood (EC) educators and decision-makers, and the strategies of the improvement of language and literacy teachers’ professional development are also discussed.