Children's Vocabulary Research Articles

Learning English in Early Childhood Education with Augmented Reality: Design, Production, and Evaluation of the “Wordtastic Kids” App

The pedagogical use of AR for language learning in early childhood education is focusing attention on the didactic potential that these resources present at such early ages. The aim of this study was to develop and assess the “Wordtastic Kids” Application (APP) in order to: (a) design, produce, and evaluate a new contextualized AR application for learning English in early childhood education; and (b) know the academic performance of early childhood education students towards learning English using an AR application. The methodology was based on the design of materials and the subsequent realization of the pre-test/post-test evaluation to determine the academic performance of the students. The results show a general increase in the scores obtained in all the pre-test and post-test categories that were addressed using the Wordtastic Kids Application, which proves to be a tool that improves the learning of English vocabulary in pre-school children. Therefore, it can be concluded that AR can be useful for complementing traditional vocabulary learning in children. However, it is important to note that the successful implementation of AR will depend on several factors, such as adequate teacher preparation, the quality of AR content, and the ability of children to interact with technology effectively.

Early vocabulary in two varieties of South American Spanish: Quantitative and qualitative differences

This article presents a cross-cultural comparison of the size and composition of the expressive vocabulary of young children speaking two dialectal varieties of South American Spanish. Ninety-one Peruvian and 91 Argentinian toddlers (mean age: 22.5 months), matched on gender, age and maternal education, were assessed through the respective adaptations of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. Results revealed a vocabulary growth compatible with a spurt in both groups. A marginally significant country-by-gender interaction indicated that while Argentinian children exhibited an accelerated lexical growth before age 2;0 regardless of gender, only Peruvian girls did so; Peruvian boys presented a more gradual and later increase. We also found between-group qualitative differences in vocabulary composition: Argentinian toddlers with vocabularies of up to 100 words exhibited a significantly higher proportion of Nouns, while Peruvian children, especially those with a lexical mass under 50 words, had a higher percentage of Social words. Both findings are discussed in terms of possible cross-cultural differences linked to input quality and early interactions, and avenues for further research are proposed.

Why children differ in classroom engagement: Insights from a prospective longitudinal cohort of elementary school students

AbstractThis study investigates how individual‐level factors contribute to classroom engagement variations of boys and girls across the elementary school years. Classroom engagement was assessed four times between the ages of 7 and 12 years in a large, representative population‐based sample (N = 877) using latent growth modeling. Predictors included the sex of the child, the family income, and the mother's educational attainment when the child was 5 months old, along with the child's early receptive vocabulary, numeracy, motor and attentional skills, motivation to learn, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors measured at age 6 years. On average, classroom engagement progressively improved over time. Child vocabulary skills, attention, intrinsic motivation, and externalizing behaviors predicted initial levels of classroom engagement. Child classroom engagement also showed slower progression over time when receptive vocabulary and attentional skills were high. This trend was slightly different when the analyses were conducted separately for boys and girls. Girls with higher attentional skills and fewer externalizing behaviors at age 6 showed slower improvement in classroom engagement throughout elementary school, while boys did not significantly improve in their classroom engagement. Overall, these results suggest that several individual‐level factors contribute to classroom engagement. Children with lower levels of receptive vocabulary, attentional skills, and motivation to learn, and those displaying externalizing behavior may benefit from additional help to boost their classroom engagement.

Improving Children’s Ability in Knowing Vocabulary through the Experiential Learning Model Approach

Developing the vocabulary comprehension skills require a complete understanding to be obtained by the children. This study aims to improve the children’s ability recognize vocabulary through the Experiential Learning Approach for children aged 4-5 years in group A of Ulil Albab Kindergarten. This research used group action research method. The subjects of this study were 12 people. The method of data collection in this study used observation, interviews, and documentation while the data analysis technique used mix method. The results of this study indicate that there is an increase of ability to recognize the concept of numbers for children, in the pre cycle there is 49.7%. Experiencing an increase in cycle 1 of action 1 of 61.1% and increased again in cycle 2 of action 2 of 91.1%. It is concluded that the Experiential Learning approach was very low possibility applied to improve children's skills in writing numbers and connecting vocabulary symbols with objects, because there is no significant change in its application. The Experiential Learning approach is very suitable to be applied in object comparisons. As for recommendations for teachers: the Experiential Learning approach can be used as an alternative approach in improving the ability to recognize vocabulary for children in group A of Ulil Albab Kindergarten. The findings in this study are that the use of the Experiential Learning approach is still not fully experienced directly because it adapts to the achievement indicator which still has to use paper pencil. But, so far the approach taken is appropriate because it doesn't really change the pattern of learning that has been done in Kindergarten which is more to the direct learning.

Maternal education as an environmental factor related to reading in children with reading difficulties: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

The expanded simple view of reading (SVR) model suggests that word decoding, language comprehension and executive functions are necessary for reading comprehension. Children with reading difficulties (RDs) often have deficits in critical components of reading established in the expanded SVR model and alterations in brain function of reading-related regions. Maternal education could provide children with advantageous educational opportunities or resources that support reading acquisition. The primary goal of this study was to examine the contributions of maternal education to the behavioural and neurobiological correlates of the expanded SVR model. Seventy-two 8- to 12-year-old children with RDs and typical readers (TRs) completed reading, behavioural and an functional magnetic resonance imaging stories-listening task to determine the functional connectivity of the receptive language network to the whole brain in association with maternal education. Higher maternal education was associated with better vocabulary in children with RDs and positive functional connectivity between the receptive language network and regions related to visual processing in children with RDs versus TRs. These data suggest that maternal education supports the ability to comprehend oral language and engagement of neural networks that support imagination/visualization in children with RDs.

Shared characteristics of intervention techniques for oral vocabulary and speech comprehensibility in preschool children with co-occurring features of developmental language disorder and a phonological speech sound disorder: protocol for a systematic review with narrative synthesis

IntroductionEvidence suggests that over one-third of young children with developmental language disorder (DLD) or speech sound disorder (SSD) have co-occurring features of both. A co-occurring DLD and SSD profile is...

An approach for Correcting the Word-level Mispronunciations for non-native English-speaking Indian Children

Speech Recognition and its potential applications in terms of “talking devices” have become indispensable in today’s world. Technological advances like mobiles, smart home assistants or tablets extensively use the techniques of automatic speech recognition that works good for adults but cannot always follow and understand children’s speech. The primary goal of this paper is to bridge the gap of communication between voice assistants and Indian children speaking English as secondary language. The issue of lack of children’s speech corpora with English as non-native language, is addressed by creating a dataset of children in the age group of 5-15 years, speaking Hindi or Marathi as their mother tongue and English as their second language. The analysis and implementation of the proposed work shows the accuracy of approximately 96% and potential for further scope by increasing the size of dataset in lower age group. The key contributions of our work are (i) creating speech dataset of Indian children whose mother-tongue is Hindi or Marathi, (ii) employing and evaluating hybrid Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) as an age classifier, (iii) language modeling to customize children vocabulary, (iv) checking accuracy and performance of the system.

The simple view of reading in light of effects of vocabulary and working memory in Greek-Turkish bilingual children with and without dyslexia

The simple view of reading in light of effects of vocabulary and working memory in Greek-Turkish bilingual children with and without dyslexia

Vocabulary skills of bilingual children: The evidence for context‐dependent performance

AbstractMost bilingual children often display greater proficiency and preference for one of their two languages. Researchers refer to this asymmetry as language dominance. However, despite being possible to determine the overall language dominance in bilinguals, there may be substantial flexibility in their language use. In particular, the relative ease of using each language may depend on the sociolinguistic context and the language of the interlocutor which may affect the ease of accessing words in a given language. In the present work, we investigate whether and how the sociolinguistic context in an International English medium school influences bilingual children's vocabulary production. Specifically, we examine whether bilingual first‐grade children's expressive vocabulary skills vary as a function of the linguistic context (Home/School) and the language (English/Spanish) of their conversational partner. Results showed that contextual factors interacted with child's language performance. The participants' ability to name objects in Spanish was affected by the conversational partner's language, and their ability to name Home‐context words varied by language. The findings of this investigation highlight the importance of considering sociolinguistic factors when evaluating bilingual children's language skills.

Semantic and Syntactic Properties of Words and the Receptive-Expressive Gap in Autistic and Non-Autistic Children.

The goal of this work was to examine the semantic and syntactic properties of the vocabularies of autistic and non-autistic infants and toddlers to see if children in these two groups know different kinds of words. We focused on both receptive and expressive vocabularies. For expressive vocabulary, we looked only at the "active" lexicon: Of those words that are already in children's receptive vocabulary, we asked which ones they also produce. We used an existing data set of 346 parent report vocabulary checklists (MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Gestures) from 41 autistic and 27 non-autistic children at multiple timepoints between the ages of 6 and 43 months. We coded the words on the checklists for various semantic and syntactic properties and evaluated which properties predicted whether children understood and produced those words. Overall, we replicated a common finding that autistic children have smaller receptive vocabularies than non-autistic children, but we found that of the words they understand, autistic children produce a similar proportion of those words as non-autistic children. While we found that some syntactic properties are more or less likely to be represented in children's early vocabularies (e.g., nouns are more likely to be understood and produced than words that are not nouns), these patterns did not differ across autistic and non-autistic children. The semantic and syntactic compositions of autistic and non-autistic children's vocabularies are similar. Thus, while receptive vocabularies are relatively smaller for autistic children, they do not appear to have specific difficulty with words that have particular syntactic or semantic properties, or with adding words to the expressive vocabulary that they already understand.

Pemerolehan Kosakata Anak Bahasa Anak Akibat Pengaruh Video Pemain Gim di Youtube

This research is entitled Acquisition of Children's Vocabulary Due to the Effect of Video Game Players on Youtube for children aged 4-8 in Rabakodo Village, Sarae Village, RT 09 RW 04 Kec. Wow, Kab. Bima, NTB. which aims to find out how to acquire children's vocabulary and the process of how they master it and to describe the application of Chomsky's genetic theory of cognitivism in acquiring children's vocabulary due to the influence of video game players on Youtube. This research is an interesting problem phenomenon for researchers in the field of psycholinguistics, this is an issue that is very impressive and difficult to prove. This research is included in the type of qualitative descriptive research. The method of data collection is done by the method of observing. The method of data analysis in this study used the matching method and the distributional method. In this study, the presentation of the results of data analysis used was informal. The analysis is carried out with a description of the explanation in simple words that are easy to understand and still use technical terminology. The results of this study are children aged 4-8 years have acquired nouns (mobile phone, monster, weapon, etc.), verbs (hit, play, dead, etc.), and adjectives (strong, crazy, far, etc.) quite well. The application of Chomsky's genetic theory of cognitivism in the acquisition of children's language vocabulary affected by video game players on YouTube distinguishes (language skills), performance (implementation or language processing), and language creativity in language acquisition.

From terrible twos to sassy sixes: The development of vocabulary and executive functioning across early childhood.

Across the early childhood period of development, young children exhibit considerable growth in their executive functioning (EF) and vocabulary abilities. Understanding the developmental trajectory of these seemingly interrelated processes is important as both early vocabulary and EF have been shown to predict critical academic and socio-emotional outcomes later in childhood. Although previous research suggests that EF and vocabulary are correlated in early childhood, much of the existing longitudinal research has focused on unidirectional relations among preschool child samples. The current large-scale study, therefore, sought to examine whether children's vocabulary and EF abilities are bidirectionally related over time across four measurement waves in early childhood (i.e., at ages 2, 3, 4, and 6). At each timepoint, children's vocabulary skills were positively correlated with their concurrent EF abilities. After controlling for child sex and maternal education status, the best-fitting, cross-lagged panel model was a unidirectional model whereby children's early vocabulary scores predicted their later EF performance at each timepoint. Although age 2 EF significantly predicted age 3 vocabulary size, this association was no longer significant after accounting for maternal education status. Our results illustrate that vocabulary size plays an important role in predicting children's later EF performance across various timepoints in early childhood, even after controlling for children's initial EF scores. These findings have important implications for intervention research as fostering early vocabulary acquisition may serve as a possible avenue for improving EF outcomes in young children. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Children's vocabulary size is positively correlated with their concurrent executive functioning skill at ages 2, 3, 4, and 6 Young children's early vocabulary scores predict their later EF performance across measurement waves, even after controlling for initial EF skill There is stability in children's relative vocabulary size and executive functioning performance over time in early childhood.

Screen media exposure and young children's vocabulary learning and development: A meta-analysis.

This meta-analysis synthesizes research on media use in early childhood (0-6 years), word-learning, and vocabulary size. Multi-level analyses included 266 effect sizes from 63 studies (Ntotal = 11,413) published between 1988-2022. Among samples with information about race/ethnicity (51%) and sex/gender (73%), most were majority White/Non-Hispanic and between 40%-60% female. Analyses revealed a small overall positive relation between screen media exposure and vocabulary (r = .23). Experimental studies yielded a small-to-medium effect (r = .30), with stronger effects for e-books than TV/video or games/apps, and non-significant effects for video chat. In correlational studies, there was no overall association between vocabulary size and naturalistic media exposure (r = .07), with the exception of naturalistic exposure to educational media (r = .17).

Vocabulary and Syntax Reception in Children with Down Syndrome

Introduction: Intellectual disability and specific cognition in down syndrome (DS) affect language development and processing. We assessed vocabulary and syntax reception among children with DS with typically developed (TD) Persian-speaking Iranian children. We also investigated the association between vocabulary and syntax reception in children with DS.
 Materials and Methods: Using the Stanford–Binet intelligence scales test, 18 TD children (4-6 years old) and 18 DS children were matched based on non-verbal mental age. Vocabulary reception was assessed using the receptive picture vocabulary test (RPVT) and syntax reception by the Persian syntax comprehension test.
 Results: Mean total vocabulary reception was lower in children with DS (P<0.001). Syntax reception was also impaired in children with DS compared to the normal values of the test. Among children with DS, vocabulary reception was positively correlated with syntax reception. Every unit increase in total vocabulary reception score was associated with 0.08 (95% confidence interval, CI: 0.04-0.12) improvement in syntax score in children with DS.
 Conclusion: Vocabulary and syntax reception in DS children, especially complex syntax structures, was impaired. The observed association between vocabulary and syntax reception shows that vocabulary reception improvement might result in progressing syntax reception in children with DS.

Parent coaching from 6 to 18 months improves child language outcomes through 30 months of age.

Interventions focused on the home language environment have been shown to improve a number of child language outcomes in the first years of life. However, data on the longer-term effects of the intervention are still somewhat limited. The current study examines child vocabulary and complex speech outcomes (N=59) during the year following completion of a parent-coaching intervention, which was previously found to increase the quantity of parent-child conversational turns and to improve child language outcomes through 18 months of age. Measures of parental language input, child speech output, and parent-child conversational turn-taking were manually coded from naturalistic home recordings (Language Environment Analysis System, LENA) at regular 4-month intervals when children were 6- to 24-months old. Child language skills were assessed using the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) at four time-points following the final intervention session (at 18, 24, 27, and 30 months). Vocabulary size and growth from 18 to 30 months was greater in the intervention group, even after accounting for differences in child language ability during the intervention period. The intervention group also scored higher on measures of speech length and grammatical complexity, and these effects were mediated by 18-month vocabulary. Intervention was associated with increased parent-child conversational turn-taking in home recordings at 14 months, and mediation analysis suggested that 14-month conversational turn-taking accounted for intervention-related differences in subsequent vocabulary. Together, the results suggest enduring, positive effects of parental language intervention and underscore the importance of interactive, conversational language experience during the first 2 years of life. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Parent coaching was provided as part of a home language intervention when children were 6-18 months of age. Naturalistic home language recordings showed increased parent-child conversational turn-taking in the intervention group at 14 months of age. Measures of productive vocabulary and complex speech indicated more advanced expressive language skills in the intervention group through 30 months of age, a full year after the final intervention session. Conversational turn-taking at 14 months predicted subsequent child vocabulary and accounted for differences in vocabulary size across the intervention and control groups.

The victory of a non-digital game over a digital one in vocabulary learning

Among the most important things a child can do to learn is to play. Technology, however, has created a distinct type of play for children that differs from previous forms. This raises the question of whether digital or non-digital plays are more effective learning tools. To address the question, the current study examined the impact of digital and non-digital play-based instruction on children's vocabulary learning and retention. To this aim, 40 elementary EFL learners were assigned to two groups: digital and non-digital. In the first phase of the study, after twenty sessions of intervention, the post-test was administered and two weeks later, the delayed post-test was held. Twenty sessions of another type of play-based learning took place in the second phase when the learners switched groups. We ended up administering both the post-test and the delayed post-test after a two-week break. The data were analyzed using ANCOVA and Quade's ANCOVA tests. Additionally, the learners, parents, teachers, and two observers who attended all classes were interviewed. The quantitative results revealed that, across the stages, the non-digital group outperformed the digital one. The interviews and observations lend credence to the quantitative results. The study demonstrated that the advent of technology should not make us ignore the benefits of non-digital activities and plays in language education environments.

TEACHING VOCABULARY IN EFL CLASSROOM : BY USING A SONG "TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR" FOR YOUNG LEARNERS

Vocabulary is very important to understand and learn to support English learning activities. Without understanding vocabulary, it will be difficult to learn a language. Therefore, the introduction and teaching of English vocabulary is done early to children. The effort made by teachers to introduce and teach English vocabulary is through the media of a song. As a media tool, songs can be an alternative teaching solution that can be used by teachers to create effective and fun learning situations in the classroom. Songs can help students to more easily develop their English skills because there are various kinds of words and phrases to develop their vocabulary and pronounciation. The media song that can be used in teaching vocabulary for children is the song "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Learning in this English song media can be applied to children aged 5-12 years. In terms of teaching, many approaches can be applied according to the needs of students. humanism theory or approach plays an important role in educating children. This theory looks at how human relationships and is very important for the education of young learners and builds relationships between teachers and students and is centered on teaching. Whatever methodology the teacher uses to meet the needs of the learners, the humanistic approach will easily make young learners to remember, think, understand, and learn. Whatever methodology the teacher uses to meet the learners' needs, the humanistic approach will easily make young learners remember, think, understand, and learn. Thus, teachers have strategies that can be applied for young learners especially for children to be more efficient in learning English vocabulary.

The effect of aided language stimulation on the acquisition of receptive vocabulary in children with complex communication needs and severe intellectual disability: a comparison of two dosages

Aided language stimulation is an augmented input strategy that facilitates the expressive and receptive language skills of persons who require augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). The aim of this study was to determine and compare the acquisition of receptive vocabulary items during implementation of aided language stimulation with dosages of 40% and 70%, respectively. An adapted alternating treatment design was replicated across six participants with complex communication needs and severe intellectual disability. All participants demonstrated receptive vocabulary acquisition when aided language stimulation was provided with a dosage of 70%, and two participants demonstrated acquisition when a dosage of 40% was provided. Receptive vocabulary acquisition was maintained following a 6-day withdrawal period. The dosage of augmented input may impact receptive vocabulary acquisition for children with complex communication needs and severe intellectual disability, with higher dosages being more effective for some participants. The findings indicate that clinicians should be aware that dosage is an important consideration when providing aided language stimulation to facilitate receptive vocabulary acquisition in children with complex communication needs and severe intellectual disability.

Using multimodal educational apps to increase the vocabulary of children with and without reading difficulties

This study examined the effects of a multimodal vocabulary instruction app on vocabulary learning of first-grade students. The effects of listening to a recorded word explanation was also explored Employing a within-subject design, 69 students practiced 10 novel words on a multimodal vocabulary iPad app. Their performances were compared to another ten words with recorded word explanation and to ten unexplained control words. As a whole group, students learned more word meanings when the additional activity of listening to the recorded word explanation was preceded than when students practiced the new words solely on the vocabulary app. When the students were divided into less-skilled and more-skilled readers, unlike the less-skilled readers who mimicked the whole group’s learning pattern, more-skilled readers learned significantly more word meanings only when students listened to the recorded word meanings and practiced these words on the vocabulary app. This research suggests that regardless of the present reading levels, young readers may benefit the most when a vocabulary app is frontloaded with target word explanations. This study contributes to our understanding of how multimodal app technology can benefit students’ vocabulary learning with varied reading abilities.

How SES May Affect Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary in Language Minority Bilingual and Monolingual Children

We investigated the role of socioeconomic status (SES) in the unfolding of vocabulary and text-comprehension skills in language minority bilingual children, who are educated exclusively in their L2. For comparison, a monolingual control group was also tested, consisting of children of the same age and schooling. We administered a synonyms task to measure vocabulary and an inference test to measure reading comprehension. Socioeconomic status scores were obtained through the Hollingshead Four Factor Index questionnaire. Our results showed that being bilingual did not influence vocabulary and text-comprehension skills in the age group being tested (9-11 years). Whereas, SES played a significant role in relation to age and schooling. Interestingly, two different mediation analyses demonstrated that vocabulary knowledge accounted for a significant portion of the causal relationship between SES and reading comprehension, and that reading comprehension itself can explain part of the relationship between SES and vocabulary. The social and educational implications of the findings are discussed.