Early word recognition is an essential aspect of language development (e.g., Meylan & Bergelson, 2021). However, identifying and measuring individual differences in this ability in the first two years of life is a challenge. Improved methods for assessing early language abilities could enhance our understanding of language development.
In this study we will examine the development of young children’s vocabulary acquisition between 10 and 24 months of age. First, we will investigate the validity of eye tracking based methods for studying young children’s vocabulary acquisition. Second, we will investigate if early word recognition predicts later word recognition and word production.
Method
Study design and participants
The participants consisted of 70 children and their families. Data collection took place at four time points (10, 12, 18 and 24 months). The study was pre-registered prior to any data analysis (Gerbrand & Forssman, 2022).
Outcomes
Child Language
Parental reports. Receptive and expressive vocabulary was assessed with parent reports on the Swedish Early Communication Inventory (Eriksson et al., 2022) at 10, 12, 18 and 24 months of age.Eye tracking. Receptive vocabulary was assessed with two eye tracking based tasks. The Preferential Looking Paradigm (modeled on Bergelson & Swingley, 2011) was administrated at 10, 12, and 18 months of age and the Mis-Match Paradigm (modeled on Parise & Csibra, 2012) was administrated at 10 and 12 months of age.
Data analysis
Our primary analysis will consist of zero order correlations and a series of mixed models. Data analysis is currently ongoing and will be finished by May 2023.
2023.
8th Lancaster International Conference on Infant and Early Child Development, Lancaster, UK, August 23-25, 2023