Do Acting Out Verbs with Dolls and Comparison Learning between Scenes Boost Toddlers’ Verb Comprehension?

Date

2016-03

Authors

Schwarz, Amy Louise
Van Kleeck, Anne
Maguire, Mandy J.
Abdi, Herve

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Abstract

To better understand how toddlers integrate multiple learning strategies to acquire verbs, we compared sensorimotor recruitment and comparison learning because both strategies are thought to boostchildren’s access to scene-level information. For sensorimotor recruitment, we tested having toddlers use dolls as agents and compared this strategy with having toddlers observe another person enact verbs with dolls. For comparison learning, we compared providing pairs of: (a) training scenes in which animate objects with similar body-shapes maintained agent/patient roles with (b) scenes in which objects with dissimilar body-shapes switched agent/patient roles. Only comparison learning boosted verb comprehension.

Description

Keywords

language learning, language acquisition, toddlers, verb comprehesion, language comprehension, Communication Disorders

Citation

Schwarz, A. L., Van Kleeck, A., Maguire, M. J., & Abdi, H. (2017). Do acting out verbs with dolls and comparison learning between scenes boost toddlers’ verb comprehension? Journal of Child Language, 44(3), pp. 719-733.

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© 2016 Cambridge University Press

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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