Systematic review of the effects of sleep on memory and word learning in infancy.

Abstract

This systematic review surveys research on the associations between sleep and the memory processes involved in word learning in infancy. Only 16 studies were found to address this topic directly, identifying associations between infant sleep, the identification of word forms in running speech and the stabilisation and generalisation of new word form-meaning associations. Some studies investigated changes in brain responses after word learning and in sleep parameters during post-learning sleep. Others investigated the long-term effects of sleeping patterns on later vocabulary development. All but one of these studies identified positive associations between sleep and word learning in early childhood, extending similar findings in adults and school-aged children. However, there remain several gaps in the current research on early lexical development and sleep; future investigations should address these gaps to better understand lexical development and to create links between memory and language acquisition research.

Systematic Review of the Effects of Sleep on Memory and Word Learning in Infancy

“…We are now running a study to investigate whether infant sleep supports the generalization of word forms as it does for word meanings by employing auditory speech stimuli with no meaning attached. This will allow us to paint a more comprehensive picture of generalization in word learning (Belia et al., 2022).…”