Words are not enough: how preschoolers’ integration of perspective and emotion informs their referential understanding

Graham, Susan A.; Juan, Valerie San; Khu, Melanie

doi:10.1017/s0305000916000519

Cited by 15 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 106 publications

(146 reference statements)

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“…When the speaker asked for “the glass”, children had to integrate the semantics of the utterance with the speaker’s visual perspective to correctly infer which of the glasses the speaker was referring to. This study advanced our understanding by documenting that preschoolers use both information sources, a finding confirmed by a variety of other work 26 , 29 , 31 . Yet these studies neither specify nor test the process by which children integrate different information sources.…”

Section: Mainsupporting

confidence: 77%

How young children integrate information sources to infer the meaning of words

et al. 2021

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Before formal education begins, children typically acquire a vocabulary of thousands of words. This learning process requires the use of many different information sources in their social environment, including their current state of knowledge and the context in which they hear words used. How is this information integrated? We specify a developmental model according to which children consider information sources in an age-specific way and integrate them via Bayesian inference. This model accurately predicted 2–5-year-old children’s word learning across a range of experimental conditions in which they had to integrate three information sources. Model comparison suggests that the central locus of development is an increased sensitivity to individual information sources, rather than changes in integration ability. This work presents a developmental theory of information integration during language learning and illustrates how formal models can be used to make a quantitative test of the predictive and explanatory power of competing theories.

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Section: Mainsupporting

confidence: 77%

How young children integrate information sources to infer the meaning of words

et al. 2021

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“…Resches and Pérez Pereira (2007) point out that ‘the capacity to take into account mental states in others seems to be a key factor which regulates communicative interchanges’ (p. 22). They showed that children with higher level ToM abilities were more adept at regulating communication (see also Graham, San Juan, & Khu, 2017; Roby & Kidd, 2008; Sidera, Perpiñà, Serrano, & Rostan, 2018 for the relationship between Theory of Mind and referential communication) since they were able to understand and anticipate the behaviors of others. While their results were based on production, we might assume that intonation and facial gesture would be some of the cues children might exploit in order to assess and ultimately predict the behavior of another individual in conversation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developmental and cognitive aspects of children’s disbelief comprehension through intonation and facial gesture

et al. 2018

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This article investigates how children leverage intonational and gestural cues to an individual's belief state through unimodal (intonation-only or facial gesture-only) and multimodal (intonation + facial gesture) cues. A total of 187 preschoolers (ages 3-5) participated in a disbelief comprehension task and were assessed for Theory of Mind (ToM) ability using a false belief task. Significant predictors included age, condition and success on the ToM task. Performance improved with age, and was significantly better for the multimodal condition compared to both unimodal conditions, suggesting that even though unimodal cues were useful to children, the presence of reinforcing information for the multimodal condition was more effective for detecting disbelief. However, results also point to the development of intonational and gestural comprehension in tandem. Children that passed the ToM task significantly outperformed those that failed

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“…Early language proficiency is a critical developmental skill given its stability from infancy through adolescence (Bornstein, Hahn, Putnick, & Suwalsky, ), and its role as a mediator in the development of other cognitive processes in early childhood (Graham, San Juan, & Khu, ; Wade, Browne, Plamondon, Daniel, & Jenkins, ). Early language has spillover effects in multiple domains of childhood and adulthood adaptive functioning, including achievement (Duncan et al, ; Scarborough, Neuman, & Dickinson, ), psychiatric problems (Beitchman et al, ; Cannon et al, ) and educational/occupational outcomes (Johnson, Beitchman, & Brownlie, ).…”

Section: The Importance Of Early Language Across the Lifespanmentioning

confidence: 99%

The link between maternal and child verbal abilities: An indirect effect through maternal responsiveness

Prime

Wade

González

2019

Developmental Science

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Language abilities in early childhood show stability over time and play an important role in the development of other cognitive processes. Identifying modifiable environmental risk factors is important to informing prevention and early intervention efforts. Maternal verbal ability has been previously linked to child verbal ability. The current study examined whether maternal and child verbal abilities were linked indirectly through early childhood maternal responsiveness. Data come from a longitudinal birth cohort study. Participants included 133 mothers and their children recruited from maternity wards shortly after birth. Maternal verbal ability was measured using the Vocabulary subtest from the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, Second Edition (child age 8 months). Child verbal ability was assessed using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (36 months). A latent maternal responsiveness variable was estimated using three developmentally sensitive indicators; one during infancy (child age 8 months) and two when children were 36 months. Results of a structural equation model indicated a significant indirect effect from maternal verbal abilities to child verbal abilities through maternal responsiveness. This indirect path was significant even after inclusion of another indirect path from maternal executive functioning to child verbal ability through maternal responsiveness (which was not significant). Future studies will benefit from experimental, genetically sensitive and/or cross‐lagged designs to allow for conclusions related to directionality and causality. This body of research has implications for the study of the intergenerational transmission of verbal abilities and associated skills, behaviours and adaptive outcomes.

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Words are not enough: how preschoolers’ integration of perspective and emotion informs their referential understanding

Cited by 15 publications

References 106 publications

How young children integrate information sources to infer the meaning of words

How young children integrate information sources to infer the meaning of words

Developmental and cognitive aspects of children’s disbelief comprehension through intonation and facial gesture

The link between maternal and child verbal abilities: An indirect effect through maternal responsiveness

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