Collaborative Research: Language structure and number word learning

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This project, to be conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and Wesleyan University, will study how children between ages 1 and 4 learn number words, the basic building blocks of mathematical learning. The main research question will be how the grammar of a child's native language affects number word learning, leading to earlier or later progress in math. The project will compare different languages (English, Arabic, and Slovenian) that have different grammatical rules for expressions about numbers. This work will help improve understanding of how early language exposure fosters learning about numbers and math. This project will advance the work of the REAL (Research on Education and Learning) program in studying the cognitive basis of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning.The project will compare English, Arabic, and two dialects of Slovenian, which vary in terms of grammatical marking for numbers. The research will investigate a syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis in which finer grammatical distinctions support earlier learning. The project will use various age-appropriate measures of number word learning, including looking time, set creation counting, and matching.