Causal Supports for Early Word Learning

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。当孩子们进入学前班时，大多数都是非凡的单词学习者，每天都在他们的词汇中添加新单词。然而，很明显，并不是所有的单词都学得同样容易。是什么因素决定了一个特定的单词是否以及如何迅速地成为孩子词汇中准确和持久的一部分？在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，艾米·布斯博士将进行旨在回答这个问题的研究。具体来说，她将研究丰富有意义的概念信息在促进早期单词学习中的作用。在她的研究中，孩子们将学习他们从未见过的物体和动物的虚构名称。孩子们稍后将被测试他们学习新单词的速度和程度。他们理解新单词的能力和自己创造新单词的能力都将受到评估。布思博士的研究已经表明，当3- 4岁的孩子提到具有已知因果（而不是表面感知）属性的物体时，他们特别有可能学习和记住新单词。Booth博士将致力于解释在社会经济多样化的儿童群体中这种影响的机制。她还将试图详细说明这种效应在整个发展过程中以及在各种自然学习环境中的影响。布斯博士的项目在理论和实践上都很重要。它将对关于单词和概念上的深层信息之间潜在的特殊关系的历史悠久的辩论产生影响。此外，通过指定的条件，优化的可能性，一个字将被收购和保留，它将建议教育策略，最大限度地提高幼儿的单词学习潜力，从贫困和弱势背景。最后，该项目为一些本科生和研究生提供了直接参与研究的机会，从而有助于指导下一代发展科学家。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).By the time children enter preschool, most are phenomenal word learners, adding new words to their vocabulary every single day. It is clear, however, that not all words are learned with equal ease. What factors determine whether, and how rapidly, a particular word becomes an accurate and lasting part of a child's vocabulary? With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Amy Booth will conduct research designed to answer this question. Specifically, she will investigate the role of richly meaningful conceptual information in facilitating early word learning. In her studies, young children will be taught made-up names for objects and animals that they have never seen before. Children will later be tested on how quickly and how well they learned the new words. Both their ability to understand the new words and to produce them on their own will be assessed. Dr. Booth's work has already demonstrated that 3- to 4-year-old children are particularly likely to learn and remember new words when they refer to objects with known causal (as opposed to superficially perceptual) properties. Moving forward, Dr. Booth will work towards explaining the mechanisms underlying this effect in a socioeconomically diverse group of children. She will also attempt to specify the impact of this effect across development and across a variety of natural learning environments.Dr. Booth's project will be important both theoretically and practically. It will have implications for time-honored debates regarding the potentially special relationship between words and conceptually deep information. Moreover, by specifying the conditions that optimize the likelihood that a word will be acquired and retained, it will suggest educational strategies for maximizing the word-learning potential of young children from both advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds. Finally, this project provides opportunities for several undergraduate and graduate students to directly participate in research, thus helping to mentor the next generation of developmental scientists.