Semantic Structure in Vocabulary Knowledge Interacts With Lexical and Sentence Processing in Infancy

• DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12554
• Publication Date: 2016-06-15T15:53:37Z
• Authors: Arielle Borovsky; Erica M. Ellis; Julia L. Evans; Jeffrey L. Elman
• Keywords: Sentence processing

Although the size of a child's vocabulary associates with language-processing skills, little is understood regarding how this relation emerges. This investigation asks whether and structure knowledge affects language processing in English-learning 24-month-old children (N = 32; 18 F, 14 M). Parental report was used to calculate semantic density several early-acquired categories. Performance on two tasks (lexical recognition sentence processing) compared as function density. In both tasks, real-time comprehension facilitated for higher items, whereas lower items experienced more interference. The findings indicate that skills develop heterogeneously are influenced by network surrounding known word.