Toddlers' construction of semantic and conceptual knowledge in a picture naming task.

What is it about?

This work investigated how toddlers acquire and use nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs based on their age. Ninety-two children aged 23 to 25 months (53 English; 39 Italian) and 115 children aged 29 to 31 months (69 English; 46 Italian) took part in a picture naming task to assess their acquisition of nouns and predicates. We measured the types of responses (correct, incorrect, no response, and unintelligible) and the distribution of incorrect responses (semantic errors, visual errors and other errors) across two ages and two languages to compare the word development in children who speak English and Italian. We have shown that the distribution of response types during the picture naming task changes markedly between 24 and 30 months in both English and Italian children, with subtle differences between the two language groups. The findings of this study suggest that clinicians should observe and collect information for both correct and incorrect responses.

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Photo by Gabriel Crismariu on Unsplash

Photo by Gabriel Crismariu on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The construction of a semantic and conceptual knowledge may follow two developmental pathways: first, a gradual emergence of word classes (firstly nouns, then verbs and, lastly adjectives and adverbs); and second, a progressive conceptual representation of each word, moving from no response, to unintelligible response (though not always), then incorrect responses, and ultimately to correct or target word production.

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