Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The University of Iowa.
Psychol Sci. 2021 Apr;32(4):536-548. doi: 10.1177/0956797620970559. Epub 2021 Mar 15.
Early linguistic input is a powerful predictor of children's language outcomes. We investigated two novel questions about this relationship: Does the impact of language input vary over time, and does the impact of time-varying language input on child outcomes differ for vocabulary and for syntax? Using methods from epidemiology to account for baseline and time-varying confounding, we predicted 64 children's outcomes on standardized tests of vocabulary and syntax in kindergarten from their parents' vocabulary and syntax input when the children were 14 and 30 months old. For vocabulary, children whose parents provided diverse input earlier as well as later in development were predicted to have the highest outcomes. For syntax, children whose parents' input substantially increased in syntactic complexity over time were predicted to have the highest outcomes. The optimal sequence of parents' linguistic input for supporting children's language acquisition thus varies for vocabulary and for syntax.
早期的语言输入是儿童语言发展的有力预测因素。我们研究了这个关系的两个新问题：语言输入的影响是否随时间而变化，以及时间变化的语言输入对词汇和语法的儿童发展结果的影响是否不同？我们使用流行病学方法来解释基线和随时间变化的混杂因素，根据父母在孩子 14 个月和 30 个月大时的词汇和语法输入，预测了 64 名儿童在幼儿园标准化词汇和语法测试中的表现。对于词汇，我们预测那些父母在早期和后期提供多样化输入的孩子会有最高的表现。对于语法，我们预测那些父母的输入在语法复杂度上随时间显著增加的孩子会有最高的表现。因此，支持儿童语言习得的父母语言输入的最佳顺序因词汇和语法而有所不同。
