Crespo Kimberly, Kaushanskaya Margarita
Kimberly Crespo, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Margarita Kaushanskaya, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Lang Learn Dev. 2021;17(4):397-410. doi: 10.1080/15475441.2021.1906680. Epub 2021 Apr 1.
The current study examined the effect of speaker variability on children's cross-situational word learning (XSWL). The study also examined the role of bilingual experience and sustained attention. Forty English monolingual children and 40 Spanish-English bilingual children ages 4-7 completed a XSWL task in a Single Speaker Condition and a Multiple Speaker Condition. Results indicated that speaker variability neither facilitated nor hindered XSWL. While monolingual children outperformed bilingual children, speaker-variability effects did not fluctuate across the two language groups. Notably, exposure to multiple speakers facilitated XSWL in children with poorer sustained attention skills, suggesting that variability in the input may be especially useful to children with poorer cognitive processing abilities.
本研究考察了说话者变异性对儿童跨情境单词学习（XSWL）的影响。该研究还考察了双语经验和持续注意力的作用。40名4至7岁的英语单语儿童和40名西班牙语-英语双语儿童在单说话者条件和多说话者条件下完成了一项XSWL任务。结果表明，说话者变异性既没有促进也没有阻碍XSWL。虽然单语儿童的表现优于双语儿童，但说话者变异性效应在两个语言组中并没有波动。值得注意的是，接触多个说话者促进了持续注意力技能较差的儿童的XSWL，这表明输入的变异性可能对认知处理能力较差的儿童特别有用。
