Children learn from their environments and their caregivers. To capitalize on learning opportunities, young children have to recognize familiar words efficiently by integrating contextual cues across word boundaries. Previous research has shown that adults can use phonetic cues from anticipatory coarticulation during word recognition. We asked whether 18–24 month-olds (n = 29) used coarticulatory cues on the word “the” when recognizing the following noun. We performed a looking-while-listening eyetracking experiment to examine word recognition in neutral versus facilitating coarticulatory conditions. Participants looked to the target image significantly sooner when the determiner contained facilitating coarticulatory cues. These results provide the first evidence that novice word-learners can take advantage of anticipatory sub-phonemic cues during word recognition.

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Although most studies of language learning take place in quiet laboratory settings, everyday language learning occurs under noisy conditions. The current research investigated the effects of background speech on word learning. Both younger (22‐ to 24‐month‐olds; n = 40) and older (28‐ to 30‐month‐olds; n = 40) toddlers successfully learned novel label–object pairings when target speech was 10 dB louder than background speech but not when the signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) was 5 dB. Toddlers (28‐ to 30‐month‐olds; n = 26) successfully learned novel words with a 5‐dB SNR when they initially heard the labels embedded in fluent speech without background noise, before they were mapped to objects. The results point to both challenges and protective factors that may impact language learning in complex auditory environments.

In 1995, Hart and Risley, in a groundbreaking study, reported a projected 30-million-word gap in words heard by age 4 between children growing up in low-resourced homes and their peers growing up in high-resourced homes, with corresponding differences in children's language skills. The simple and parsimonious message that children who hear more words know more words infiltrated the public sphere, influencing researchers, policymakers, and caregivers. However, the benefits associated with exposure to language are nuanced and complex, and language input is about more than the number of words that pass a child's senses. The features of the language, often referenced as quality, addressed to children may be more important for language development than the amount of talk per se. What words caregivers use and how they use them vary greatly. Several researchers have recognized the value of measuring features of language input (Cartmill, 2016;Kuchirko, 2019;Rowe & Snow, 2020). In this article, we argue that this focus further promotes a more inclusive approach to understanding how children learn, which is crucial as the field moves away from a focus on Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) populations and toward a more global science. QUA N T I F Y I NG SPEEC H I N PU TDecades after Hart and Risley's report (1995), the quantity of speech in children's environments continues to be a major area of focus (see Kuchirko, 2019, for a review). Indeed, even research that has focused on debunking

High-quality communicative interactions between caregivers and children provide a foundation for children's social and cognitive skills. Although most studies examining these types of interactions focus on child language outcomes, this paper takes another tack. It examines whether communicative, dyadic interactions might also relate to child executive function (EF) skills and whether child language might mediate this relation.Using a subset of data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, dyadic interactions between 2-year-olds and their mothers were coded for three behaviors: symbol-infused joint engagement, routines and rituals, and fluency and connectedness. Child language was assessed at age 3 and three facets of EF (selfregulation, sustained attention, and verbal working memory) were assessed at age 4.5.Structural equation modeling showed that dyadic interaction related to later child sustained attention and verbal working memory, indirectly through child language and directly related with child self-regulation. This suggests that communicative interactions with caregivers that include both verbal and non-verbal elements relate to child EF, in part through child language. Our findings have implications for the role of caregiver interactions in the development of language and cognitive skills more broadly.