Rapid word learning in 13- and 17-month-olds in a naturalistic two-word procedure: Looking versus reaching measures

Testing a word is not a test of word learning

“…As each novel object was named, each object was treated equivalently and none were singled out, providing necessary experimental control. Note, children can succeed at learning multiple words at a time with sufficient support such as repetition (Gurteen et al, 2011), ostensive naming (Axelsson et al, 2012;Horst & Samuelson, 2008), extra semantic cues (Capone & McGregor, 2005) or multiple memory supports (Vlach & Sandhofer, 2012).…”

“…This kind of test is simpler than a test of word learning and may lead children to perform at ceiling. This may explain some of the conflicting findings in the child word learning literature, such as outstanding retention after one week or even one month when tested on a single target (e.g., Childers & Tomasello, 2002;Markson & Bloom, 1997;Waxman & Booth, 2000), but poor retention after shorter intervals such as 5 minutes when tested on multiple targets (Gurteen, Horne, & Erjavec, 2011;Horst & Samuelson, 2008;Wilkinson, Ross, & Diamond, 2003).…”

“…Naming each test alterative helps ensure children are selecting a target object in response to the phonetic content of its name and not its salience during training or because it was the object most recently presented with a name (Axelsson, Churchley, & Horst, 2012;Dollaghan, 1985;Schafer & Plunkett, 1998;Wilkinson et al, 2003). Such tests of word learning in which more than one of the objects are named, however, have typically failed to produce evidence of significant word learning unless highly salient ostensive naming is provided with 2-year-old children (Horst & Samuelson, 2008;Horst, Scott, & Pollard, 2010), memory supports such as increased saliency and repetition with 3-year-old children (Vlach & Sandhofer, 2012), or as many as 12 repetitions with 13-to 17-month-old toddlers (Gurteen et al, 2011;Schafer & Plunkett, 1998).…”

Aprendizagem Rápida de Comportamento de Ouvinte por um Bebê

“…Verificou-se a replicação dos resultados obtidos com crianças com mais de 24 meses para a participante com idade de 17 a 22 meses: emergência de comportamento de ouvinte e de comportamento de falante, considerando ainda que em nenhum momento no presente estudo, além da linha de base de nomeação, foi solicitado ao bebê a nomeação dos estímulos, e em nenhuma fase houve reforçamento de qualquer nomeação. Considerando a diferenciação de respostas de escolha, tal como analisado por Gurteen et al (2011), algumas situações no presente estudo também exigiram retomar a definição da resposta de escolha definida por tocar um dos estímulos, para diferenciar outras respostas do bebê durante os treinos das tarefas. Em algumas tentativas, o bebê apontava o estímulo incorreto e dizia: "ó", ou ainda apontava de longe o estímulo incorreto de acordo com o estímulo modelo ditado pela experimentadora, nomeando-o corretamente e, depois, tocava o estímulo correto de acordo com o estímulo auditivo ditado pela experimentadora.…”

Learning by Playing: Echo and Tact in Expanding the Verbal Repertoire of Infants

“…Several studies have analyzed the role of the adult in proposing appropriate teaching conditions (Cruvinel, 2010;Gil, Oliveira, Sousa, & Faleiros, 2006;Greer & Ross, 2008;LeBlanc et al, 2009;Sousa, Souza, & Gil, 2013), planning the teaching so that the child is exposed to the stimulus for a determined number of times (Antoniazzi, Domeniconi, & Schmidt, 2014;Gurteen, Horne, & Erjavec 2011;Sousa et al, 2013) and also as a provider of the conditions subsequent to the response(s) that are reinforcers (Gil, Oliveira, & McIlvane, 2011;Sousa, Garcia, & Gil, 2014). In the study reported here, the adult that proposes appropriate teaching conditions is represented by the researcher, who adopted a favorable method for the study and, simultaneously, needed to consider the requirements of the target population, since they were children at risk of social vulnerability.…”