Determinants of early lexical acquisition: Effects of word- and child-level factors on Dutch children’s acquisition of words

Josje Verhagen; Mees van Stiphout; Elma Blom

doi:10.1017/S0305000921000635

Determinants of early lexical acquisition: Effects of word- and child-level factors on Dutch children’s acquisition of words

Josje Verhagen^*
, Mees van Stiphout
, Elma Blom

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Previous research on the effects of word-level factors on lexical acquisition has shown that frequency and concreteness are most important. Here, we investigate CDI data from 1,030 Dutch children, collected with the short form of the Dutch CDI, to address (i) how word-level factors predict lexical acquisition, once child-level factors are controlled, (ii) whether effects of these word-level factors vary with word class and age, and (iii) whether any interactions with age are due to differences in receptive vocabulary. Mixed-effects regressions yielded effects of frequency and concreteness, but not of word class and phonological factors (e.g., word length, neighborhood density). The effect of frequency was stronger for nouns than predicates. The effects of frequency and concreteness decreased with age, and were not explained by differences in vocabulary knowledge. These findings extend earlier results to Dutch, and indicate that effects of age are not due to increases in vocabulary knowledge.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1193 - 1213
Number of pages	21
Journal	Journal of Child Language
Volume	49
Issue number	6
Early online date	19 Oct 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000921000635
Publication status	Published - Nov 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The Pre-COOL study was conducted in collaboration between the Department of Special Education at Utrecht University, the Kohnstamm Institute at the University of Amsterdam, and the Institute for Applied Social Sciences (ITS) at the Radboud University Nijmegen. The study was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (grant number 411-20-442). We thank all the children, families, and daycare centers who participated in our study. We also thank Huub van den Bergh for his statistical advice.

Funding Information:
The Pre-COOL study was conducted in collaboration between the Department of Special Education at Utrecht University, the Kohnstamm Institute at the University of Amsterdam, and the Institute for Applied Social Sciences (ITS) at the Radboud University Nijmegen. The study was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (grant number 411-20-442). We thank all the children, families, and daycare centers who participated in our study. We also thank Huub van den Bergh for his statistical advice. 1

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press.

Keywords

lexical acquisition
Dutch
toddlers
word-level factors
subject-level factors

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10.1017/S0305000921000635Licence: CC BY

determinants-of-early-lexical-acquisition-effects-of-word-and-child-level-factors-on-dutch-childrens-acquisition-of-wordsFinal published version, 384 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Determinants of early lexical acquisition: Effects of word- and child-level factors on Dutch children{\textquoteright}s acquisition of words",

abstract = "Previous research on the effects of word-level factors on lexical acquisition has shown that frequency and concreteness are most important. Here, we investigate CDI data from 1,030 Dutch children, collected with the short form of the Dutch CDI, to address (i) how word-level factors predict lexical acquisition, once child-level factors are controlled, (ii) whether effects of these word-level factors vary with word class and age, and (iii) whether any interactions with age are due to differences in receptive vocabulary. Mixed-effects regressions yielded effects of frequency and concreteness, but not of word class and phonological factors (e.g., word length, neighborhood density). The effect of frequency was stronger for nouns than predicates. The effects of frequency and concreteness decreased with age, and were not explained by differences in vocabulary knowledge. These findings extend earlier results to Dutch, and indicate that effects of age are not due to increases in vocabulary knowledge.",

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author = "Josje Verhagen and \{van Stiphout\}, Mees and Elma Blom",

note = "Funding Information: The Pre-COOL study was conducted in collaboration between the Department of Special Education at Utrecht University, the Kohnstamm Institute at the University of Amsterdam, and the Institute for Applied Social Sciences (ITS) at the Radboud University Nijmegen. The study was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (grant number 411-20-442). We thank all the children, families, and daycare centers who participated in our study. We also thank Huub van den Bergh for his statistical advice. Funding Information: The Pre-COOL study was conducted in collaboration between the Department of Special Education at Utrecht University, the Kohnstamm Institute at the University of Amsterdam, and the Institute for Applied Social Sciences (ITS) at the Radboud University Nijmegen. The study was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (grant number 411-20-442). We thank all the children, families, and daycare centers who participated in our study. We also thank Huub van den Bergh for his statistical advice. 1 Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press.",

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doi = "10.1017/S0305000921000635",

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N1 - Funding Information: The Pre-COOL study was conducted in collaboration between the Department of Special Education at Utrecht University, the Kohnstamm Institute at the University of Amsterdam, and the Institute for Applied Social Sciences (ITS) at the Radboud University Nijmegen. The study was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (grant number 411-20-442). We thank all the children, families, and daycare centers who participated in our study. We also thank Huub van den Bergh for his statistical advice. Funding Information: The Pre-COOL study was conducted in collaboration between the Department of Special Education at Utrecht University, the Kohnstamm Institute at the University of Amsterdam, and the Institute for Applied Social Sciences (ITS) at the Radboud University Nijmegen. The study was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (grant number 411-20-442). We thank all the children, families, and daycare centers who participated in our study. We also thank Huub van den Bergh for his statistical advice. 1 Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press.

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N2 - Previous research on the effects of word-level factors on lexical acquisition has shown that frequency and concreteness are most important. Here, we investigate CDI data from 1,030 Dutch children, collected with the short form of the Dutch CDI, to address (i) how word-level factors predict lexical acquisition, once child-level factors are controlled, (ii) whether effects of these word-level factors vary with word class and age, and (iii) whether any interactions with age are due to differences in receptive vocabulary. Mixed-effects regressions yielded effects of frequency and concreteness, but not of word class and phonological factors (e.g., word length, neighborhood density). The effect of frequency was stronger for nouns than predicates. The effects of frequency and concreteness decreased with age, and were not explained by differences in vocabulary knowledge. These findings extend earlier results to Dutch, and indicate that effects of age are not due to increases in vocabulary knowledge.

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ER -

Determinants of early lexical acquisition: Effects of word- and child-level factors on Dutch children’s acquisition of words

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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