Children may learn pew words better when they learn them in the contest of diher words they arejust learning--according to a new research fromthe Univertity of East Anglia Researchers investigated how 18-24-month-olds learn new words—in the context of words they already know weli and those they don't. The findings heip explain how children lean new words and suggest a new way that parents and carers could help boost language development.
Previous research suggests that when children hear a word they do not know and see an object they have never seen in the context of some objects that they can already name, such as a ioy or a ball, they guess that the new word refers to the new thing.
Dr. Larissa Samuelson from the university wantted to know if the strength of a child's knowledge of familiar things-how well they know what "cars"or"balls"are, for example--mattered for fearaing new words and remembering them. They asked 82 chil Iren to take part in the study and carry out two experiments among them. And then they got some really surprising findings.
"We had expected that a stronger knowledge of familiar words would be better for learning new words, but we found the opposite was true. " Dr Samuelson said. "This new study suggests another way we might be able to help boose children's ability to remember new word-object links—by teaching them in the context of other things that they are just leatning. "
It seems counterintuitive, but it is perhaps because the less well-known items don't compete with the new words as much If they learn new words in the context of playing with well-known items such as a ball or book, they don't process the new word as much.