Facilitating the acquisition of UNDER by means of IN and ON--a training study in Polish

Forty Polish children aged between 1;8 and 2;3 were trained over two training sessions in the comprehension of the preposition POD [UNDER]. In the experiment, two variables were manipulated: a within subjects variable of SITUATION and a between subjects variable of LINGUISTIC INPUT. The effect of situation could be found in all trained groups, showing that children's understanding in familiar and transfer situations differed significantly from the performance of the control group in the post-test. The results further suggest that depending on the type of a situation, the linguistic task requires different word learning abilities from a child.