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Related Concept Videos

Language Development01:22

Language Development

Children master language quickly and with relative ease, supported by both biological predisposition and reinforcement. B. F. Skinner (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement, while Noam Chomsky (1965) argued that language acquisition mechanisms are biologically determined.
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
Bootstrapping01:24

Bootstrapping

The term "bootstrap" originated in the 19th century as a metaphor for self-improvement or achieving something independently, without external assistance. This concept extends to statistical bootstrapping, a self-contained method for estimating population parameters through resampling, even though it can be computationally intensive. Developed by the American statistician Dr. Bradley Efron in 1979, bootstrapping provides a robust way to perform inference when the original sample size is small or...
Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development01:14

Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development

The sensorimotor stage, the initial phase of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, spans the first two years of a child's life. During this period, infants actively engage with their surroundings, building cognitive awareness through direct interaction with the world. This interaction is primarily based on sensory perception and motor actions, allowing infants to gradually understand basic physical properties and predict how objects interact within their environment.
Exploration...
Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development01:14

Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development

The preoperational stage, the second of Jean Piaget's four stages of cognitive development, spans approximately ages 2 to 7 and is characterized by the emergence of symbolic thinking. During this stage, children use language, images, and symbols to represent objects and concepts, enabling them to engage in imaginative and pretend play. This symbolic thinking supports children's ability to perform make-believe actions, such as imagining a broom as a horse or their hand as a phone, blending...
Socioemotional Development during Infancy01:30

Socioemotional Development during Infancy

Socio-emotional development in infancy is primarily shaped by early emotional responses and social connections, with temperament playing a central role. Temperament refers to the consistent patterns in an individual's emotional and behavioral responses, observable even in infancy. By examining temperament, researchers can better understand an infant's unique ways of interacting with the world, influencing subsequent personality and socio-emotional growth.
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Stella Chess...
Cognitive Development During Adolescence01:18

Cognitive Development During Adolescence

During adolescence, individuals experience significant cognitive development that enhances their understanding of others' emotions and thoughts, known as cognitive empathy. This period is marked by an increased ability to adapt to others' perspectives and a more nuanced understanding of others' mental states, a skill that is foundational for social problem-solving and conflict avoidance. The development of cognitive empathy relies heavily on the theory of mind — the recognition that people have...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 4, 2026

Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task
11:18

Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task

Published on: June 1, 2015

Inflectional bootstrapping in 2-year-olds.

Helen R Jolly1, Kim Plunkett

  • 1Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD, UK.

Language and Speech
|June 20, 2008
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Children can use word endings, like plural forms, to learn new words. This "inflectional bootstrapping" strategy helps toddlers understand word meanings and references effectively.

More Related Videos

Portable Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL): Investigating Language Comprehension in Typically Developing Toddlers and Young Children with Autism
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Portable Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL): Investigating Language Comprehension in Typically Developing Toddlers and Young Children with Autism

Published on: December 14, 2012

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 4, 2026

Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task
11:18

Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task

Published on: June 1, 2015

Portable Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL): Investigating Language Comprehension in Typically Developing Toddlers and Young Children with Autism
10:11

Portable Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL): Investigating Language Comprehension in Typically Developing Toddlers and Young Children with Autism

Published on: December 14, 2012

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Linguistics
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Syntactic bootstrapping theory suggests children use sentence structure to learn word meanings.
  • Previous research focused on syntax, but the role of word inflections in early word learning was less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if children use word inflections, specifically the plural form, to infer word reference.
  • To test the hypothesis of "inflectional bootstrapping" in early language acquisition.

Main Methods:

  • A preferential looking experiment was conducted with 24- and 30-month-old children.
  • Participants were presented with novel words, some with and some without the English plural inflection.
  • Novel images depicted either a single object or a pair of objects to test word-image associations.

Main Results:

  • Children in the study learned to associate novel words with corresponding pictures.
  • The older group (30-month-olds) demonstrated a clear ability to link plural forms to paired objects.
  • Results indicate children can identify singular and plural forms and understand the significance of plural morphology.

Conclusions:

  • Children in their third year can identify plural forms and understand their meaning.
  • This ability allows children to use inflectional bootstrapping to aid word learning.
  • The findings highlight the crucial role of morphological cues in early vocabulary acquisition.