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Using the Visual World Paradigm to Study Sentence Comprehension in Mandarin-Speaking Children with Autism

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Generic Language in Parent-Child Conversations.

Susan A Gelman¹, Peggy J Goetz, Barbara W Sarnecka

¹Department of Psychology, University of Michigan.

Language Learning and Development : the Official Journal of the Society for Language Development

|September 28, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Children learn to express generic knowledge, which concerns kinds of things, from an early age. This development requires minimal parental support and involves recognizing various linguistic forms for generalizations.

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Area of Science:

Developmental Psychology
Linguistics
Cognitive Science

Background:

Generic knowledge, concerning abstract kinds (e.g., 'birds fly'), is spontaneously acquired by preschool-aged children.
Previous research confirms early development of generic knowledge, but the acquisition of linguistic devices to express it remains less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the developmental timeline and mechanisms through which children learn to use linguistic forms to express generic knowledge.
To test the hypothesis that children default to interpreting nouns as referring to generic kinds in the absence of specific context.
To examine children's ability to recognize diverse linguistic expressions of generic statements.

Main Methods:

Longitudinal analysis of adult-child conversations.
Tracking the emergence and use of generic language in children's speech.
Observing parental scaffolding and children's comprehension of generic forms.

Main Results:

Children begin using language to express generic knowledge early in development.
The acquisition of generic linguistic forms appears to require minimal parental scaffolding.
Children demonstrate an ability to recognize a range of linguistic constructions as generic.
Individual differences in the use of generics suggest varying capacities for abstract generalization.

Conclusions:

Children actively use linguistic devices to express generic knowledge from an early age.
The learning of generic language is largely driven by children's default assumptions and requires limited external support.
Children's developing ability to generalize is reflected in their flexible use and recognition of diverse generic linguistic forms.