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Children's scale errors: A by-product of lexical development?
Beata J Grzyb1, Angelo Cangelosi1, Allegra Cattani1
1School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK.
Developmental Science
|August 31, 2018
Summary
Young children
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Language Acquisition
Background:
- Scale errors are observed when children attempt impossible actions due to object size.
- Individual differences in scale errors suggest multiple contributing factors, including age and lexicon size.
Purpose of the Study:
- To re-examine how body scale errors vary with age.
- To explore the relationship between body scale errors and children's lexicon size and properties.
Main Methods:
- Tested 125 children aged 18-30 months in a scale error elicitation.
- Collected parental questionnaires on children's receptive and expressive lexicon.
Main Results:
- Scale errors linearly decrease with age.
- Scale errors are more prevalent in early talkers compared to less advanced language learners.
- Evidence does not support an inverted U-shaped curve for body scale errors.
Conclusions:
- Scale errors do not represent a distinct developmental stage.
- The speed of linguistic and conceptual system development influences scale error prevalence, explaining individual variability.
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