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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.
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Updated: Sep 21, 2025

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation tDCS of Wernicke's and Broca's Areas in Studies of Language Learning and Word Acquisition
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Does code-switching influence novel word learning?

Margarita Kaushanskaya1, Kimberly Crespo1, Anne Neveu1

  • 1University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.

Developmental Science
|May 31, 2022
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Bilingual children learned new words faster when definitions were code-switched between English and Spanish. This suggests code-switching does not hinder word learning in bilingual development.

Keywords:
bilingualismcode-switchingword learning

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Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Bilingualism Research
  • Child Language Acquisition

Background:

  • Code-switching is common in bilingual children's language input.
  • The impact of code-switched input on language development remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if code-switching in definitions affects novel word learning in Spanish-English bilingual children.
  • To determine if code-switched input poses risks to bilingual children's word acquisition.

Main Methods:

  • Spanish-English bilingual children (N=45, mean age 5.05 years) were taught novel English words.
  • Two conditions were used: English-only definitions and code-switched (English/Spanish) definitions.
  • Word retention was measured by the number of exposures required.

Main Results:

  • Children needed fewer exposures to learn novel words in the code-switch condition compared to the English-only condition.
  • This benefit was observed regardless of the children's language ability or prior exposure to code-switching.

Conclusions:

  • Code-switched input does not negatively impact word learning in bilingual children.
  • Bilingual children can effectively learn new vocabulary through code-switched definitions.