Does Asking Questions Help Preschoolers Retain More Words Than Listening?

Children appear well positioned to use questions as a tool to learn words. We investigate whether asking questions improves children's word retention compared to listening. Four- to six-year-olds (N = 64, English speaking) were randomly assigned to a Question-Asking or a Listening condition. In both conditions, children were asked to retrieve a novel object from an array of novel objects. In the Question-Asking condition, children were given time to ask questions to help them select the correct object, but in the Listening condition they were not. Participants in both conditions received the same information about the objects, and both groups retained the novel words. Surprisingly, children who had the opportunity to ask questions selected targets at the same rates as those who passively listened. These results provide suggestive evidence that the simple act of asking a question about a new word does not provide a boost for retention.