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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 8, 2026

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

Continuous developmental changes in word recognition and language learning across early childhood.

Michael C Frank¹, Virginia A Marchman¹, Claire Augusta Bergey²

¹Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, United States.

|July 7, 2026

Summary

Children

Keywords:

child language human language acquisition longitudinal modeling meta-analysis neuroscience word learning word recognition

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Published on: April 19, 2017

Area of Science:

Child language acquisition
Cognitive development
Psycholinguistics

Background:

Fluent language use requires rapid word recognition.
Understanding the developmental trajectory of this skill is crucial.
The relationship between word recognition and vocabulary growth needs further exploration.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the development of word recognition skill in early childhood.
To examine the relationship between word recognition efficiency and vocabulary size.
To analyze how word recognition and vocabulary growth are coupled over time.

Main Methods:

Utilized data from Peekbank, an open database of eye-tracking experiments.
Conducted an observational study on over 2500 children (6 months to 6 years).
Employed factor analysis and longitudinal modeling to analyze developmental trends.

Main Results:

Word recognition speed, accuracy, and consistency improve with age, indicating skill learning.
Cross-sectional analyses show word recognition efficiency covaries with vocabulary size.
Longitudinal analyses reveal that faster word recognition is associated with faster vocabulary growth.

Conclusions:

Word recognition is a gradually developing skill throughout early childhood.
This developing skill is significantly intertwined with early language learning.
Improvements in word recognition efficiency support vocabulary acquisition.