Novel word learning at 21 months predicts receptive vocabulary outcomes in later childhood.
Vinaya Rajan, Haruka Konishi, Katherine Ridge and 5 others
PMID 30803465WHAT IT FOUND
Among 17 children followed from 21 months to mean 9.56 years, better novel word learning predicted higher later receptive vocabulary, but not non-verbal IQ or visuospatial skills.
The sample was small, so this is a possible early marker, not a diagnostic tool.
Key findings
01Word learning performance at 21 months was correlated with later childhood receptive vocabulary.
02The total looking and longest look word learning scores uniquely predicted later childhood receptive vocabulary.
03The total looking and longest look word learning scores did not significantly predict later visuospatial skills or non-verbal IQ.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 17 of the original 28 children were followed up, and the sample gave 80% power only to detect correlations of r = .53 or greater, so weaker associations could have been missed. The sample was normal-hearing and English-reared, so the paper does not report how the findings apply to children with hearing loss or other language backgrounds. The study was observational and followed children over time; it did not test an intervention, so it cannot show that improving word learning causes better vocabulary. The word-learning task measured initial mapping and immediate retention, not long-term retention of word-object links. Visuospatial skills were correlated with receptive vocabulary (r = .57), and the authors could not test whether word learning still predicted vocabulary after controlling for that ability because the sample was small.
Declared interests
The supplied article metadata lists research support from NIH extramural and non-U.S. government sources. No author conflicts-of-interest statement is included in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that teaching novel word-object mappings will improve later vocabulary. The study only followed 17 children and measured associations, not the effects of an intervention.