1-100 - The Role of Semantic Networks in Early Word-Learning

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Young children’s vocabulary acquisition has often been viewed as a one-by-one proposition, wherein an individual word is learned independently from others. In contrast, research on semantic networks investigates the learning of interrelated clusters of concepts, recognizing that words that have a semantic relationship to known words may be acquired more easily (Hills, Maeouene, Maeeouene, Sheya, & Smith, 2009). Semantic network theory has given rise to productive lines of research in multiple fields, including studies in cognitive science that model the structure of semantic networks (Stevyers & Tenenbaum, 2005) and others which explore their role in word-learning (Borovsky, Ellis, Evans, & Elman, 2016). Education researchers have also applied semantic network theory to classroom contexts, finding that teaching words in taxonomic (Hadley et al., 2018: Neuman, Newman, & Dwyer, 2011) or paradigmatic (Parsons & Bryant, 2016) groups helps preschoolers to learn these words more easily.
The present symposium brings together perspectives from both basic and applied research to add to the research base on semantic networks. Paper 1 presents evidence that the shift in semantic networks from syntagmatic to paradigmatic relationships, previously thought to occur between ages 6-9, may actually begin around age 5. Paper 2 investigates semantic networks in 16-30 month-olds, finding that perceptual features and linkages between words are of primary importance in early word-learning. Paper 3 explores changes in preschool children’s semantic networks from vocabulary instruction, finding that children with more general vocabulary knowledge also provided more responses with paradigmatic information.

Sub Unit

• Language, Communication

Chair

• Elizabeth Burke Hadley, University of South Florida

Discussant

• Barbara Wasik, Temple University

Individual Presentations

• Word associations across early childhood: An early paradigmatic shift and reduction of variability - Presenting Author: Erica Wojcik, Skidmore College; Non-Presenting Author: Padmapriya Kandhadai, Douglas College

• Modeling Early Lexico-Semantic Network Development: Perceptual Features Matter Most - Presenting Author: Ryan E. Peters, Purdue University; Non-Presenting Author: Arielle Borovsky, Purdue University

• Exploring the semantic structure of children’s responses in a vocabulary intervention - Presenting Author: Molly Scott, Temple University; Non-Presenting Author: Haley Weaver, Temple University; Non-Presenting Author: Elizabeth Burke Hadley, University of South Florida; Non-Presenting Author: Emily Hopkins, University of Scranton; Non-Presenting Author: Rebecca Dore, The Ohio State University; Non-Presenting Author: Marcia Shirilla, University of Delaware; Non-Presenting Author: Molly Collins, Vanderbilt University; Non-Presenting Author: Jessica R Lawson-Adams, Vanderbilt University; Non-Presenting Author: Jacob Lev Schatz, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: David K Dickinson, Vanderbilt University; Non-Presenting Author: Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Univ of DE; Non-Presenting Author: Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University