Poster #51 - Maternal Input in Children’s Verb Acquisition: Action Words and Accompanied Mothers’ Actions

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

Purposes: Many studies have reported that children have greater difficulty learning verbs than nouns. Japanese mothers support verb learning using the Infant Directed Vocabulary (IDV) and onomatopoeia to refer to actions. Moreover, mothers’ actions support word learning. In the present study, we will first clarify the age transition of mothers’ action words and the timing of accompanied actions. Second, we will clarify whether mothers’ action words with accompanied actions promote children’s verb learning.

Methods: The maternal input of a five-minute toy play session was analyzed for 74 children who were nine-, 14-, and 24-months-old. The frequencies of onomatopoeia, IDV action words, and verbs, and the timings (before, during, after and none) of the mothers’ accompanied actions were counted. We used the frequencies per utterance for the analysis. Children’s verbs were assessed using the Japanese MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories at the observed time, and at the follow-up time of 33-months-old.

Results: 1. Figure 1 shows the age trends in mothers’ inputs for action words and the accompanied actions. The MANOVAs showed that the main effects of action words (F (1.800,127.782) = 42.747, p<.001, η2 = 0.376) and the timings of the accompanied actions were significant (F(1.752, 124.410) = 248.390, p<001, η2 = 0.778). There were no age differences (F(2,71 = 1.030, p = 0.362 (ns), η2 = 0.028). There were significant two-way interactions between each variable (age, action words, and timing). Additionally, there were significant three-way interactions, age x action words x the timing of accompanied actions (F(5.827, 206.854) = 2.532, p = 0.023, η2 = 0.067). The onomatopoeia uttered during actions was the highest at nine months. The mothers’ inputs of the verbs without actions were high at 14 and 24 months.

2. Table 1 shows partial correlations between action words with and without actions, and children’s verb production at 33 months. We did not find any significant partial correlations between action words with actions and verbs at 33 months. The maternal input of verbs without actions at 24 months had a positive effect on the acquisition of verbs at 33 months. Standard multiple regression analysis for each action word with or without actions showed that just verbs without actions at 24 months positively predicted verbs at 33 months (β= .541, p = 0.038).

Conclusions: The mothers’ inputs of action words and accompanied actions differed based on the children’s age. The mothers used onomatopoeia during actions at nine months.
Concerning the co-occurrence of words and actions in the input of the child, our study did not show the effect of accompanied actions. Verb input without actions at 24 months positively predicted verb production at 33 months. Once grammar emerges, children learning highly inflected languages take advantage of inflectional bootstrapping (Tardif et al., 1997).
Regarding the accompanied actions, Foran et al. (2022) suggested that any benefits derived from adding actions for speech input may depend on the age and skills of the children as well as the type of action. We need further investigation.

Author

• Tamiko Ogura, Other (Osaka University of Comprehensive Children Education)
  Presenting Author