Preschoolers’ Learning of Prepositions from Storybooks with Predictive Cues

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Language, Communication

Abstract

Language shapes the way people organize their thoughts and concepts. One concept that languages label is how objects are located in space in relation to each other. Spatial words are categorized differently across languages (Choi et al., 1999), such that some languages categorize spatial relations more specifically than others. For example, Korean differentiates between loose-fitting and tight-fitting relations in a way that English does not. Other languages, like Spanish, categorize spatial relations more broadly such that one spatial preposition, “en”, translates to both “in” and “on” in English. Because of these seemingly conflicting ways of categorizing space across languages, children learning multiple languages struggle with spatial prepositions (e.g., differentiating between “in” and “on”) (Armon-Lotem, 2014). Predictive cues, which have previously helped children differentiate between concepts (Sloutsky & Robinson, 2013), may also be useful for learning prepositions. When newly learned concepts are predictively paired with a cue, that cue can later help activate the learned information. The current study will investigate whether predictive cues help children differentiate between prepositions. Sixty monolingual and multilingual preschoolers (2.5-3.5 years old) will be read books that are arranged in one of two conditions: a predictive condition and a nonpredictive condition. The predictive book has each instance of “in” paired with three predictive cues: bear, apple, and green (e.g., “Bear put the apple in the toilet” on a green page and “Bear put the apple in the trash” on a green page) and each instance of “on” paired with three other predictive cues: penguin, ball, and yellow (e.g., “Penguin put the ball on the car” on a yellow page and “Penguin put the ball on the bed” on a yellow page; see Figure 1A). The nonpredictive book has all instances of “in” and “on” paired with all the cues so that the cues do not predict which preposition the child is learning (see Figure 1B). The preschoolers’ language background will be assessed with a parent language survey, and their preposition knowledge will be measured with a pretest. Immediately after the two reading sessions are completed, preposition knowledge will be measured with a posttest. We hypothesize that children in the predictive condition will have a greater pretest/posttest difference. This hypothesis will be tested with a paired-samples t-test. We also hypothesize that multilingual children will show a greater pretest/posttest difference within the predictive condition. This hypothesis will be tested with a paired-samples t-test that contrasts monolingual preschoolers to multilingual preschoolers within the predictive condition. All the materials for this study are complete, and this study will enter online data collection in mid-October. Our lab is currently averaging about 5-10 preschoolers per week per study in online data collection, so completing data collection for 60 preschoolers before April is highly feasible. Learning spatial words is important for language and spatial cognition development, which predicts later success in STEM domains (Wai et al., 2009). This study informs our understanding of strategies that help the learning of spatial words in a format that is adaptable for everyday adult-child interactions.

Authors

• Michelle Lynn Luna, University of Notre Dame
  Presenting Author

• Catherine Sandhofer, University of California - Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author