-
American Journal on Intellectual and... Jul 2022We studied comprehension of emotion versus concrete/abstract words in Down syndrome (DS). Study 1 compared 26 participants with DS and 26 typically developing (TD)...
We studied comprehension of emotion versus concrete/abstract words in Down syndrome (DS). Study 1 compared 26 participants with DS and 26 typically developing (TD) children matched on verbal ability. Results showed no difference between groups. Study 2 assessed whether chronological age (CA) and (non)verbal abilities predicted developmental trajectories of comprehension in 36 children with DS and 143 TD children. For the latter, these variables predicted comprehension of all three word types. For the former, receptive vocabulary predicted comprehension of all word types, but CA and nonverbal reasoning only predicted comprehension of concrete words. This suggests that people with DS have no specific emotional lexicon deficit. Supporting their general lexical development would help them access abstract and emotional meanings.
Topics: Child; Cognition; Comprehension; Down Syndrome; Emotions; Humans; Vocabulary
PubMed: 36122328
DOI: 10.1352/1944-7558-127.4.278 -
Journal of Biomedical Semantics Jun 2023The Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable(FAIR) Principles explicitly require the use of FAIR vocabularies, but what precisely constitutes a FAIR vocabulary...
BACKGROUND
The Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable(FAIR) Principles explicitly require the use of FAIR vocabularies, but what precisely constitutes a FAIR vocabulary remains unclear. Being able to define FAIR vocabularies, identify features of FAIR vocabularies, and provide assessment approaches against the features can guide the development of vocabularies.
RESULTS
We differentiate data, data resources and vocabularies used for FAIR, examine the application of the FAIR Principles to vocabularies, align their requirements with the Open Biomedical Ontologies principles, and propose FAIR Vocabulary Features. We also design assessment approaches for FAIR vocabularies by mapping the FVFs with existing FAIR assessment indicators. Finally, we demonstrate how they can be used for evaluating and improving vocabularies using exemplary biomedical vocabularies.
CONCLUSIONS
Our work proposes features of FAIR vocabularies and corresponding indicators for assessing the FAIR levels of different types of vocabularies, identifies use cases for vocabulary engineers, and guides the evolution of vocabularies.
Topics: Vocabulary, Controlled; Vocabulary; Biological Ontologies
PubMed: 37264430
DOI: 10.1186/s13326-023-00286-8 -
The British Journal of Sociology Mar 2021This paper examines the relationship between parents' and children's language skills for a nationally representative birth cohort born in the United Kingdom-the...
This paper examines the relationship between parents' and children's language skills for a nationally representative birth cohort born in the United Kingdom-the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). We investigate both socioeconomic and ethnic differentials in children's vocabulary scores and the role of differences in parents' vocabulary scores in accounting for these. We find large vocabulary gaps between highly educated and less educated parents, and between ethnic groups. Nevertheless, socioeconomic and ethnic gaps in vocabulary scores are far wider among the parents than among their children. Parental vocabulary is a powerful mediator of inequalities in offspring's vocabulary scores at age 14, and also a powerful driver of change in language skills between the ages of five and 14. Once we account for parental vocabulary, no ethnic minority group of young people has a negative "vocabulary gap" compared to whites.
Topics: Adolescent; Cohort Studies; Humans; Language; Parent-Child Relations; Parents; Vocabulary
PubMed: 33595850
DOI: 10.1111/1468-4446.12780 -
The New England Journal of Medicine Feb 2020
Topics: Adolescent; Cardiomyopathy, Dilated; Communication; Humans; Hypertension, Pulmonary; Male; Professional-Family Relations; Vocabulary
PubMed: 32101662
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1912072 -
Psychological Methods Aug 2021Technology now makes it possible to understand efficiently and at large scale how people use language to reveal their everyday thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. Written... (Review)
Review
Technology now makes it possible to understand efficiently and at large scale how people use language to reveal their everyday thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. Written text has been analyzed through both theory-based, closed-vocabulary methods from the social sciences as well as data-driven, open-vocabulary methods from computer science, but these approaches have not been comprehensively compared. To provide guidance on best practices for automatically analyzing written text, this narrative review and quantitative synthesis compares five predominant closed- and open-vocabulary methods: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), the General Inquirer, DICTION, Latent Dirichlet Allocation, and Differential Language Analysis. We compare the linguistic features associated with gender, age, and personality across the five methods using an existing dataset of Facebook status updates and self-reported survey data from 65,896 users. Results are fairly consistent across methods. The closed-vocabulary approaches efficiently summarize concepts and are helpful for understanding how people think, with LIWC2015 yielding the strongest, most parsimonious results. Open-vocabulary approaches reveal more specific and concrete patterns across a broad range of content domains, better address ambiguous word senses, and are less prone to misinterpretation, suggesting that they are well-suited for capturing the nuances of everyday psychological processes. We detail several errors that can occur in closed-vocabulary analyses, the impact of sample size, number of words per user and number of topics included in open-vocabulary analyses, and implications of different analytical decisions. We conclude with recommendations for researchers, advocating for a complementary approach that combines closed- and open-vocabulary methods. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Topics: Emotions; Humans; Language; Linguistics; Personality; Vocabulary
PubMed: 34726465
DOI: 10.1037/met0000349 -
Child Development 2023This meta-analysis synthesizes research on media use in early childhood (0-6 years), word-learning, and vocabulary size. Multi-level analyses included 266 effect sizes... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis Review
This meta-analysis synthesizes research on media use in early childhood (0-6 years), word-learning, and vocabulary size. Multi-level analyses included 266 effect sizes from 63 studies (N = 11,413) published between 1988-2022. Among samples with information about race/ethnicity (51%) and sex/gender (73%), most were majority White/Non-Hispanic and between 40%-60% female. Analyses revealed a small overall positive relation between screen media exposure and vocabulary (r = .23). Experimental studies yielded a small-to-medium effect (r = .30), with stronger effects for e-books than TV/video or games/apps, and non-significant effects for video chat. In correlational studies, there was no overall association between vocabulary size and naturalistic media exposure (r = .07), with the exception of naturalistic exposure to educational media (r = .17).
Topics: Child; Child, Preschool; Female; Humans; Male; Learning; Verbal Learning; Vocabulary; Infant
PubMed: 37042116
DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13927 -
Journal of Speech, Language, and... Sep 2023We sought to examine second grade teachers' word use throughout the school day to identify the amount and type of teacher vocabulary use across content areas as well as...
PURPOSE
We sought to examine second grade teachers' word use throughout the school day to identify the amount and type of teacher vocabulary use across content areas as well as to examine relationships between this teacher talk and student language and literacy achievement.
METHOD
Second grade teachers ( = 64) and a random sample of half of their students ( = 619) participated. Teachers recorded instruction during the school day throughout the year, and students were assessed on vocabulary, grammar, and reading measures in the fall and spring.
RESULTS
Findings reveal second grade students hear thousands of words spoken by the teacher each hour of the school day, including more than a thousand different words per hour on average. The large majority of words were the most common words in the English language. On average, there were few academic or curriculum vocabulary words used, but this varied widely between teachers. The proportion of academic words used by teachers during the school day significantly predicted students' end-of-year vocabulary. Teachers who used more academic words had students with higher vocabulary achievement at the end of the school year. There were no other significant relationships between teachers' language and student achievement.
CONCLUSIONS
This correlational evidence adds to the existing knowledge of the importance of academic language to student school outcomes and provides implications for further research in the area of academic language at the early elementary level.
Topics: Humans; Vocabulary; Literacy; Language; Students; Linguistics; School Teachers
PubMed: 37541302
DOI: 10.1044/2023_JSLHR-22-00605 -
Developmental Science May 2022How do children construct a concept of natural numbers? Past research addressing this question has mainly focused on understanding how children come to acquire the...
How do children construct a concept of natural numbers? Past research addressing this question has mainly focused on understanding how children come to acquire the cardinality principle. However, at that point children already understand the first number words and have a rudimentary natural number concept in place. The question therefore remains; what gets children's number learning off the ground? We therefore, based on previous empirical and theoretical work, tested which factors predict the first stages of children's natural number understanding. We assessed if children's expressive vocabulary, visuospatial working memory, and ANS (Approximate number system) acuity at 18 months of age could predict their natural number knowledge at 2.5 years of age. We found that early expressive vocabulary and visuospatial working memory were important for later number knowledge. The results of the current study add to a growing body of literature showing the importance of language in children's learning about numbers.
Topics: Child; Child, Preschool; Comprehension; Humans; Knowledge; Language; Learning; Vocabulary
PubMed: 34870876
DOI: 10.1111/desc.13207 -
Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf... Jun 2021Two single-case studies examined the effects of a vocabulary intervention on K-second grade Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) children's vocabulary learning. The...
Two single-case studies examined the effects of a vocabulary intervention on K-second grade Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) children's vocabulary learning. The intervention consisted of (a) explicit instruction that included fast mapping, and drill and practice games and (b) in-context activities that included book reading, conceptual activities, and conversation. Study 1 compared the effectiveness of in-context alone and explicit+in-context instruction for four DHH children. This multiple baseline across content study showed that children learned more words rapidly in the explicit + in-context condition. Study 2 examined the effects of the explicit+in-context intervention on five DHH children's word and definition learning and use of new words in spontaneous communication. A multiple baseline study across participants showed that all children learned the targeted vocabulary, improved expression of definitions, and used target words in spontaneous language. We discuss the value of explicit and in-context instruction on breadth and depth of vocabulary learning.
Topics: Child; Hearing Loss; Humans; Language; Learning; Reading; Vocabulary
PubMed: 33978158
DOI: 10.1093/deafed/enab002 -
Journal of Speech, Language, and... Jul 2021Purpose This study examined the effect of Vocabulary Acquisition and Usage for Late Talkers (VAULT) treatment on toddlers' expressive vocabulary and phonology. Parent...
Purpose This study examined the effect of Vocabulary Acquisition and Usage for Late Talkers (VAULT) treatment on toddlers' expressive vocabulary and phonology. Parent acceptability of VAULT treatment was also considered. Method We used a nonconcurrent multiple baseline single case experimental design with three late talking toddlers aged 21-25 months. The treatment was delivered twice weekly in 30-min sessions for 8 weeks by a rotating team of four speech-language pathologists. Toddlers heard three of their 10 strategically selected target words a minimum of 64 times in play activities each session. Expressive vocabulary and phonology was assessed pre-post, with parent interviews conducted posttreatment. Results All toddlers increased production of target words and expressive vocabulary. Ambient expressive vocabulary size increased by an average of 16 words per week (range of 73-169 words learned over the treatment period). On a 20-item, single-word speech assessment, the toddlers' phonetic inventories increased on average from three to seven consonants, and five to eight vowels. Two toddlers used protowords pretreatment, which were replaced by recognizable attempts at words posttreatment. Parents reported the treatment was acceptable for the child and their family with future consideration of parent-based delivery of the treatment in the home. Conclusions The results of this treatment provide further evidence of a model of intervention informed by the principles of implicit learning, and the interconnectedness of phonological and lexical learning. Investigation is required to establish the efficacy and feasibility of VAULT in clinical contexts. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14714733.
Topics: Humans; Language Development Disorders; Learning; Phonetics; Vocabulary
PubMed: 34098725
DOI: 10.1044/2021_JSLHR-20-00680