The Relation Between Preschoolers’ Vocabulary Development and Their Ability to Predict and Recognize Words

Summary: A longitudinal research conducted upon children’s development of vocabulary indicated that prediction skills of children may facilitate language learning through enhancing processing speed.

Source: PsyArXiv.

Are you a new parent? Do you know if your child language development is at par with the other children of his or her age? Are you aware of the factors that facilitate their language learning and processing skills? Remember, by the age of 2 year, children usually develop their foundational language processing skills, which includes quickly recognizing words to which they have been exposed to and predicting words before they occur. Have you ever wondered how these skills relate to children’s structural knowledge of vocabulary?

However, an exploratory longitudinal follow‐up study with 55 participants eventually found that word recognition and prediction skills were associated with rate of subsequent vocabulary development, although revision skills were not. The researchers here argue that the child’s skills to predict may facilitate language learning through enhancing processing speed.

The University of Edinburgh conducted research about multiple aspects of language processing, they were simultaneously measured in a sample of 2‐to‐5‐year‐olds. The study included 215 participants. While older children comparatively were more fluent at recognizing words, at predicting words in a graded fashion, and also at revising incorrect predictions. Here it should be noted that only revision was associated with concurrent vocabulary knowledge once age was accounted for.