2020/07/29 by David M. Sobel, David M Sobel, Zoe Finiasz · 56 citations
Psychology · #Child and Animal Learning Development #Child development #Cognition #Cognitive psychology #Communication #Developmental psychology #Language Development and Disorders #Language acquisition #Linguistics #Mathematics education #Psychology #Reading and Literacy Development #Verbal learning #Vocabulary #Word (group theory) #Word learning
paper · doi:10.1111/cdev.13415
published in Child Development 91(6), e1134-e1161 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2020/07/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
One way children are remarkable learners is that they learn from others. Critically, children are selective when assessing from whom to learn, particularly in the domain of word learning. We conducted an analysis of children's selective word learning, reviewing 63 papers on 6,525 participants. Children's ability to engage in selective word learning appeared to be present in the youngest samples surveyed. Their more metacognitive understanding that epistemic competence indicates reliability or that others are good sources of knowledge has more of a developmental trajectory. We also found that various methodological factors used to assess children influence performance. We conclude with a synthesis of theoretical accounts of how children learn from others.