2008/06/27 by JUDITH C. GOODMAN, Judith C. Goodman, Philip S. Dale +3 · 3 citations
Neuroscience · Psychology · #Language Development and Disorders #Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism #Reading and Literacy Development
paper · doi:10.1017/s0305000907008641
openalex publication_date 2008/06/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
Studies examining factors that influence when words are learned typically investigate one lexical category or a small set of words. We provide the first evaluation of the relation between input frequency and age of acquisition for a large sample of words. The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory provides norming data on age of acquisition for 562 individual words collected from the parents of children aged 0 ; 8 to 2 ; 6. The CHILDES database provides estimates of frequency with which parents use these words with their children (age: 0 ; 7-7 ; 5; mean age: 36 months). For production, across all words higher parental frequency is associated with later acquisition. Within lexical categories, however, higher frequency is related to earlier acquisition. For comprehension, parental frequency correlates significantly with the age of acquisition only for common nouns. Frequency effects change with development. Thus, frequency impacts vocabulary acquisition in a complex interaction with category, modality and developmental stage.