What helps children learn new words?
One word, a thousand possibilities! Young children have to learn language from scratch, and that includes the meaning of every single word. The child-friendly language that adults use when talking to young children helps them with this.
We all have at least a vague idea of what can help young children learn new words: simple sentences, highlighting the new words, and repeating them often.
These are just a few examples of features that, according to language research, characterize the way adults speak to children—a language pattern known as child-directed speech.
At our booth, we’ll showcase various features of this type of language that support young children in their language acquisition. Visitors can participate in an interactive experimental game that allows them to easily experience firsthand what a real experiment looks like. The experiment specifically examines three features: a slower speech rate, a higher and highly variable pitch, and exaggerated vowel pronunciation.
It is based on our current research. You’ll have the opportunity to try it out the experiment and share your thoughts with us.
