Biomedical subjects

Laura L Namy

Publications and source records attributed to Laura L Namy.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2004

Characterizing changes in parent labelling and gesturing and their relation to early communicative development.

In a longitudinal study, 17 parent-child dyads were observed during free-play when the children were 1;0, 1;6, and 2;0. Parents' labelling input in the verbal and gestural modalities was coded at each session, and parents completed a vocabulary checklist for their children at each visit. We analysed how the frequency of labelling in the verbal and gestural modalities changed across observation points and how changes in parental input related to children's vocabulary development. As a group, parents' verbal labelling remained constant across sessions, but gestural labelling declined at 2;0. However, there are notable individual differences in parental trajectories in both modalities. Parents whose verbal labelling frequency increased over time had children whose vocabulary grew more slowly than those whose labelling frequency decreased, remained constant, or peaked at 1;6. There were few systematic relations between patterns of parental gesturing and children's vocabulary development. Parents' verbal and gestural labelling patterns also appeared dissociable. However, parents' words and gestures were correlated when their children were 1;6, suggesting that gestures serve an important bootstrapping function at a critical point in children's vocabulary development.

Child, Preschool↗

PubMed2002

Patterns of spontaneous production of novel words and gestures within an experimental setting in children ages 1;6 and 2;2.

This study presents an analysis of children's spontaneous production of words and gestures during an experimental symbol learning task. Namy & Waxman (1998) previously reported that children aged 1;6 interpreted novel arbitrary words (e.g., blicket) and manual gestures (e.g., a dropping motion) as names for object categories (e.g., fruit) but that at 2;2, children interpreted words as names more readily than gestures. Based on this finding and other observational evidence of gesture use, it has been suggested that the younger infants have an initial general symbolic capacity that encompasses both words and gestures. Over time, as infants acquire greater experience with language, words begin to take on a greater priority in the infant's communicative repertoire. The current study examines this hypothesis by analyzing children's spontaneous production of the novel symbols in Namy & Waxman's original task. At 1;6, children rarely produced either the novel words or gestures. At 2;2, children frequently produced both symbolic forms; however, words were produced in a referential manner while gestures were produced in a non-referential manner. These findings are consistent with the argument that over time, words supplant gestures as a symbolic medium.

Child Language↗

PubMed2002

Making a silk purse out of two sow's ears: young children's use of comparison in category learning.

Comparison mechanisms have been implicated in the development of abstract, relational thought, including object categorization. D. Gentner and L. L. Namy (1999) found that comparing 2 perceptually similar category members yielded taxonomic categorization, whereas viewing a single member of the target category elicited shallower perceptual responding. The present experiments tested 2 predictions that follow from Gentner and Namy's (1999) model: (a) Comparison facilitates categorization only when the targets to be compared share relational commonalities, and (b) providing common labels for targets invites comparison, whereas providing conflicting labels deters it. Four-year-olds participated in a forced-choice task. They viewed 2 perceptually similar target objects and were asked to "find another one." Results suggest an important role for comparison in lexical and conceptual development.

Child Development↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The role of social-referential context in verbal and nonverbal symbol learning.

This study examined the role of social-referential context in 13- and 18-month-olds' mapping of verbal and nonverbal symbols to object categories. Infants heard either novel words or novel nonverbal sounds in either a referential or nonreferential context. In all conditions, an experimenter engaged in a social-referential interaction and the label was produced while the infant's attention was directed to the referent. In the referential condition, labels were produced by the experimenter within the context of a familiar naming routine. In the nonreferential condition, labels were emitted from a baby monitor placed near the infant. The study subsequently tested infants' mapping of the symbols to the referent objects using a forced-choice procedure. Although the results for the 18-month-olds were strongest, infants at both ages showed evidence of learning both words and sounds in the referential condition and failed to learn them in the nonreferential condition. Thus, infants successfully learned both words and sounds under the same circumstances at both ages. These findings suggest that the social-referential context, and not the symbolic form per se, determine infants' success at symbol learning.

Female↗