How idiosyncratic are 2-3 year olds' vocabularies?

[Linda Smith]

Hi,

This is a very interesting question.  In an unpublished study (for reasons 
noted below), Shohei Hidaka (a former post doc) and I looked at the MCDI 
productive vocabularies for over 100 children from 18 to 30 months.  We 
asked how well any one word predicted knowing another word --across 
children or groups of children --at any point in time.  It is like doing a 
big Chi square.  Does, for example,  --across children --knowing "milk" 
predicts already knowing "dog"  (not because they are semantically related 
but because of regularities in the acquisition and ordering of words). 
 There were differences among groups of children (slower versus more rapid 
learners), and also hints of changes with age --converging to being all 
statistically alike with age and more different young. 

BUT the problem is the measure.  The MCDI was specifically made --and 
constrained to --the words most children acquired (had to be produced by 
50% of children at 30 months in original normative sample to be included). 
This was done so that it would be useful as a relative measure, but is 
minimizes the idioscyncracies and make make the hard to find.  Diary 
studies or recordings might be better.  

Anyway, I think this is something the field really needs to answer.

Linda Smith 

On Monday, November 19, 2012 6:47:46 PM UTC-5, Elena Nicoladis wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues,
> I'm trying to find some sort of quantification of how idiosyncratic 
> children aged 2-3 years are in terms of vocabulary. Has anyone, for 
> example, attempted something as foolhardy as calculating the average 
> percentage of words shared by all/most/some preschoolers?? 
>
> Any leads would be much appreciated.
> Elena
>
> -- 
> Elena Nicoladis
>
> "Since all the sciences, and especially psychology, are still immersed in 
> such tremendous realms of the uncertain and the unknown, the best that any 
> individual scientist, especially any psychologist, can do seems to be to 
> follow his own gleam and his own bent, however inadequate they may be. In 
> fact, I suppose that actually this is what we all do. In the end, the only 
> sure criterion is to have fun."
> Edward Tolman
>
>

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