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Word learning stands at the cross-road between human linguistic and conceptual organization. To learn the meaning of a word, infants must set their sights in two distinct directions. Facing the conceptual domain, they must establish core concepts that capture the relations among the objects and events that they encounter. Facing the linguistic domain, they must cull words and phrases from the melody of the human language in which they are immersed. Decades of research have revealed that even before they begin to speak, infants’ advances in each of these domains are powerfully linked. In this talk, I will review evidence for the evolving link between object categorization and object naming across the first two years of life. I will focus first on infants on the threshold of word learning and will then move on to present new evidence from infants as young as 3- and 4-months of age. I will suggest that throughout development, naming is a powerful engine for conceptual development, fueling the acquisition of the essential, rich relations that underlie our most powerful concepts. Throughout, I will note ways in which this program of basic research may bear on designing interventions with infants and young children identified with language delays or disorders. This research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (BCS1023300; BCS0950376) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH HD030410). |
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