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Most children can produce a few words by the end of their first year and rapidly acquire almost 30 times as many words in the following year. Although this general pattern remains the same for children learning different languages, the words individual children know are considerably different. In this article, we consider the possibility that children are an important source of variability in early vocabulary acquisition in the context of curiosity‐driven approaches to language learning. In particular, we review research that supports two interrelated claims: that what children know and what children are interested in interact in shaping what children learn. We suggest that this, as well as the possibility that children are motivated intrinsically to learn language, sets the stage for early vocabulary learning.

Using the visual world paradigm, we compared first, L1 and L2 speakers’ anticipation of upcoming information in a discourse and second, L1 and L2 speakers’ ability to infer the meaning of unknown words in a discourse based on the semantic cues provided in spoken language context. It was found that native speakers were able to use the given contextual cues, throughout the discourse, to anticipate upcoming linguistic input and fixate targets consistent with the input thus far, while L2 speakers showed weaker effects of discourse context on target fixations. However, both native speakers and L2 learners alike were able to use contextual information to infer the meaning of unknown words embedded in the discourse and fixate images associated with the inferred meanings of these words, especially given adequate contextual information. We suggest that these results reflect similarly successful integration of the preceding semantic information and the construction of integrated mental representations of the described scenarios in L1 and L2.

Until at least 4 years of age, children, unlike adults, interpret  some  as compatible with  all . The inability to draw the pragmatic inference leading to interpret  some  as  not all , could be taken to indicate a delay in pragmatic abilities, despite evidence of other early pragmatic skills. However, little is known about how the production of these implicature develops. We conducted a corpus study on early production and perception of the scalar term  some  in British English. Children's utterances containing  some  were extracted from the dense corpora of five children aged 2;00 to 5;01 ( N  = 5,276), and analysed alongside a portion of their caregivers' utterances with  some  ( N  = 9,030). These were coded into structural and contextual categories allowing for judgments on the probability of a scalar implicature being intended. The findings indicate that children begin producing and interpreting implicatures in a pragmatic way during their third year of life, shortly after they first produce  some . Their production of  some  implicatures is low but matches their parents' input in frequency. Interestingly, the mothers' production of implicatures also increases as a function of the children's age. The data suggest that as soon as they acquire  some , children are fully competent in its production and mirror adult production. The contrast between the very early implicature production we find and the relatively late implicature comprehension established in the literature calls for an explanation; possibly in terms of the processing cost of implicature derivation. Additionally,  some  is multifaceted, and thus, implicatures are infrequent, and structurally and contextually constrained in both populations.

We examined how L2 exposure early in life modulates toddler word recognition by comparing German–English bilingual and German monolingual toddlers’ recognition of words that overlapped to differing degrees, measured by number of phonological features changed, between English and German (e.g., identical, 1-feature change, 2-feature change, 3-feature change, no overlap). Recognition in English was modulated by language background (bilinguals vs. monolinguals) and by the amount of phonological overlap that English words shared with their L1 German translations. L1 word recognition remained unchanged across conditions between monolingual and bilingual toddlers, showing no effect of learning an L2 on L1 word recognition in bilingual toddlers. Furthermore, bilingual toddlers who had a later age of L2 acquisition had better recognition of words in English than those toddlers who acquired English at an earlier age. The results suggest an important role for L1 phonological experience on L2 word recognition in early bilingual word recognition.

Communication with young children is often multimodal in nature, involving, for example, language and actions. The simultaneous presentation of information from both domains may boost language learning by highlighting the connection between an object and a word, owing to temporal overlap in the presentation of multimodal input. However, the overlap is not merely temporal but can also co-vary in the extent to which particular actions co-occur with particular words and objects, e.g., caregivers typically produce a hopping action when talking about rabbits and a snapping action for crocodiles. The frequency with which actions and words co-occur in the presence of the referents of these words may also impact young children's word learning. We therefore examined the extent to which consistency in the co-occurrence of particular actions and words impacted children's learning of novel word-object associations. Children (18 months, 30 months, 36 - 48 months) and adults were presented with two novel objects and heard their novel labels while different actions were performed on these objects, such that the particular actions and word-object pairings always co-occurred (Consistent group) or varied across trials (Inconsistent group). At test, participants saw both objects and heard one of the labels to examine whether participants recognised the target object upon hearing its label. Growth curve models revealed that 18-month-olds did not learn words for objects in either condition, and 30-month-old and 36- to 48-month-old children learned words for objects only in the Consistent condition, in contrast to adults who learned words for objects independent of the actions presented. Thus, consistency in the multimodal input influenced word learning in early childhood but not in adulthood. In terms of a dynamic systems account of word learning, our study shows how multimodal learning settings interact with the child's perceptual abilities to shape the learning experience.

Purpose of Review To summarize findings about the emergence and characteristics of canonical babbling in children with late detected developmental disorders (LDDDs), such as autism spectrum disorder, Rett syndrome, and fragile X syndrome. In particular, we ask whether infants’ vocal development in the first year of life contains any markers that may contribute to earlier detection of these disorders. Recent Findings Only a handful studies have investigated canonical babbling in infants with LDDDs. With divergent research paradigms and definitions applied, findings on the onset and characteristics of canonical babbling are inconsistent and difficult to compare. Infants with LDDDs showed reduced likelihood to produce canonical babbling vocalizations. If achieved, this milestone was more likely to be reached beyond the critical time window of 5–10 months. Summary Canonical babbling appears promising as a potential marker for early detection of infants at risk for developmental disorders. In-depth studies on babbling characteristics in LDDDs are warranted.