Abstract
The majority of research on the acquisition of spoken language has focused on language production, due to difficulties in the assessment of comprehension. A primary limitation to comprehension assessment is maintaining the interest and attention of younger infants. We have developed an assessment procedure that addresses the need for an extensive performance-based measure of comprehension in the 2nd year of life. In the interest of developing an engaging approach that takes into account infants’ limited attention capabilities, we designed an assessment based on touchscreen technology. This approach builds upon prior research by combining standardization and complexity with an engaging infant-friendly interface. Data suggest that the touchscreen procedure is effective in eliciting and maintaining infant attention and will yield more extensive and reliable estimates of early comprehension than do other procedures. The software to implement the assessmentis available free of charge for academic purposes.
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This research was supported by a Blasker grant to the authors from the San Diego Foundation. Gratitude is extended to Larry Fenson and Kelly Diaz for comments on project development, to Tom Kaufeld for software development, to Nahil Berhane for assistance in the acquisition of stimulus materials, to Gaddy Bergmann for allowing us to use her beautiful turtle photograph in our assessment, and to Brian MacWhinney, Jonathan Vaughan, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on a previous version of this manuscript. The first author has applied for international patent protection of this assessment procedure; however, the software is free for academic use.
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Friend, M., Keplinger, M. An infant-based assessment of early lexicon acquisition. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 35, 302–309 (2003). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202556
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202556