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Children's use of lexical and non-lexical information in responding to commands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Stephen Wilcox  and
David S. Palermo
Stephen Wilcox
Affiliation:
Franklin and Marshall College
David S. Palermo
Affiliation:
The Pennsylvania State University
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Abstract

Two experiments are reported in each of which eighty children between the ages of two and six years of age were given a series of commands containing relational terms and similar commands in which the relational terms were replaced by nonsense. The results indicated that children are able to use information from a number of sources which help them to interpret such commands. Younger children, particularly, seemed to rely relatively little upon word meaning, per se. Evidence is offered that the children's responses were constrained by the non-linguistic context, by prior repetition of commands, and by information available from the linguistic context.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , February 1982 , pp. 139 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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