Journal Review

Children Learn Words Easier

When They are Interested in
The Category to which The
Word Belongs

Children Language Acquisition

By:
SRI LESTARI 1808042046
VIOLINTIKHA H. 1808042048
 Introduction
This article mainly examines the alternate possibility that children's
individual interest in specific natural categories shapes the words
they are likely to learn or simply mean that a child who is more
interested in animals will learn a new animal name easier relative to a
new vehicle name.

Based on data conducted by German vocabulary data

(Szagun, Stumper, & Schramm, 2009, the German adaptation of the
MBCDI), it shows the general pattern of vocabulary growth remains
relatively stable across children learning different languages. It also
shows there are a differences in number of words known to
individual children.
According to the previous study, one of factors that make
differences in number of words known to individual
children is the children learn words from larger
phonological categories with greater ease than words from
smaller phonological categories (Mackensen & Mani, 2013).

The present study consisted of three phases

whichh are:
1) a category interest phase
In the category interest, it is using two measures: First,
we asked parents to rate their child's interest in the chosen
semantic categories using a seven point Likert scale.
Second, all children saw 16 objects from four early
acquired semantic categories (animals, clothes, drinks, and
2). A word learning phase
In the word learning phase, children were trained on four
novel word object pairings, one from each of the semantic
categories.

3). A word recognition phase.

In word recognition and learning were assessed in a word
recognition phase using an adaptation of the Intermodal
Preferential Looking paradigm (Golinkoff, Hirsh-Pasek,
Cauley, & Gordon, 1987).
 Gap and Purposes
The other work has focused on the role of the child's prior
semantic knowledge on word learning, suggesting that children more
readily learn words from semantically dense categories (Borovsky et
al.,).

Then, the present study examined an alternate but not

necessarily mutually exclusive explanation for these differences,
namely, that children learn words more easily when they are
interested in the kinds of things. Further, the purpose of this studey
is mined how the child's interest in a particular natural category
(category interest), given her prior semantic knowledge (category
size), and their interest in a particular object (object interest).
 Research Method
Participants

This study colleced fifty five children aged 30 months.

Nine children were excluded prior to data analysis due to
technical errors (N = 6) or being bilingual (N = 3). Of the
remaining 46 children, 39 provided data for all critical phases of
the study. The other seven children were excluded for not
providing enough trials in the category interest phase (N = 2) or
not providing sufficient pupil data (N = 5).
Stimuli
• This study is conducted four categories that typically
appear in a German 30month old's lexicon were selected
from the FRAKIS: animals, clothes, vehicles, and drinks.
• Within each category, they selected four words (each) that
are typically known to more than 50% of 30 mont old
children to serve as familiar objects (Frank, Braginsky,
Yurovsky, & Marchman,2016).
• One rare member from each of the four categories was
chosen as a novel object in each of the categories.
• For the set of 4 novel and 16 familiar items used in the
study, a photorealistic representation of each object was
selected and placed on a 400 × 400 pixel light grey
background.
Parent questionnaires
• According to the average of 31 category members in this
study, animals and clothes are typically broad categories,
while vehicles and drinks are typically narrow categories
with an average of 11 category members each (Szagun et
al., 2009).
• The two categories with the highest absolute number of
members were treated as broad categories, while the other
two were treated as narrow (cf. Eiteljörge, Kriukova, & Mani,
2017).
• Parents were also asked to report any other members of the
four categories familiar to their child, but those additional
items were not used to calculate broad and narrow
categories as we could not control for differences in
Procedure

a). In the category interest phase, children saw 16

familiar objects across 8 blocks. Each block presented
children with two trials, where both trials within a block
presented objects from one category. Thus, one block
would present children with two trials, one presenting,
for example, a mouse and the other presenting, for
example, a penguin.
b). in the word learning phase was spread across two
blocks. In each word learning block, children were
presented with two trials each of two of the four novel
objects, thus including four training trials per word
learning block (with two training trials per object).
c). in the word recognition phase consisted of two
blocks, the first block succeeded the first block
of the word learning phase and the second block
succeeded the second block of the word learning
phase. In each word recognition block, children
were tested on their recognition of the two novel
word object associations they had been exposed
to in the prior learning block.
Preprocessing

a). The researchers used pupil dilation during

object presentation during the category interest
phase to measure interest in the categories that
the objects stemmed from, that is, interest in the
kind of objects a word referred to.

b). For the word learning phase, the researchers

took 500 ms of the scrambled image as the
baseline, while the window between 500 ms after
onset of the unscrambled picture and the onset of
the label was used for analysis.
 Result
The present study inputs two main findings: children
more easily learn words that refer to the kinds of
things they are interested in and children more easily
learn words that refer to particular objects they are
more interested in. The researchers also examined an
alternate but not necessarily mutually exclusive
explanation for these differences, namely, that
children learn words more easily when they are
interested in the kinds of things the word likely refers
to.
 They investigated how the child's interest in a particular
natural category, that is, category interest, given their prior
semantic knowledge, that is, category size, and their
interest in a particular object, that is, object interest,
influences learning of novel word object‐associations. This
was individually calculated for each child, resulting in two
conditions per child, namely high interest and low interest
categories, containing two categories each. It is found that
children looked significantly longer at the target when the
target was from a high category interest than when object
was from a low category interest.
 Discussion
The purpose of this study is to examine the alternate possibility
that children’s individual interest in specific natural categories
shapes the words they are likely to learn. Ackermann, Hepach,
and Mani found that word learning was similarly modulated by
parental ratings of their child's interest in the four categories.
Strikingly similar to the pupillary analysis, they found that
children learned words better from categories their parents
reported them to be more interested in, relative to categories
their parents reported them to be less interested in.
 The result of this study is line with the previous studies’
findings that the role of the child's prior semantic
knowledge on word learning, suggesting that children more
readily learn words from semantically big categories
(Borovsky et al., 2016a, 2016b). Another previous study also
stated that at 20 months of age, children already show
considerable differences not only in the individual words
they know, but also in the sizes of their semantic categories
(Szagun et al., 2009).
 In conclusion, Ackermann, Hepach, and Mani presented
the evidence based on two distinct measures of children's
interest in different natural categories that children learn
words more easily when these words refer to the kinds of
things they are interested in. Furthermore, supporting previous
research, the researchers also show that children learn words
more easily when they are interested in the object this word
refers to. These two factors have shown unique contributions
to word learning of interest is also the finding that parental
curiosity reports manipulated word learning in a similar
direction to the pupillary measure tested here, providing
further support for pupillary change as an index of children's
interest or anthusiasm.
 Critical Comments
 This article have given a brief understanding about children
learn words easier when they are interested in the category to
which the world belongs. Ackermann, Hepach and Mani also
found a great analysis on the research gap.

 Most importantly, Ackermann, Hepach and Mani also relating

their findings to previous that show children learn words more
easily when they are interested in the object this word refers
to. . Their efforts to investigate the aims of the study should be
appreciated since there is no many studies that conducted the
same issues.
As the reviewers, we get several benefits after reviewing
this research.
• First, in academic field, we learn how to do a great article
review.
• Second, the reviewers learn more how to conduct a good
article due to the use of this research as a guideline.
• Last, as an language educator, we know that children
learn words more easily when they are interested in the
objects. It simply mean that as an eduactor we cannot
impersonate the ability of children vocabularies acquire
because each children have the differences of interest in
acquiring the vocabularies.
THANK YOU