What Toddlers Talk About

Abstract

The size of the noun vocabulary children learn is influenced by what the children talk about with their caregivers when they are toddlers. For quartiles based on root noun vocabulary size, longitudinal data for 40 children (13ñ36 months old) were analysed using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) to standardize the vocabulary of topics examined and a 100-utterance sample each month to equate the children for rate of talking. Analysis showed similar trends across the quartiles in the topic categories the children talked about, major increases in use of nouns different from those on the CDI, and diversity (different nouns per noun used) increasing as vocabulary increased. Richness differed across the quartiles, and the richness in nouns of the children’s utterances was associated not with diversity but with the richness in nouns of their parents’ utterances. An important aspect of the size of the noun vocabulary children learn may be the extent to which the children are matching not only the nouns but the richness in nouns of the utterances their caregivers address to them.

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