Abstract
Parents’ potential contributions to children’s developing understanding of conventionality in word meanings were investigated by examining how parents label objects for their children (12-, 18-, and 24-month-olds) in a free-play session with different types of toys. The study asks whether parents give subtle clues that names for things are conventions that must be discovered through conversation with other people (i.e., labels are ‘in the minds’ of others) or alternatively, that words are somehow more readily apparent (‘located’ in the object). Results showed a developmental relationship between children’s productive vocabulary and parents’ labeling patterns that imply labels are ‘in the mind.’ These findings suggest that conversations with parents are a likely context for children’s developing understanding of conventionality in word meanings.
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