Children’s attention in a word learning interactive context with educators and vocabulary growth

The aim of the present study is to assess the relationship between the young child’s attention in a word learning interactive context with the educators in nurseries during shared-book reading and child’s subsequent vocabulary growth. The participants in the study were 24 infants from eight nurseries. Each infant was first observed during five sessions in a week at around 11 months of age, in a word learning interactive context with educators, with four nonwords-new pictures in a book and then, secondly, in five interactive free-play sessions with the mother at home between 12 and 24 months. Data analysis showed a relationship between the child’s attention to the pictures in the book during interaction with the educator and the child’s lexical growth. The importance for vocabulary growth of the child’s ability to integrate visual and audio information and the importance of shared-book reading at nurseries are discussed.