Sometimes I wonder how kids or rather toddlers learn to speak so fast. Well, recently after reading about the McMurray’s theory on toddlers, the secret was revealed. According to Bob McMurray of University of Iowa, toddlers learn harder words quicker.
Vocab explosion:
It seems like at around eighteen months, children undergo what we can call a vocab explosion. When this happens, kids pick up words just like that. All you have to do is just say the word and they will pick it up. Before the study, many other techniques of learning new vocab have been proposed.
Murray’s research:
However, according to Murray, word repetition and learning a bunch of words at a time help the toddlers develop their vocab. At least, this is what the Aug.3rd issue of the Science journal published.
The researcher thinks that kids don’t get to the vocab explosion point by learning one word at a time. But, they prefer a chunk of words together. Also, the psychologist likens the vocab learning process to the filling up of a jar. Bob McMurray thinks:
Children are going to get that word spurt guaranteed, mathematically, as long as a couple of conditions hold. They have to be learning more than one word at a time, and they must be learning a greater number of difficult or moderate words than easy ones.
McMurray’s computer simulation and his study of a mathematical model proves his point. He considered about 2000 most frequently spoken English words for this research. The list includes a nice blend of easy and hard to learn words.
The whole point of Murray’s study is to prove the fact that specialized techniques are not necessary. Our innate or natural abilities can take us pretty far. All along research has been coming up with newer artificial techniques. But, I think this is the best study since it reassures us of our abilities.
Image Credits: Psychology
