Parent-reported relations between vocabulary and motor development in infancy: Differences between verbs and nouns

Frewin, Kelsey L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0632-9942, Gerson, Sarah A., Vanderwert, Ross E. and Gambi, Chiara (2025) Parent-reported relations between vocabulary and motor development in infancy: Differences between verbs and nouns. Infancy, 30 (1). ISSN 1525-0008

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Abstract

During early development, increases in vocabulary are related to gains in motor ability, above and beyond the effects of maturation alone. However, little is known about the association between motor development and children's early acquisition of different types of words. We examined whether motor development is differentially associated with concurrent verb and noun vocabulary in 83 infants aged 6- to 24-months-old. We asked caregivers to complete parent-report measures of vocabulary acquisition and motor development. Analyses revealed that the association between word comprehension and motor development significantly differed for verb and nouns. Infants' verb comprehension was more strongly associated with motor development than noun comprehension. We discuss how infants' own motor actions may provide cues that are especially important for narrowing down the meaning of novel verbs.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Data Availability Statement: Our data and analysis scripts are publicly available on the Open Science Framework at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/ZWY5K. Funding information: This work was supported by an Economic and Social Research Council PhD Studentship [reference 2158637] awarded to Kelsey L. Frewin.
Uncontrolled Keywords: infancy,motor development,noun learning,verb learning,vocabulary,developmental and educational psychology,pediatrics, perinatology, and child health ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3200/3204
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Developmental Science
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 05 Nov 2024 18:30
Last Modified: 03 Dec 2024 01:35
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/97529
DOI: 10.1111/infa.12638

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