The development of relational arcs in the lexical semantic memory structures of young children

Abstract

Forty-eight normally developing children, twelve each at ages three, four five, and six years, were asked to define and describe ten concrete nouns expressively with no attendant visual stimuli. Responses were coded according to the semantic relations expressed. Nineteen different semantic relationships were isolated in these definitions, and significant differences were found between the age levels in the various configurations of semantic relational categories represented in the first five relations elicited from each child by each noun. Compatible with recent hypotheses concerning the development of internal semantic memory structures, these differences also proved to be highly predictive of a subject's chronological age. The results suggest that semantic relational analysis may be a productive method of documenting the characteristics of lexical semantic systems of very young children.