A recent study conducted by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the University of Grenoble Alpes—Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) has shed light on the ability of children under the age of three to learn new words even when the speaker’s mouth or eyes are covered. This study has important implications for the language development of young children, especially in light of concerns raised during the COVID-19 pandemic regarding the use of facemasks.
Published in the journal Developmental Psychology, the study is the first of its kind to demonstrate that children as young as two years old can learn new vocabulary by associating words with unfamiliar objects after a brief audiovisual interaction. The research also highlights the role of social reference and attentional control in the process of vocabulary learning.
The study explored how children’s attention affects vocabulary learning by analyzing gaze following skills and selective attention to a speaker’s mouth. Previous research had suggested that looking at the speaker’s mouth could aid in speech processing and the memorization of new words. However, the current study found that wearing a mask did not hinder children’s ability to learn new words, indicating that visual cues from the speaker’s mouth are not essential for word acquisition.
The researchers recorded the gaze of French children aged between 17 and 42 months while they participated in a word learning task under three different conditions: with the speaker’s face visible, with their eyes covered, and with their mouth covered by a mask. Surprisingly, the results showed that children learned new words regardless of whether the speaker’s eyes or mouth were covered, with better word learning associated with gaze-following behavior.
The study suggests that encouraging deeper exploration of objects along with rapid visual shifts between the object and the speaker’s face could enhance word learning in infants. While attention to the speaker’s mouth may be beneficial in certain contexts, such as for children with hearing impairments or language disorders, the study emphasizes the importance of social understanding and visual exploration in the early stages of vocabulary development.
Overall, the findings provide reassurance regarding the impact of facemasks on children’s language development and offer valuable insights into effective strategies for enhancing word learning in infancy. Further research is ongoing to explore the role of visual cues in speech processing for children with specific needs.
