Developmental Science最新文献

{"title":"Priorities for New Data Collection","authors":"Brian MacWhinney, Catherine Snow","doi":"10.1111/desc.70072","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70072","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Schaff, Loukatou, Cristia, and Havron (SLC&H) have contributed a fascinating and important analysis of the demographic characteristics of the child language data currently available in the CHILDES database. They were able to supplement information already on the web by soliciting further specifics from many of the original data contributors. They have identified biases in the representation of urbanization, family structure, SES, languages studied, countries represented, and multilingualism. These biases in the availability of data from rural, non-Western, low-education participants speaking non-Indo-European languages raise concerns when drawing conclusions about universality of phenomena, echoing widespread worries within psychology, sociology, and education about the dominance in research studies of data gathered only from WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) populations (Henrich et al. <span>2010</span>).</p><p>Child language data had an even more extreme bias in the 1970s, when the bulk of our transcript data came from typically developing children of English-speaking academics, often in the northeastern United States. Since then, the coverage has broadened greatly to include data from 48 languages, variations in SES, and a rich collection of types of multilingualism. Despite this growth in coverage, the database can never be truly representative of all the patterns of variation in the 2.2 billion children on the planet. This is because it would be difficult to attain fully representative coverage. Despite improvements in recording technology (LENA), automatic speech recognition (Liu et al. <span>2023</span>), natural language processing (Liu and MacWhinney <span>2024</span>), GenAI (Warstadt and Bowman <span>2022</span>), and corpus linguistics (Baayen <span>2010</span>), the collection and analysis of child language samples remains a daunting task. Barriers to data collection include privacy restrictions, researchers who are unwilling to share their data, restrictive IRB policies, lack of recognition for corpus work, logistical problems in rural areas, the need to rely on translators, and scarcity of research support. Given these limitations, the goal of eliminating the gaps so as to produce a fully balanced representation seems unattainable, at least in the near term.</p><p>Fortunately, we can make productive use of the gaps and biases identified by SLC&H to guide our research. We can do this by focusing on the contrasts between universals and variation in language acquisition. This line of research begins by first proposing some universal and then collecting data that could falsify the universal. For example, SLC&H point to studies evaluating the universality of the noun bias, late passive acquisition, reduced parental input in rural communities, variations in gesture typology, or the effects of early bilingualism. In each of these areas, a universal is proposed based on evidence from current cor","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.70072","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144999037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Diversity as a Core Feature of Language Acquisition: A Commentary on Scaff et al. (2025)","authors":"Tilbe Göksun,&nbsp;Aslı Aktan-Erciyes","doi":"10.1111/desc.70064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70064","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This commentary builds on Scaff et al.’s (2025) systematic review of the CHILDES database, highlighting persistent biases in child language corpora and research. We expand the discussion, emphasizing three key areas: (1) the need to diversify naturalistic data across languages to strengthen language acquisition theories; (2) the importance of including diverse child and parent demographics within specific language environments; and (3) the underrepresentation of bilingual samples from non-WEIRD, non-Indo-European contexts. We argue that these limitations not only hinder generalizability but also shape prevalent theoretical assumptions. Promoting inclusive, globally representative corpora is important for advancing a fair and accurate understanding of child language acquisition.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Diversification of naturalistic data across languages strengthens language acquisition theories.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Child and parent characteristics within specific language environments should be included in child language research.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Bilingual samples in CHILDES corpora should be evaluated on their generalizability.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144897725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Brain Structural Connectivity and Morphological Awareness Mediate the Association Between Home Literacy Environment and Reading Outcomes in Children With Family History of Reading Difficulties","authors":"Xianglin Zhang,&nbsp;Min Wang,&nbsp;Hua Shu,&nbsp;Zhichao Xia","doi":"10.1111/desc.70056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70056","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;div&gt;\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 &lt;section&gt;\u0000 \u0000 &lt;p&gt;Previous studies have shown that higher socioeconomic status (SES) and richer home literacy environment (HLE) are associated with better reading outcomes in children with family risk for reading difficulties (RD). Yet, the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying this association remain understudied. This study sought to fill in the gap using both behavioral and neuroimaging methodologies. Eighty-one native Mandarin-speaking children (age = 8.7–12.0 years) and their parents were recruited. Family history (FH) of RD and home environmental factors (SES and HLE) were collected, as well as children's diffusion MRI, reading-related cognitive skills (rapid automatized naming [RAN], phonological awareness [PA], and morphological awareness [MA]), and reading outcomes. Participants were divided into the following groups according to their FH of RD and current reading status: children with a FH of RD who showed typical development (FH+TD) or who developed RD (FH+RD), and a typically developing control group without a FH (FH-TD). Chain mediation analyses showed that in FH+TD, the number of children's books (NCB) was linked to the axial diffusivity (AxD) of children's right superior longitudinal fasciculus (rSLF). This neural metric was further linked to children's silent reading comprehension (SRC) via their MA. No such mediation relationship was shown in either FH+RD or FH-TD. These results suggest that reading-related cognitive skills constitute important pathways linking HLE and reading outcomes in at-risk children who developed typical reading skills, while the right-hemispheric white matter fiber tract may serve as one possible neural intermediary. Our findings have educational implications for developing early interventions that focus on enriching HLE to help mitigate the risk of RD.&lt;/p&gt;\u0000 &lt;/section&gt;\u0000 \u0000 &lt;section&gt;\u0000 \u0000 &lt;h3&gt; Summary&lt;/h3&gt;\u0000 \u0000 &lt;div&gt;\u0000 &lt;ul&gt;\u0000 \u0000 &lt;li&gt;Number of children's books (NCB) is uniquely associated with reading development in children with a family history (FH) of reading difficulties (RD) who nevertheless develop typical reading abilities.&lt;/li&gt;\u0000 \u0000 &lt;li&gt;Rapid automatized naming (RAN) serves as a significant cognitive mediator for oral reading fluency (ORF), and morphological awareness (MA) for silent reading comprehension (SRC). One possible neural mechanism underlying the NCB → MA → SRC mediation pathway could be the white matter structure, rSLF-AxD.&lt;/li&gt;\u0000 \u0000 &lt;li&gt;An updated operational definition is proposed and applied to identify protective factors in children at risk for RD.&lt;/li&gt;\u0000 \u0000 &lt;li&gt;The chain mediation method is used to examine the multi-level pathways (environment-brain-cognition-behavior), as hypothesized by the Multiple Deficit Model (MDM) o","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144894261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Intergenerational Transmission of Valence Bias Is Moderated by Attachment","authors":"Ashley Humphries,&nbsp;Isabella Peckinpaugh,&nbsp;Grace Kupka,&nbsp;Robert James R. Blair,&nbsp;Nim Tottenham,&nbsp;Maital Neta","doi":"10.1111/desc.70068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70068","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>There are individual differences in how people respond to emotionally ambiguous cues (i.e., valence bias), which have important consequences for mental health, development, and social functioning, yet how these differences develop in childhood and adolescence is unknown. Extensive literature shows that children's cognitive biases, including appraisals in uncertain situations, can be influenced by parents. The current study collected valence bias from parent and child dyads (<i>n</i> = 136, children ages 6–17 years, <i>M</i> = 10.92, SD = 3.22) using a dual-valence ambiguity task (i.e., the valence bias task). Using structural equation modeling, we found that a child's valence bias was associated with their parent's valence bias (<i>β</i> = 0.283, <i>p</i> = 0.005). We also explored the effect of parent–child attachment in three facets (communication, alienation, and trust) on this intergenerational transmission. Communication moderated the relationship between parent and child valence bias, such that higher communication led to a stronger relationship between parent and child valence bias (<i>β</i> = 0.03, <i>p</i> = 0.04). These findings suggest that one mechanism that supports valence bias development is the parent's bias, and this may be uniquely influenced by the degree of parent–child communication. This tendency to similarly interpret ambiguous stimuli may result from social learning. Specifically, our results support a theory of generalized shared reality where parents and children who have a greater interpersonal connection (i.e., communication) also share a more similar world view (i.e., valence bias). A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlSDxFDmP7g</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Valence bias represents variability in appraisals of emotional ambiguity, with some people showing greater negativity, and others more positive.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>There is evidence of intergenerational transmission of valence bias, such that children tend to have a bias that mirrors their parents.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Transmission was moderated by parent-child attachment, such that children that report greater communication with their parent show a more similar bias to their parent.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>These findings are discussed in the context of theories on development and generalized shared realities.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.70068","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144894260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Glass Half Full: Limitations in ChiLDES Point to Ways Forward for a More Representative Developmental Science. Commentary on Scaff et al. (2025)","authors":"Virginia A. Marchman,&nbsp;Adriana Weisleder","doi":"10.1111/desc.70065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70065","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144892510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Children Demand an Equal Share of Worthless Objects","authors":"Colin Jacobs,&nbsp;Sebastian Grueneisen,&nbsp;Harriet Over,&nbsp;Jan M. Engelmann","doi":"10.1111/desc.70062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70062","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>A key milestone in the development of fairness is <i>disadvantageous inequity aversion</i>: a willingness to sacrifice valuable rewards to avoid receiving less than a peer. The equal respect hypothesis suggests that, in addition to material concerns, children are also motivated to reject disadvantageous inequity due to interpersonal concerns. To test this prediction, we investigated how young children (<i>N</i> = 184, ages 4–7) respond to receiving less of the objects they explicitly do not desire across three pre-registered experiments. We found that, from 4 years old, children are averse to receiving unequal offers of undesirable objects (Experiment 1) and are even willing to sacrifice a high-value reward to reject inequality of undesirable objects (Experiment 2). Children are less likely to refuse unequal offers of undesirable objects when the distributor provides a reason for giving them less (Experiment 3). Together, these studies demonstrate that interpersonal concerns play a key role in motivating the costly rejection of inequity.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>4–7-year-olds reject unequal allocations of worthless objects despite not liking them (Experiment 1).</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Children even sacrifice a high-value reward to reject unequal allocations of worthless objects (Experiment 2).</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Children reject unequal allocations less often when given a reason for the unequal distribution by the distributor (Experiment 3).</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>This suggests that interpersonal concerns play a key role in motivating the costly rejection of inequity, independent of material consequences.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144892509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Children Cheat to Return a Favor","authors":"Laura Tietz,&nbsp;Felix Warneken,&nbsp;Sebastian Grueneisen","doi":"10.1111/desc.70059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70059","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Reciprocity is a cornerstone of human cooperation, motivating individuals to assist each other at a personal cost, resulting in mutual long-term benefits. However, reciprocity can conflict with honesty norms, such as when returning favors to previous benefactors requires individuals to act dishonestly. The resulting moral dilemmas are difficult to navigate even for adults, yet developmental research has almost exclusively focused on the prosocial aspects of reciprocity. To explore the developmental origins of this conflict, we investigated 5- to 8-year-old children's evaluations of and engagement in prosocial cheating to return a favor. In Study 1, children evaluated protagonists in hypothetical scenarios who cheated to benefit others whom they did or did not owe a favor. Across ages, children condemned cheating and favored honesty over reciprocity from a third-party perspective. In Study 2, children participated in two games in which they had the opportunity to cheat (by peeking behind a barrier or misreporting die-rolling outcomes, respectively) to win prizes for an adult partner who had either previously shared a valued resource with them (reciprocity condition) or not (control condition). Across ages, children were more likely to benefit a partner by cheating when they owed them a favor than when they did not owe them a favor. These findings suggest that children as young as 5 are willing to disregard honesty in favor of reciprocating prosocial acts, highlighting the developmental origins of a tension between interpersonal obligations and moral norms.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>In two studies, we investigated 5- to 8-year-old children's evaluations of and engagement in prosocial cheating and prosocial cheating to return a favor.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>From a third-party perspective, children strongly endorsed rule compliance and condemned cheating, even when it helped someone else.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>When acting themselves, children cheated to benefit a partner, especially when the partner had previously done them a favor.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>The results reveal that reciprocity can override honesty norms in early childhood, shaping moral decision-making.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.70059","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144892511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Impact of Congenital Visual Impairment on Early-Life Exploration: Behavioral Analysis of Temporal and Motor Parameters During a Reach-to-Grasp Playful Task","authors":"Petri Stefania,&nbsp;Riberto Martina,&nbsp;Setti Walter,&nbsp;Campus Claudio,&nbsp;Vitali Helene,&nbsp;Signorini Sabrina,&nbsp;Tinelli Francesca,&nbsp;Serafino Massimiliano,&nbsp;Strazzer Sandra,&nbsp;Giammari Giuseppina,&nbsp;Cocchi Elena,&nbsp;Gori Monica","doi":"10.1111/desc.70067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70067","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Reach-to-grasp behavior is a key developmental milestone in infants, involving coordinated actions such as arm transport, hand pre-shaping, and hand opening and closing. Vision guides the development of these skills, and delays in visual input can impact infants with early visual impairments. However, the effects of a congenital visual impairment on reach-to-grasp behavior in early life remain largely unexplored. To address this gap, we compared the reach-to-grasp abilities of sighted (S) and visually impaired (VI) infants and children, focusing on temporal (Movement and Pick-up times) and motor parameters (body midline crossing with one or two hands and hand preference). We hypothesized that VI children would face greater challenges in planning and executing a rapid and accurate reach-to-grasp movement, particularly during the pick-up phase. To investigate this, we asked sighted and VI infants and children to grasp black spheres of different sizes, placed centrally, on the right, or the left of a table in a dimly lit room. Three key findings emerged from our analysis. First, VI children required more time to pick up the spheres compared to their sighted peers. Second, VI children showed a reduced frequency of one-handed body midline crossing when reaching for lateral spheres, but showed an age-related increase, especially when using both hands. Third, VI children showed no hand preference, unlike S children who favored their right hand for crossing the body midline. These results highlight the role of visual experience in developing effective goal-directed movements and support creating early evidence-based rehabilitation procedures. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/bjwkMQmdFoE.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Understanding the impact of visual impairment on exploration abilities is crucial, especially in early developmental stages.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Currently, there is a significant research gap concerning fine motor skills, particularly reaching and grasping, in visually impaired infants during development.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>We proposed a playful task to collect behavioral data on reaching and grasping skills in visually impaired children.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Results shed light on the pivotal role of visual experience during the first years of life in shaping the maturation of reaching and grasping skills.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.70067","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144892512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Dotted Triangle or Dots of Three: The Role of Representational Content on Working Memory Capacity in Early Childhood","authors":"Tongyan Ren,&nbsp;Xuechen Ding,&nbsp;Chen Cheng","doi":"10.1111/desc.70066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70066","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Working memory (WM) is a critical cognitive system that supports processing a variety of information. Remembering different types of objects may impose different levels of cognitive demands on WM performance. In the present study, we examined 205 children's WM in representing different types of content and its developmental trajectories in early childhood. Experiment 1 examined 5-year-olds’ WM performance when remembering different content (animals and dots). To control perceptual differences, Experiment 2 compared the same-age children's WM performance when the stimuli (e.g., three dots) needed to be encoded from different representational domains (perceptual domain: visuospatial representation; conceptual domain: numerical representation). In Experiment 3, we further investigated the early developmental trends of representing different types of information in WM between the ages of 3 and 5. Results showed that children's WM performance varied over different types of stimuli. When presented with the same stimuli, encoding different aspects of the content (conceptual vs. perceptual) may impose different levels of cognitive demands, and the performance of which was dependent on the WM loads. Together these findings informed our understanding of the role of representational content in children's WM development and provided empirical implications for considering the testing stimuli when designing WM measurements for young children.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Children's working memory (WM) performance varies depending on the type of representational content (conceptual vs. perceptual).</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Encoding the same stimuli from different representational domains imposes varying memory loads in preschool-aged children.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Developmental trends in WM for different types of content emerge between ages three and five.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Findings provide insights for designing assessments tailored to young children's developmental and representational capacities.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.70066","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144869451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sustaining Language Acquisition Research in Africa: A Commentary on Scaff et al. (2025)","authors":"Paul Okyere Omane,&nbsp;Adebola A. Isaiah,&nbsp;Reginald Akuoko Duah,&nbsp;Thierry Nazzi","doi":"10.1111/desc.70063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70063","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;The study by Scaff et al. (&lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;) provides additional evidence for the biases toward WEIRD populations in child language acquisition research. While their findings are unsurprising, they emphasize the urgent need to diversify research samples in terms of speaker population, geography, language, and culture (see also Aravena-Bravo et al. &lt;span&gt;2023&lt;/span&gt;; Cristia et al. &lt;span&gt;2023&lt;/span&gt;; Kidd and Garcia &lt;span&gt;2022&lt;/span&gt;; Singh et al. &lt;span&gt;2023&lt;/span&gt;). Scaff and colleagues convincingly argue for greater diversity and generalizability in the field (see also Kidd and Garcia &lt;span&gt;2022&lt;/span&gt;; Singh et al. &lt;span&gt;2023&lt;/span&gt;), making a strong case for studying child language acquisition in more varied countries, more socioeconomically diverse populations (in terms of socioeconomic status [SES], education, and occupation), underrepresented rural communities, different family structures, and lesser-studied languages from more diverse linguistic families and including more bilingual and multilingual infants with more varied language combinations.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some of the issues raised by Scaff et al. (&lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;) can be addressed by researchers in WEIRD countries, for example, by including or targeting infants from lower SES families, and infants growing in rural areas of industrialized countries (e.g., Gonzalez-Gomez et al. &lt;span&gt;2021&lt;/span&gt;), which will not be discussed here. Rather, in this commentary, we argue that studying language acquisition in rural and urban communities in Africa is essential for diversifying research on child language acquisition and addressing several of the other issues raised in the target article (i.e., language diversity; bi/multilingualism; sociocultural diversity), taking Ghana and Nigeria as examples. We also offer some suggestions to help create developmental corpora from underrepresented languages and speaker populations and, more generally, foster more inclusive language acquisition research.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Regarding language diversity, Scaff et al. (&lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;) report a dominance of Indo-European languages, with English being the most prevalent among them. Although Africa is the most linguistically diverse continent, with approximately 2582 languages (Lodhi &lt;span&gt;1993&lt;/span&gt;), it is striking that not a single indigenous African language—particularly from the Niger-Congo family, which is the largest with 1554 languages (Eberhard et al. &lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;)—is represented in the languages or language combinations (for bilinguals and multilinguals) analyzed by Scaff and colleagues. This shows the extent of linguistic, geographical, and cultural biases in the data underlying most language acquisition theories. Corpus and experimental data from Ghana and Nigeria, where about 73 and 520 languages are spoken, respectively (Eberhard et al. &lt;span&gt;2025&lt;/span&gt;), could contribute to expanding diversity and our understanding of language acquisition processes and to fostering more generalizable theories. While effo","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.70063","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144869452","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}