Superordinate Word Knowledge Predicts Longitudinal Vocabulary Growth

Does knowing certain words help children learn other words? We hypothesized that knowledge of more general (more superordinate) words at time-1 would lead to faster vocabulary growth as measured through vocabulary checklists administered at later timepoints. We find that this is indeed the case. Children who have similar vocabularies at time-1, but differ in their productive knowledge of more general words such as "animal", "picture", and "get" go on to have different rates of word learning. Knowledge of more general words is associated with faster vocabulary growth, particularly of words semantically related to the superordinate terms they are reported to produce. This positive relationship between knowledge of more general words and word learning remains even when controlling for measures of verbal and nonverbal intelligence.