Big Words for Little Kids: Rare Vocabulary Use by Preschool Children

Abstract

Purpose: This study presents a preliminary examination of rare vocabulary use by preschool children using a recently developed tool called the Wordlist for Expressive Rare Vocabulary Evaluation (WERVE). Method: The WERVE was used to identify rare vocabulary words language samples of 74 preschool children ( M age = 56 months). We examined the relations among rare vocabulary use, performance on norm-referenced measures of single-word vocabulary, and language sample measures of language complexity and lexical diversity. Results: Rare vocabulary use was significantly, positively correlated with standard scores on norm-referenced vocabulary measures and with language complexity and lexical diversity in language samples. Children with higher vocabulary scores used significantly more rare vocabulary than children with lower vocabulary scores. Conclusions: The WERVE shows some promise for providing information about the rare vocabulary use of preschool children. Findings from this preliminary study indicate that further research on rare vocabulary use is warranted. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23518845