Have you heard of shape bias? It’s a little bit brilliant! When they’re around two or three years old, your child will start to group objects by their shape and give same-shaped things the same name. So, if a child knows the word car and sees a new car-shaped toy, they’ll assume it’s… a car! And hopefully they’ll be right.
Shape bias is actually fantastic for your child’s language learning. How do we know? Science!Scientists spent nine weekly play dates trying to improve a group of toddlers' shape-bias. They taught them new words by showing them lots of different examples of the same thing. So, for ‘bucket’,they showed them different buckets:a big metal one, a small blue plastic one, a square mop bucket, and so on. The results were amazing. After the training, the children had learned much more than just a few new words. They’d increased not only their shape bias but also their overall vocabulary. Both were much higher than usual for children of their age.
This suggests that increasing your child’s shape bias, improves their ability to learn new words!So as clever little tricks go, it’s a winner. You can increase your little one’s shape bias by showing them lots of different examples of the same thing and, of course, naming them. So, you might say ‘this is your sippy cup, this is Daddy’s tea cup and this is Mummy’s teacup’. Sounds too easy but, believe it or not, they’re learning!
Have you heard of shape bias?
When they’re around two or three years old, your child will start to group objects by their shape.
Image caption, When they’re around two or three years old, your child will start to group objects by their shape and give same-shaped things the same name.
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