PPVT and MCDI: Exploring optimal vocabulary measuring instruments and the noun bias

Abstract

In many languages, young children rst learn more nouns than verbs, although this appears not to be universal: Mandarin-speaking children show a verb bias (Dhillon, 2010). The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (MCDI) have been widely used to assess receptive vocabulary. The question is whether these tests are also viable for measuring learning at the level of grammatical class in order to diagnose the presence of a noun bias (vs. verbs). In this exploratory study, an attempt is made to answer this question by investigating the composition of these tests, by means of simulations with biased children and by exploring the development of the noun bias in young children. In addition, the English and Spanish versions are compared against each other and a simple idea is proposed on how the design of an instrument could be improved for it to be viable for measuring noun biases.