# Context and multiple meanings: Homophone learning in early childhood

> **NIH NIH R15** · NORTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $434,929

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
One aspect of the mission of the NICHD is to support basic research in human development.
The Language Development and Multilingualism program supports research into the
mechanisms underlying typical language development and language related processes. The
research proposed here will ask how children learn that a word has more than one meaning.
Homophones are common in speech to and by children and yet most theories of word learning
do not include an account of how they are learned. The proposed studies will use a cross-
situational word learning task, where children learn new words for new objects without being
specifically taught them, to directly test whether a range of previously posited information
sources support children’s learning of homophones. These studies in particular ask how
children learn about multiple meanings for words when they are not directly taught that a word
has more than one meaning. Because this is how children learn most words, these studies will
better represent real-world learning than other studies have. These studies support the mission
of the NICHD by providing insight into processes of typical child development, specifically the
learning of words. Understanding how children learn about homophones in speech may also
have important implications for early literacy, as the need to map multiple meanings on to a
single form also arises in the domain of reading.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10873553
- **Project number:** 1R15HD115135-01
- **Recipient organization:** NORTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Erin Conwell
- **Activity code:** R15 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $434,929
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-04-04 → 2027-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10873553

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10873553, Context and multiple meanings: Homophone learning in early childhood (1R15HD115135-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-28 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10873553. Licensed CC0.

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