Administrators as Scholars is dedicated to the intellectual growth of educators through a partnership between Princeton University’s Program in Teacher Preparation and the Teachers as Scholars member schools. It was formed with the objective of providing scholarly and intellectually engaging opportunities for administrators. The seminar is open to administrators from any grade level or content area, and it is intended to promote life-long learning. There is no fee for Administrators as Scholars as it is included as a benefit of being one of the member districts. Administrators as Scholars is made possible through the support of the Program in Teacher Preparation and area schools and districts.

2021-22 ADMINSTRATORS AS SCHOLARS

Adele Goldberg, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
November 30, 2021 from 9:00 - 11:30am

Hidden Challenges in Vocabulary Learning: Words with Multiple Meanings When Learned by Autistic Children

Between 40-80% of all words evoke multiple, related conventional meanings (are polysemous). For instance, baseball caps, pen caps, and bottle caps are all called cap; while these meanings are clearly related to one another, as all of these types of caps cover something tightly, the distinct meanings must be learned, since lids also cover something tightly but are not called caps. This point is evident from differences in conventions across languages. Spanish speakers, for instance, refer to pen caps, bottle caps, and lids with the same label (tapa), but refer to baseball caps with a different label (gorra). Word learners must therefore learn the range of related meanings for the vast majority of common words, as is specific to the academic language of each content area. In this workshop we will discuss how and why the meanings of a word tend to extend from a “prototypical’ meaning. We will also discuss the special challenge words with multiple meanings pose for children on the autism spectrum, and for children whose first language is not English. This workshop is intended to be of interest to anyone who has debated what a word “really means,” as well as those with a particular interest in atypical or second language learning.

This seminar is recommended for administrators, supervisors, principals, and superintendents.

Adele Goldberg, Ph.D., has been at Princeton University as a Professor of Psychology and Linguistics since 2004. She is best known for the construction grammar in the tradition of cognitive linguistics. She received her M.A. and  Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley. She has done serveral research, including using a brain scanner to figure out how subjects processed metaphors and whether or not people implicitly imagine the physical sensation behind a metaphor as they use them. She has recieved several awards, including being the 2019 Linguistic Society of America-Charles Fillmore Professorship recipient.