Overheard and Understood: A Systematic Review of Children's Learning From Overhearing

Research conducted in the early 2000s found that children learn not just from what they are told directly, but from what they overhear as well (e.g., Akhtar et al., 2001). Over the last two decades, articles that explore and expand on the topic of children's overhearing have emerged and moved the literature in new directions. To explore these emerging trends, a systematic review of 24 articles on children's overhearing was conducted. Articles were evaluated on dimensions related to quality, experimental design, and study results. The resultant analysis had three goals: (a) to determine whether literature suggests that children learn objective information from overhearing, (b) to determine whether literature suggests that children learn social information from overhearing, and (c) to explore recent trends in overhearing literature such as overhearing technological sources. The general discussion then explains the importance of future research that could impact researcher, parent, and educator understanding of how children learn from overhearing.