One approach to studying how children acquire language is to simulate language acquisition through computational modelling. Computational models implement theories of language acquisition and simulation outcomes can then be tested against existing real-world data or in new empirical research. It is more than ten years ago that Journal of Child Language published a special issue on the topic, edited and introduced by Brian MacWhinney (MacWhinney, 2010). Now is thus a good time to take stock of recent developments by bringing together a collection of articles that explore recent research and insights from computational modelling of child language acquisition.

研究儿童如何习得语言的一种方法是通过计算建模来模拟语言习得。计算模型实现语言习得理论，然后可以根据现有的现实世界数据或新的实证研究来测试模拟结果。十多年前，《儿童语言杂志》出版了关于该主题的特刊，由 Brian MacWhinney 编辑和介绍（MacWhinney，2010）。因此，现在是通过汇集一系列文章来评估最新进展的好时机，这些文章探讨了儿童语言习得计算模型的最新研究和见解。