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Description: How do internal and external factors such as preference and caregiver input affect word learning in 18- to 24-month-old children? We tested 48 18- to 24-month-old children in a gaze-contingent IDS/ADS preference task and a word-object association learning task. Additionally, we recorded mothers producing IDS and ADS. First, maternal input differed in its prosodic features between IDS and ADS. Second, children showed no systematic differences when choosing between the IDS and the ADS speaker. Third, children learned novel word-object associations from both IDS and ADS. Fourth, a generalised linear mixed model revealed that a child’s individual preference modulated word learning: Children showed higher target recognition in the register they preferred. We did not find any relationship between maternal input, children’s preference, or their word learning. Together, these results suggest that children between 18 and 24 months were influenced more by their own preferences than by external input in the current setting. Thus, the current study sheds light on how the input a child perceives and the preferences a child forms can influence a child's word learning behaviour early in life.