Effects of input manipulations on the word learning abilities of children with and without specific language impairment

2004 ◽  
Vol 25 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
JANICE E. HOROHOV ◽  
JANNA B. OETTING
2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 520-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lise Desmottes ◽  
Thierry Meulemans ◽  
Christelle Maillart

AbstractObjectives: This study aims to compare verbal and motor implicit sequence learning abilities in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Methods: Forty-eight children (24 control and 24 SLI) were administered the Serial Search Task (SST), which enables the simultaneous assessment of implicit spoken words and visuomotor sequences learning. Results: Results showed that control children implicitly learned both the spoken words as well as the motor sequences. In contrast, children with SLI showed deficits in both types of learning. Moreover, correlational analyses revealed that SST performance was linked with grammatical abilities in control children but with lexical abilities in children with SLI. Conclusions: Overall, this pattern of results supports the procedural deficit hypothesis and suggests that domain general implicit sequence learning is impaired in SLI. (JINS, 2016, 22, 1–10)


2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly L. Storkel ◽  
Rouzana Komesidou ◽  
Kandace K. Fleming ◽  
Rebecca Swinburne Romine

Purpose The goal of this study was to provide guidance to clinicians on early benchmarks of successful word learning in an interactive book reading treatment and to examine how encoding and memory evolution during treatment contribute to word learning outcomes by kindergarten children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method Twenty-seven kindergarten children with SLI participated in a preliminary clinical trial using interactive book reading to teach 30 new words. Word learning was assessed at 4 points during treatment through a picture naming test. Results The results indicate that the following performance during treatment was cause for concern, indicating a need to modify the treatment: naming 0–1 treated words correctly at Naming Test 1; naming 0–2 treated words correctly at Naming Test 2; naming 0–3 treated words correctly at Naming Test 3. In addition, the results showed that encoding was the primary limiting factor in word learning, but memory evolution also contributed (albeit to a lesser degree) to word learning success. Conclusion Case illustrations demonstrate how a clinician's understanding of a child's word learning strengths and weaknesses develop over the course of treatment, substantiating the importance of regular data collection and clinical decision-making to ensure the best possible outcomes for each individual child.


2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 1011-1025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelley Gray ◽  
Andrea Pittman ◽  
Juliet Weinhold

Purpose In this study, the authors assessed the effects of phonotactic probability and neighborhood density on word-learning configuration by preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI) and typical language development (TD). Method One hundred thirty-one children participated: 48 with SLI, 44 with TD matched on age and gender, and 39 with TD matched on vocabulary and gender. Referent identification and naming were assessed in a computer-based learning context. Results For referent identification, preschoolers with TD benefited from high phonotactic probability, and the younger group also benefited from low neighborhood density. In contrast, the SLI group benefited only from high neighborhood density. For naming, older preschoolers with TD benefited most from low-density words, younger preschoolers with TD benefited most from words with high phonotactic probability, and the SLI group showed no advantage. Conclusion Phonotactic probability and neighborhood density had different effects on each group that may be related to children's ability to store well-specified word forms and to the size of their extant lexicon. The authors argue that cross-study comparisons of word learning are needed; therefore, researchers should describe word, referent, and learner characteristics and the learning context and should situate their studies in a triggering → configuration + engagement model of word learning.


1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 1444-1458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Ellis Weismer ◽  
Linda J. Hesketh

This investigation examined the influence of emphatic stress on children's novel word learning. Forty school-age children participated in this study, including 20 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 20 children with normal language (NL) development. Results indicated that there were no significant stress effects for comprehension or recognition of novel words (for which all children demonstrated relatively high levels of performance); however, children in both groups exhibited significantly better production of words that had been presented with emphatic stress than with neutral stress. These findings are discussed within a limited capacity framework of language processing.


2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 1452-1467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelley Gray

Purpose: This study investigated whether phonological or semantic encoding cues promoted better word learning for children with specific language impairment (SLI) and whether this treatment differentially affected children with SLI and normal language (NL). Method: Twenty-four preschoolers ages 4;0 (years;months) to 5;11 with SLI and 24 age- and gender-matched children with NL participated. The between-group factor was language group (NL, SLI) and within-group factors were language modality (comprehension, recognition, production) and treatment condition (phonological, semantic). Word learning was assessed during fast mapping, word learning, and posttesting with trials to criterion calculated for the number of words learned. A drawing task assessed the change in semantic representation of words. Results: The SLI group comprehended more words in the semantic condition and produced more words in the phonological condition, but the NL group performed similarly in both. The NL group required significantly fewer trials than the SLI group to comprehend words in the semantic and phonological conditions and to produce words in the semantic condition, but between-group differences for production were not significant for the phonological condition. Conclusions: The results suggest that preschoolers with SLI may benefit from cues that highlight the phonological or semantic properties of words but that different cues may aid different aspects of word learning.


2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 138-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rouzana Komesidou ◽  
Holly L. Storkel

The learning of a new word involves at least two processes: learning from input and memory evolution in the absence of input. The authors will review the literature and describe the relationship between these two processes and novel word learning by children with specific language impairment (SLI). Cases from an ongoing preliminary clinical trial of word learning in kindergarten children with SLI will serve as clinical illustrations. In particular, one case will be used to demonstrate a pattern of good learning from input and good memory retention (i.e., desirable learning pattern during treatment). Three additional cases will be used to illustrate patterns indicative of poor learning from input and/or poor memory retention. Suggestions will be provided concerning how treatment can be altered when these patterns appear, to promote desirable learning outcomes.


2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 439-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marysia Nash ◽  
Morag L. Donaldson

Word learning in 16 children with specific language impairment (SLI) was compared with that of chronological-age controls (CAC) and vocabulary-age controls (VAC), to examine the extent and nature of word-learning deficits in the children with SLI. The children were exposed to novel words in a story and an explicit teaching context. Five tasks assessed how much the children had learned about the words' phonological form and semantic properties after 6 repetitions (Time 1) and again after 12 repetitions (Time 2) of the words in each context. The SLI group performed significantly worse than the CAC group at both Time 1 and Time 2 on all measures of the words presented in both contexts. They performed similarly to the VAC group (who were on average 2 1/2 years younger) on Time 1 and Time 2 measures from both contexts, except for the Naming task at Time 2, on which their performance was significantly lower. These findings suggest that children with vocabulary deficits have difficulties with both phonological and semantic aspects of word learning.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Adlof ◽  
Lauren Baron ◽  
Bethany A Bell ◽  
Joanna Scoggins

Purpose: Word learning difficulties have been documented in multiple studies involving children with dyslexia and developmental language disorder (DLD; see also specific language impairment (SLI)). However, no previous studies have directly contrasted word learning in these two frequently co-occurring disorders. We examined word learning in second grade students with DLD-only and dyslexia-only as compared to each other, peers with both disorders (DLD+dyslexia), and peers with typical development (TD). We hypothesized that children with dyslexia-only and DLD-only would show differences in word learning due to differences in phonological and semantic skills. Method: Children (N = 244) were taught eight novel pseudowords paired with unfamiliar objects. The teaching script included multiple exposures to the phonological form, the pictured object, a verbal semantic description of the object, and spaced retrieval practice opportunities. Word learning was assessed immediately after instruction with tasks requiring recall or recognition of the phonological and semantic information. Results: Children with dyslexia-only performed significantly better on existing vocabulary measures than their peers with DLD-only. On experimental word learning measures, children in the dyslexia-only and DLD+dyslexia groups showed significantly poorer performance than TD children on all word learning tasks. Children with DLD-only differed significantly from the TD group on a single word learning task assessing verbal semantic recall. Conclusions: Overall, results indicated that children with dyslexia display broad word learning difficulties extending beyond the phonological domain; however, this contrasted with their relatively strong performance on measures of existing vocabulary knowledge. More research is needed to understand relations between word learning abilities and overall vocabulary knowledge and how to close vocabulary gaps for children with both disorders.


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