Children with developmental language disorder (DLD; also referred to as specific language impairment) experience a significant deficit in language ability that is longstanding and harmful to the children's academic, social, and eventual economic well-being. Word learning is one of the principal weaknesses in these children. This project focuses on the word learning abilities of four- and five-year-old children with DLD. The goal of the project is to build on the investigators' previous work to determine whether, as has been found thus far, special benefits accrue when these children must frequently recall newly introduced words during the course of learning. In this study, the investigators seek to replicate the advantage that repeated retrieval holds over simple exposure to the words appearing in the context of a story book by increasing the degree to which the words are integrated into the story line.
a significant deficit in language ability (language test score below cutoff for best sensitivity/specificity) or documented age-appropriate language ability.
normal hearing.
no evidence of neurological damage or disease.
scores on tests of nonverbal intelligence above the intellectual disability range
failed hearing screening
known neurological damage or disease
scores on tests of nonverbal intelligence below the intellectual disability range (standard score less than 75)
autism spectrum disorder
Factorial
Retrieval-based word learning: Repeated Spaced Retrieval condition
BehavioralEach child will learn 8 novel nouns referring to unfamiliar plants and animals ("nepp") and a related "meaning" ("a nepp likes rain") in the context of a story book. Four of the nouns will be will be learned using repeated spaced retrieval. In this condition, they will initially hear the information and be asked to retrieve it. Thereafter, they will be asked to retrieve it after hearing 3 intervening words. After each retrieval attempt, they will hear the target information again. This procedure will occur on two consecutive days.
Retrieval-based word learning: Repeated Study condition
BehavioralEach child will learn 8 novel nouns referring to unfamiliar plants and animals ("nepp") and a related "meaning" ("a nepp likes rain") in the context of a story book. Four of the nouns will be will be learned using repeated study trials only (with no retrieval practice). In this condition, they will simply hear the information (word \& meaning) as part of the story. This procedure will occur on two consecutive days.
Word Form Recall Accuracy (number of words correctly recalled) in Repeated Spaced Retrieval and Repeated Study conditions, Day 1
Child is asked to recall and say the word associated with each novel referent.
Word Form Recall Accuracy (number of words correctly recalled) in Repeated Spaced Retrieval and Repeated Study conditions, Day 2
Child is asked to recall and say the word associated with each novel referent.
Word Form Recall Accuracy (number of words correctly recalled) in Repeated Spaced Retrieval and Repeated Study conditions, One week
Child is asked to recall and say the word associated with each novel referent.
Word Meaning Recall Accuracy (number of semantic associations correctly recalled) in Repeated Spaced Retrieval and Repeated Study conditions, Day 1
Child is asked to recall and say semantic information associated with the novel referent.
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Purdue University
Lead sponsor
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Collaborator
