Vocabulary growth through reading in adolescents with language learning disabilities: A case study [abstract]

Abstract only availableBackground. The amount of vocabulary development that takes place during the school-age years is impressive; children acquire about 3,000 words a year (Beck & McKeown, 1991). A primary means of vocabulary development during this period is through written exposure to words. Vocabulary acquisition through reading happens incrementally. Following an initial exposure, children acquire a form of partial word knowledge (Wagovich & Newhoff, 2004). Over time and with additional exposures to a word, a more complete understanding of the word develops. The purpose of this case study is to shed light on processes of partial word knowledge growth in a child with a language-learning disability. Method. The case study participant was a 13 year, 10 month old, African-American female, with a history of learning disability and reading difficulty. Language testing, administered as part of a larger study, confirmed that receptive and expressive language were areas of significant weakness, relative to nonverbal reasoning skills. To observe processes of partial word knowledge growth in this individual, the child received a vocabulary pretest, followed by three repeated readings of two stories, each containing eight nouns and eight verbs. Story reading sessions occurred two to three days apart, and each session concluded with posttesting, to assess four types of partial word knowledge growth. In a final session, occurring three days after the last reading session, testing was administered to assess retention of word knowledge. Results. Data will be graphed to indicate the participant's partial word knowledge growth, across the four types of word knowledge measured, and across each exposure to the words in the texts. Results will be discussed in light of previous work in this area and in light of the larger project from which this case study comes. Clinical and research implications of this work will be highlighted.National Institutes of Healt

Growth of orthographic representations in children with LLD [abstract]

Abstract only availableOne aspect of word learning from reading is knowledge of the orthographic representation of a word. Children with language-learning disabilities (LLD) might be expected to have greater difficulties than peers acquiring this aspect of word knowledge. The present study examines these children's incremental growth in orthographic representations of unfamiliar words, following three contextual, story-based exposures to the words. Sixteen participants with LLD, ages 12;8 to 18;10 years, and seven typically developing age-matched peers read two stories containing 16 unfamiliar words, three times each. Following each reading, they completed a checklist task requiring them to write sentences/definitions for or circle any words they believed to be real words. The checklist contained common words, the target unfamiliar words, and orthographically similar nonwords. Descriptively, findings suggested that, following story readings, the children with LLD (a) responded that fewer of the target words, encountered in the stories, were real words, relative to the performance of age-matched participants; and (b) responded that more of the orthographically similar nonwords (foils) were real words, relative to age-matched participants. This pattern of performance was apparent even after the children had read the stories containing the target words multiple times.MU Undergraduate Research Scholars Progra

Phonological and Semantic Contributions to Verbal Short-Term Memory in Young Children With Developmental Stuttering

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the verbal short-term memory skills of children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS) in 2 experiments, focusing on the influence of phonological and semantic similarity. Method Participants were 42 CWS and 42 CWNS between the ages of 3;0 and 5;11 (years;months). In Experiment 1, children completed the phonological similarity task, in which they listened to lists of phonologically similar and dissimilar words and then repeated them when signaled to do so. In Experiment 2, children completed another forward span task, the semantic category task, which is similar to the phonological similarity task, except that it consisted of lists of semantically homogeneous and heterogeneous words. Main dependent variables were cumulative memory span, proportion of errors by type, and speech reaction time (SRT) for correct responses. Results The CWS exhibited significantly shorter memory spans for phonologically dissimilar words and were less affected by the phonological qualities of the words than the CWNS in Experiment 1, based on the findings of both between-groups and within-group analyses. In Experiment 2, although the groups did not differ in their performance in either condition, within-group analyses revealed that the CWNS benefitted from semantic similarity, whereas the CWS did not. The between-groups difference in absolute difference scores, however, did not reach significance. The CWS produced more omissions and false alarms than the CWNS in both experiments, but the 2 groups of children were otherwise comparable in SRT, although the CWS exhibited overall faster SRT than the CWNS in Experiment 2. Conclusions Verbal short-term memory is one domain-general cognitive process in which CWS display weakness relative to typically fluent peers. These weaknesses are likely due, in part, to differences in phonological and, perhaps, semantic processing of words to aid memory