An examination of children’s word learning as a function of frequency of presentation, phonological neighborhood density, vocabulary, and nonword repetition
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Date
2011-12-20
Authors
Hebert, Megan
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Abstract
The present study examined variables important in the development and organization of longterm
phonological representations in order to better understand how these impact children’s word
learning. Children 4 through 7 years of age listened to stories which contained target nonwords,
and then completed tasks to test for word learning. The nonwords were from dense or sparse
lexical neighborhoods and were presented two or four times in the story. Children also
completed a receptive vocabulary test and a nonword repetition task. For the first word learning
task, there was a significant effect of frequency and the neighborhood density by frequency
interaction approached conventional levels of statistical significance (p = .055). Children learned
words from dense neighborhoods better only for the lower frequency condition. The current
study also examined the contributions of children’s vocabulary knowledge and nonword
repetition to learning for words from each of dense and sparse neighborhoods. Findings support
the proposal that lexical representations from existing vocabulary knowledge make an important
contribution to word learning for items from both sparse and dense neighborhoods.
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Keywords
Language acquisition , Language arts (primary) , Verbal ability in children