High phonological neighborhood density has been associated with both advantages and disadvantages in early word learning. High density may support the formation and fine-tuning of new word sound memories--a process termed lexical configuration (e.g., Storkel, 2004). However, new high-density words are also more likely to be misunderstood as…

We set out to (i) assess the handwriting skills of signing deaf students, and (ii) examine the extent to which their text composition and spelling performances are linked to their handwriting efficiency. We asked 15 prelingually and profoundly deaf middle-school students (M = 15.18 years), all sign-language users, and a group of hearing students…

This study investigated the relationship between specific cognitive patterns of strengths and weaknesses and the errors children make on oral language, reading, writing, spelling, and math subtests from the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement-Third Edition (KTEA-3). Participants with scores from the KTEA-3 and either the Wechsler Intelligence…

This study investigated whether Foygel and Dell's (2000) interactive two-step model of speech production could simulate the number and type of errors made in picture-naming by 68 children of elementary-school age. Results showed that the model provided a satisfactory simulation of the mean error profile of children aged five, six, seven, eight and…

This study presents the first direct comparison of immediate serial recall in semantic dementia (SD) and transcortical sensory aphasia (TSA). Previous studies of the effect of semantic impairment on verbal short-term memory (STM) have led to important theoretical advances. However, different conclusions have been drawn from these two groups. This…

We examined the performance of sequential bilingual children with and without Specific Language Impairment (SLI), who had Spanish as an L1 and English as their L2, on an auditory non-word repetition task using Spanish phonotactic patterns. We also analyzed the accuracy with which this task distinguished these children (according to children's and…

Background: A number of previous studies have revealed that children with Specific Language Impairment have limitations in Phonological Working Memory as revealed by a task that requires them to repeat non-words of increasing syllable length. However, most published studies have used non-words that are phonotactically English. Aims: The purpose…

Nonsense utterances were presented to subjects for immediate recall in order to test two hypotheses: (1) the more complex sounds should be more difficult to recall under memory-taxing conditions; (2) the erroneous recall of a less marked for a more marked sound should occur more frequently than the converse error. (CFM)

To examine possible explanations of reported inaccuracies of children with specific language impairment (SLI) on nonword repetition, study compared repetitions of 54 SLI children and peers for number and type of error, latency, and duration of response. Found no evidence of differences between groups in auditory discrimination or response…

Examines 158 examples of malapropisms and determines three possible sources of this type of error: (1) childhood errors that were never corrected, (2) other kinds of imperfect learning, and (3) breakdown in the storage and retrieval system of the mental lexicon. (AM)