ERIC Number: EJ1391787
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023-Apr
Pages: 25
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1092-4388
EISSN: EISSN-1558-9102
Can Retrieval Practice Facilitate Verb Learning in Children with Developmental Language Disorder and Their Peers with Typical Language Development?
Leonard, Laurence B.; Deevy, Patricia; Horvath, Sabrina; Christ, Sharon L.; Karpicke, Jeffrey; Kueser, Justin B.
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, v66 n4 p1309-1333 Apr 2023
Purpose: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have well-documented verb learning difficulties. In this study, we asked whether the inclusion of retrieval practice during the learning period would facilitate these children's verb learning relative to a similar procedure that provided no retrieval opportunities. Method: Eleven children with DLD (M[subscript age] = 60.09 months) and 12 children with typical language development (TD; M[subscript age] = 59.92 months) learned four novel verbs in a repeated spaced retrieval (RSR) condition and four novel verbs in a repeated study (RS) condition. The words in the two conditions were heard an equal number of times, in the context of video-recorded actors performing novel actions. Results: Recall testing immediately after the learning period and 1 week later revealed greater recall for novel verbs in the RSR condition than for novel verbs in the RS condition. This was true for both groups, and for immediate as well as 1-week testing. The RSR advantage remained when children had to recall the novel verbs while watching new actors perform the novel actions. However, when tested in contexts requiring the children to inflect the novel verbs with "--ing" for the first time, the children with DLD were much less likely to do so than their peers with TD. Even words in the RSR condition were only inconsistently inflected. Conclusions: Retrieval practice provides benefits to verb learning--an important finding given the challenges that verbs present to children with DLD. However, these benefits do not appear to automatically translate to the process of adding inflections to newly learned verbs but rather appear to be limited to the operations of learning the verbs' phonetic forms and mapping these forms onto associated actions.
Descriptors: Language Impairments, Developmental Delays, Verbs, Language Acquisition, Young Children, Novelty (Stimulus Dimension), Video Technology, Recall (Psychology), Teaching Methods, Individual Characteristics, Repetition, Program Effectiveness
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. 2200 Research Blvd #250, Rockville, MD 20850. Tel: 301-296-5700; Fax: 301-296-8580; e-mail: slhr@asha.org; Web site: http://jslhr.pubs.asha.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) (DHHS/NIH)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Indiana
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children; Childhood Autism Rating Scale; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test
Grant or Contract Numbers: R01DC014708; F31DC018435; T32DC00030