University of South Carolina, Columbia.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2021 Jul 16;64(7):2734-2749. doi: 10.1044/2021_JSLHR-20-00217. Epub 2021 Jun 28.
Purpose Word learning difficulties have been documented in multiple studies involving children with dyslexia and developmental language disorder (DLD; see also specific language impairment). However, no previous studies have directly contrasted word learning in these two frequently co-occurring disorders. We examined word learning in second-grade students with DLD-only and dyslexia-only as compared to each other, peers with both disorders (DLD + dyslexia), and peers with typical development. We hypothesized that children with dyslexia-only and DLD-only would show differences in word learning due to differences in their core language strengths and weaknesses. Method Children ( = 244) were taught eight novel pseudowords paired with unfamiliar objects. The teaching script included multiple exposures to the phonological form, the pictured object, a verbal semantic description of the object, and spaced retrieval practice opportunities. Word learning was assessed immediately after instruction with tasks requiring recall or recognition of the phonological and semantic information. Results Children with dyslexia-only performed significantly better on existing vocabulary measures than their peers with DLD-only. On experimental word learning measures, children in the dyslexia-only and DLD + dyslexia groups showed significantly poorer performance than typically developing children on all word learning tasks. Children with DLD-only differed significantly from the TD group on a single word learning task assessing verbal semantic recall. Conclusions Overall, results indicated that children with dyslexia display broad word learning difficulties extending beyond the phonological domain; however, this contrasted with their relatively strong performance on measures of existing vocabulary knowledge. More research is needed to understand relations between word learning abilities and overall vocabulary knowledge and how to close vocabulary gaps for children with both disorders. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14832717.
目的 在涉及阅读障碍和发育性语言障碍（DLD；也见特定语言损伤）儿童的多项研究中，已经记录了单词学习困难。然而，以前的研究并未直接对比这两种经常同时发生的疾病中的单词学习。我们比较了仅患有 DLD 和仅患有阅读障碍的二年级学生的单词学习情况，并与患有两种疾病的同伴（DLD+阅读障碍）和具有典型发育的同伴进行了比较。我们假设仅患有阅读障碍和仅患有 DLD 的儿童在单词学习方面会存在差异，因为他们的核心语言优势和劣势不同。 方法 （n=244）儿童接受了 8 个新的假词与不熟悉的物体配对的教学。教学脚本包括多次呈现语音形式、图片物体、物体的口头语义描述以及间隔检索练习机会。在教学后立即通过要求回忆或识别语音和语义信息的任务评估单词学习。 结果 仅患有阅读障碍的儿童在现有词汇量测试中的表现明显优于仅患有 DLD 的同龄人。在实验性单词学习测试中，阅读障碍组和 DLD+阅读障碍组的儿童在所有单词学习任务上的表现均明显差于正常发育的儿童。仅患有 DLD 的儿童在评估口头语义回忆的单个单词学习任务上与 TD 组存在显著差异。 结论 总体而言，结果表明，阅读障碍儿童表现出广泛的单词学习困难，超出了语音领域；然而，这与他们在现有词汇知识测量上相对较强的表现形成对比。需要更多的研究来了解单词学习能力与整体词汇知识之间的关系，以及如何为患有两种疾病的儿童缩小词汇差距。 补充材料 https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14832717.
