Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
Department of Human Development and Family Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2024 Nov 7;67(11):4446-4465. doi: 10.1044/2024_JSLHR-24-00321. Epub 2024 Oct 3.
Retrieval practice has been shown to assist the word learning of children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Although this has been true for learning new verbs as well as new nouns and adjectives, these children's overall verb learning has remained quite low. In this preregistered study, we presented novel verbs in transitive sentences with varying subjects/agents and objects/patients to determine if recall could be improved and if retrieval practice continued to be facilitative.
Fourteen children with DLD aged 4-5 years and 13 same-age peers with typical language development (TD) learned eight novel verbs over two sessions. Half of the novel verbs were presented with spacing between study and retrieval trials, and half were presented with the same frequency in study trials without the opportunity for retrieval. All novel verbs were presented in sentences such as, "The woman is deeking the shoe." Children's ability to recall and use the novel verbs in the same sentence structure was tested after the second session and 1 week later. The children were also required to use the novel verbs in bare-stem form in a new structure, as in, "That woman likes to deek the towel."
Both groups of children showed increased recall relative to a previous novel verb study. The children with TD showed the expected advantages of spaced retrieval over repeated study and could use the novel verbs in the new morphological form and sentence structure. The children with DLD, however, showed an advantage for spaced retrieval only shortly after the learning period. These children had great difficulty changing the novel verbs to a bare stem and using them in a new structure.
Although spaced retrieval assists children's novel verb recall, children with DLD in particular require additional help using these verbs with morphological and syntactic flexibility.
检索练习已被证明有助于患有发育性语言障碍（DLD）的儿童学习单词。尽管这对于学习新动词以及新名词和形容词都是如此，但这些儿童的整体动词学习仍然很低。在这项预先注册的研究中，我们用不同的主语/施动者和宾语/受动者呈现了新的及物动词，以确定是否可以提高回忆能力，以及检索练习是否仍然具有促进作用。
14 名 4-5 岁的 DLD 儿童和 13 名具有典型语言发育的同龄儿童（TD）在两个阶段学习了 8 个新动词。一半的新动词在学习和检索试验之间有间隔，另一半在学习试验中以相同的频率呈现，但没有检索的机会。所有新动词都以这样的句子呈现，“女人正在给鞋戴眼罩。”在第二阶段后和 1 周后，测试孩子们回忆和使用相同句子结构的新动词的能力。孩子们还需要在新的结构中以裸词形式使用新动词，例如，“那个女人喜欢给毛巾戴眼罩。”
两组儿童的回忆能力都比之前的新动词研究有所提高。TD 组的儿童表现出间隔检索相对于重复学习的预期优势，并且可以使用新动词的新形态和句子结构。然而，DLD 组的儿童只有在学习期结束后不久才表现出间隔检索的优势。这些儿童很难将新动词转换为裸词并将其用于新结构中。
尽管间隔检索有助于儿童回忆新动词，但 DLD 儿童尤其需要额外的帮助，以使其在使用这些动词时具有形态和句法灵活性。
