Schwartz R G, Leonard L B
J Speech Hear Disord. 1985 May;50(2):141-9. doi: 10.1044/jshd.5002.141.
This investigation examined the influence of unsolicited lexical imitation on the comprehension and on the production of novel words by language-impaired children. Subjects were 13 children (2:8-3:1) exhibiting specific language impairment who were presented with 16 unfamiliar words referring to unfamiliar objects or actions over 10 experimental sessions. Unsolicited imitations appeared to facilitate subsequent production of these words on a posttest. This effect was greatest when these words were also produced spontaneously prior to the posttest. Words that were produced imitatively and spontaneously also appeared more frequently in spontaneous usage than words that were only produced spontaneously. No relationship between such imitations and comprehension was observed. These findings suggest that unsolicited imitations benefit children's lexical acquisition primarily by providing them with additional opportunities to produce words that are in the process of being established in their expressive lexicons.
本研究考察了自发词汇模仿对语言障碍儿童新词理解和产出的影响。研究对象为13名（年龄在2岁8个月至3岁1个月之间）患有特定语言障碍的儿童，在10次实验环节中，向他们呈现了16个指代不熟悉物体或动作的陌生单词。在测试后，自发模仿似乎促进了这些单词的后续产出。当这些单词在测试前也能自发产出时，这种效果最为明显。模仿产出和自发产出的单词在自发使用中出现的频率也比仅自发产出的单词更高。未观察到此类模仿与理解之间的关系。这些发现表明，自发模仿主要通过为儿童提供额外机会来产出正在其表达性词汇库中形成的单词，从而有助于儿童的词汇习得。
