Learning Verbs in Sentences: Children With Developmental Language Disorder and the Role of Retrieval Practice.

Purpose: 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.

Word learning by children with developmental language disorder: Identifying gaps in our understanding of spaced retrieval effects.

Background And Aims: Current evidence shows that children with developmental language disorder (DLD) benefit from spaced retrieval during word learning activities. Word recall is quite good relative to recall with alternative word learning procedures. However, recall on an absolute basis can be improved further; many studies report that fewer than two-thirds of the words are learned, even with the assistance of spaced retrieval during the learning activities.

Retrieval Practice and Word Learning by Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Does Expanding Retrieval Provide Additional Benefit?

Purpose: The word learning of preschool-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD) is improved when spaced retrieval practice is incorporated into the learning sessions. In this preregistered study, we compared two types of spacing-an expanding retrieval practice schedule and an equally spaced schedule-to determine if one of these approaches yields better word learning outcomes for the children.

Method: Fourteen children with DLD aged 4-5 years and 14 same-age children with typical language development (TD) learned eight novel nouns over two sessions.

Verb Vocabulary Supports Event Probability Use in Developmental Language Disorder.

Purpose: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) tend to interpret noncanonical sentences like passives using event probability (EP) information regardless of structure (e.g., by interpreting "The dog was chased by the squirrel" as "The dog chased the squirrel").

Sources of Misinterpretation in the Input and Their Implications for Language Intervention With English-Speaking Children.

Purpose: In English and related languages, many preschool-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have difficulties using tense and agreement consistently. In this review article, we discuss two potential input-related sources of this difficulty and offer several possible strategies aimed at circumventing input obstacles.

Method: We review a series of studies from English, supplemented by evidence from computational modeling and studies of other languages.

Can Retrieval Practice Facilitate Verb Learning in Children With Developmental Language Disorder and Their Peers With Typical Language Development?

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 ( = 60.

The Contributions of Immediate Retrieval and Spaced Retrieval to Word Learning in Preschoolers with Developmental Language Disorder.

Background And Aims: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) benefit from word learning procedures that include a mix of immediate retrieval and spaced retrieval trials. In this study, we examine the relative contribution of these two types of retrieval.

Methods: We examine data from Haebig et al.

Word-learning trajectories influence long-term recall in children with developmental language disorder and typical development.

Introduction: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have difficulties learning words. However, the severity of these difficulties can be reduced through word learning procedures that incorporate repeated spaced retrieval (RSR). Previous studies have shown positive outcomes with RSR but we still know very little about how learning unfolds with this procedure.

The Neural Underpinnings of Processing Newly Taught Semantic Information: The Role of Retrieval Practice.

Purpose Recent behavioral studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of implementing retrieval practice into learning tasks for children. Such approaches have revealed that repeated spaced retrieval (RSR) is particularly effective in promoting children's learning of word form and meaning information. This study further examines how retrieval practice enhances learning of word meaning information at the behavioral and neural levels.

A multi-study examination of the role of repeated spaced retrieval in the word learning of children with developmental language disorder.

Background: Many children with developmental language disorders (DLD) have well-documented weaknesses in vocabulary. In recent years, investigators have explored the nature of these weaknesses through the use of novel word learning paradigms. These studies have begun to uncover specific areas of difficulty and have provided hints about possible intervention strategies that might help these children learn words more accurately and efficiently.

Novel Adjective Processing in Preschool Children: Evidence From Event-Related Brain Potentials.

Purpose Recent findings in preschool children indicated novel adjective recall was enhanced when learned using repeated retrieval with contextual reinstatement (RRCR) compared to repeated study (RS). Recall was similar for learned pictures used during training and new (generalized) pictures with the same adjective features. The current study compared the effects of learning method and learned/generalized pictures on the neural processes mediating the recognition of novel adjectives.

Retrieval Practice and Word Learning in Children With Specific Language Impairment and Their Typically Developing Peers.

Purpose In this article, we review the role of retrieval practice on the word learning and retention of children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method Following a brief review of earlier findings on word learning in children with SLI and the assumptions behind retrieval practice, four experiments are described that compared novel words learned in a repeated spaced retrieval condition and those learned in either a repeated study condition or a repeated immediate retrieval condition. Preschool-age children with SLI and their same-age peers with typical language development were the participants in all experiments.

After Initial Retrieval Practice, More Retrieval Produces Better Retention Than More Study in the Word Learning of Children With Developmental Language Disorder.

Purpose Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) often have difficulty with word learning. Recent studies have shown that incorporating retrieval practice provides a significant benefit to this learning. However, we have not yet discovered the best balance between the amount of retrieval and the amount of study (hearing the word in the presence of the referent) that is provided.

Adjective Learning in Young Typically Developing Children and Children With Developmental Language Disorder: A Retrieval-Based Approach.

Purpose There are strong retention benefits when learners frequently test themselves during the learning period. This practice of repeated retrieval has recently been applied successfully to children's word learning. In this study, we apply a repeated retrieval procedure to the learning of novel adjectives by preschool-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and their typically developing (TD) peers.

Retrieval-Based Word Learning in Young Typically Developing Children and Children With Development Language Disorder II: A Comparison of Retrieval Schedules.

Purpose Retrieval practice has been found to be a powerful strategy to enhance long-term retention of new information; however, the utility of retrieval practice when teaching young children new words is largely unknown, and even less is known for young children with language impairments. The current study examined the effect of 2 different retrieval schedules on word learning at both the behavioral and neural levels. Method Participants included 16 typically developing children ( M = 61.

Retrieval-Based Word Learning in Young Typically Developing Children and Children With Developmental Language Disorder I: The Benefits of Repeated Retrieval.

Purpose Scholars have long noted that retention improves significantly when learners frequently test themselves on the new material rather than engage in continuous study with no intermittent testing. In this study, we apply the notion of repeated testing or retrieval to the process of word learning in preschool-age children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Method Novel words and their meanings were taught to 10 children with DLD and 10 typically developing (TD) children matched on age (DLD, M = 63.

Sensitivity to Morphosyntactic Information in Preschool Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder: A Follow-Up Study.

Purpose: This study tested children's sensitivity to tense/agreement information in fronted auxiliaries during online comprehension of questions (e.g., Are the nice little dogs running?).

Extending the Application of Tense and Agreement Measures: A Reply to Rispoli and Hadley (2018).

Purpose: In this reply, we respond to comments on our article "Tracking the Growth of Tense and Agreement in Children With Specific Language Impairment: Differences Between Measures of Accuracy, Diversity, and Productivity."

Conclusion: The finite verb morphology composite can be disproportionately affected by frequently occurring grammatical forms produced through direct activation. This assumption was one of the reasons we wished to compare this measure to the tense marker total and the tense/agreement productivity score.

An Initial Investigation of the Neural Correlates of Word Processing in Preschoolers With Specific Language Impairment.

Purpose: Previous behavioral studies have found deficits in lexical-semantic abilities in children with specific language impairment (SLI), including reduced depth and breadth of word knowledge. This study explored the neural correlates of early emerging familiar word processing in preschoolers with SLI and typical development.

Method: Fifteen preschoolers with typical development and 15 preschoolers with SLI were presented with pictures followed after a brief delay by an auditory label that did or did not match.

Tracking the Growth of Tense and Agreement in Children With Specific Language Impairment: Differences Between Measures of Accuracy, Diversity, and Productivity.

Purpose: Composite measures of children's use of tense and agreement morphology differ in their emphasis on accuracy, diversity, or productivity, yet little is known about how these different measures change over time. An understanding of these differences is especially important for the study of children with specific language impairment, given these children's extraordinary difficulty with this aspect of grammar.

Method: We computed 3 types of composite scores from spontaneous speech samples obtained from 17 preschoolers with specific language impairment before, during, and after their participation in a language intervention study.

Third person singular -s in typical development and specific language impairment: Input and neighbourhood density.

The purpose of this study was to examine factors promoting the use of third person singular -s by 23 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 21 children with typical development (TD). Relative proportions of third person singular -s forms in the input (input proportion) were calculated for 25 verbs based on data from an American English corpus of child-directed speech. Neighbourhood density values were also collected for these verbs.

Neural patterns elicited by sentence processing uniquely characterize typical development, SLI recovery, and SLI persistence.

Background: A substantial amount of work has examined language abilities in young children with specific language impairment (SLI); however, our understanding of the developmental trajectory of language impairment is limited. Along with studying the behavioral changes that occur across development, it is important to examine the neural indices of language processing for children with different language trajectories. The current study sought to examine behavioral and neural bases of language processing in adolescents showing three different trajectories: those with normal language development (NL), those exhibiting persistent SLI (SLI-Persistent), and those with a history of SLI who appear to have recovered (SLI-Recovered).

The Changing View of Input in the Treatment of Children With Grammatical Deficits.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to present 3 approaches that emphasize the role that input plays in the treatment of grammatical deficits in children with language impairments.

Method: These approaches-input informativeness, competing sources of input, and high variability-were selected because they go beyond issues of token frequency and emphasize instead type frequency, relative frequency, and frequency at an abstract as well as a concrete level of grammar. Each of these approaches can be applied to the grammatical deficits seen in children with specific language impairment and can be readily used with well-established procedures, such as focused stimulation and recasting.

Sensitivity to Morphosyntactic Information in 3-Year-Old Children With Typical Language Development: A Feasibility Study.

Purpose: This study tested the feasibility of a method designed to assess children's sensitivity to tense/agreement information in fronted auxiliaries during online comprehension of questions (e.g., Are the nice little dogs running?).

A Clinical Evaluation of the Competing Sources of Input Hypothesis.

Purpose: Our purpose was to test the competing sources of input (CSI) hypothesis by evaluating an intervention based on its principles. This hypothesis proposes that children's use of main verbs without tense is the result of their treating certain sentence types in the input (e.g.