Receptive Word Research Articles

Infant Word Learning From Commercially Available Video In The US

Based on the assumption that commercial screen media offers no advantages to children under 2, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends no exposure for them. However, few experimental tests of this assumption have been conducted. Utilizing a randomized controlled design, we examined vocabulary development in children ages 8 to 15 months. Experimental group infants were exposed to Baby Einstein's Baby Wordsworth DVD for 1 month, with vocabulary assessed at baseline, and at 1 and 3 months after viewing. Results indicated that the experimental group showed greater gains in receptive (understood) words on the CDI (β = .10, p < .01) and on DVD specific words (β = .11, p < .01), compared to controls, who were not exposed to the video. There were no differences between the groups in expressive (spoken) vocabulary. Results are discussed in the context of current and ongoing research on infant and toddler word learning from video.

Brain dynamics of word familiarization in 20-month-olds: Effects of productive vocabulary size

The present study investigated the brain mechanisms involved during young children’s receptive familiarization with new words, and whether the dynamics of these mechanisms are related to the child’s productive vocabulary size. To this end, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from 20-month-old children in a pseudoword repetition task. Results revealed distinct patterns of repetition effects for children with large and small productive vocabularies. High producers showed evidence of recognizing the novel words already after three presentations, while the low producers needed five presentations to display a recognition effect. The familiarization process was manifested in the modulations of two components, the N200–400 and a later fronto-central component, which appeared to increase in amplitude until a certain level of encoding was reached and then decrease with further repetition. These findings suggest a relation between the onset of the productive vocabulary spurt and the rate of receptive word familiarization.

Productive Vocabulary Size Predicts Event-related Potential Correlates of Fast Mapping in 20-Month-Olds

Although it is well documented that children undergo a productive vocabulary spurt late in the second year, it is unclear whether this development is accompanied by equally significant advances in receptive word processing. In the present study, we tested an electrophysiological procedure for assessing receptive word learning in young children, and the impact of productive vocabulary size for performance in this task. We found that 20-month-olds with high productive vocabularies displayed an N400 incongruity effect to violations of trained associations between novel words and pictures, whereas 20-month-olds with low productive vocabularies did not. However, both high and low producers showed an N400 effect for common real words paired with an incongruous object. These findings indicate that there may be substantial differences in receptive fast mapping efficiency between typically developing children who have reached a productive vocabulary spurt and typically developing children who have not yet reached this productive spurt.

New word learning in aphasic patients: Dissociating phonological and semantic components

measure of nonword repetition, while any improvement in performance on repeating nonwords provided a measure of phonological learning. Through all the blocks and for all stimuli, the participant’s task was simply to repeat each nonword, immediately after its presentation. Expressive and receptive word learning (expressive recall and receptive recognition). In both the expressive and receptive word learning tasks, each participant was visually presented with a drawing of a novel object, together with an auditorily presented novel ‘‘name’’ for the object (Gupta, 2003). The participant’s task was to learn the pairing during these exposure trials, the structure of which was identical for the two tasks. Each set of exposure trials was followed by a set of test trials. In expressive recall test trials, the participant’s task was to produce the name when cued with the drawing of the object. In receptive recognition the task was to pick out the correct drawing when cued with the auditory name. The expressive and receptive word learning tasks each consisted of three blocks of exposure and testing, followed by a final test. In each task, the targets were four name–picture pairs, with the names being 2 syllables in length.

Measuring word learning: Dynamic versus static assessment of kindergarten vocabulary

This preliminary study investigated the potential of using a dynamic approach to assessing expressive word mapping. Because measuring word mapping with productive language responses is much more difficult than measuring receptive word mapping, incorporating a dynamic measure allowed us to tap partial mapping and provided useful information on word learning. Participants were 24 typically developing African American children, from high-risk backgrounds and low-risk backgrounds, as determined by school and family demographics. Performance was compared on the PPVT-III and on the dynamic assessment of word mapping. The dynamic assessment of word mapping provided information about complete and partial mapping of words. Additionally, there was an interaction between risk and performance on the vocabulary and word learning measures. These data suggest that the use of the dynamic measure in conjunction with traditional vocabulary measures may have the potential to provide an estimate of word-learning ability. Learning outcomes: Readers will (1) be able to identify the need for word-learning measures and (2) become familiar with the combined technique of using dynamic assessment and fast mapping.

Evaluation of bilingual secondary education in the Netherlands: Students' language proficiency in English1

In this longitudinal study, we examined the effects of the use of English as the language of instruction in the first 4 years of secondary education in The Netherlands on the students' language proficiency in English and Dutch, and achievement in subject matters taught through English. Compared to a control group in regular secondary education, students attending this form of bilingual education showed higher scores for their English language proficiency in terms of oral proficiency and reading comprehension. No effects have been found for receptive word knowledge and no negative effects have been found with respect to the results of their school leaving exams at the end of secondary education for Dutch and subject matters taught through English.

Disambiguation and Mapping of New Word Meanings by Individuals With Intellectual/ Developmental Disabilities

Wilkinson and Green (1998) reported that differences in the procedure by which new words were introduced to learners with cognitive impairments significantly affected their accuracy in later tests of receptive understanding of word meanings. However, a limited sample and no control group rendered the data preliminary. Here, I replicated and extended the research. First, a control group of preschool children, matched on receptive vocabulary age, was compared to individuals with intellectual disability of unspecified origin. Second, performance was also evaluated in three matched groups of varying etiology: unspecified, Down syndrome, and autism spectrum disorders. Performance on receptive word matching differed between preschool children and their matched experimental groups as well as among matched etiological groups.

The effect of 'missing' information on children's retention of fast-mapped labels.

This paper explores 'fast mapping', one of several processes that have been proposed to be involved in the rapid vocabulary expansion observed in the preschool years. An adaptation of a receptive word matching task examined how well children retained a just-mapped relation between word and referent when some information was later missing. Thirty-nine children between the ages of 3;0 and 5;6 (mean age 4;3) were taught to select a black square if the correct match for a spoken label was not visible in an array of pictures presented on a computer screen. This procedure allowed children to respond even when they perceived that the correct referent was absent. In experimental sessions, children experienced a single exposure to a word-referent relation. Then, under one condition they heard the just-learned label but were not presented with the matching referent; instead, a completely novel referent was visible along with the black square. Under another condition, they were presented with a just-learned referent (and the balck square) but heard a completely new label. The question of interest was whether the children appreciated that an earlier-learned map precluded re-assigning a label to a new referent or re-assigning a referent with a second new label. If so, they should select the black square under both conditions. The majority of children (69%) resisted re-assigning a just-mapped label to a completely novel referent and selected the black square, even when the original referent was not in sight. However, fewer of these children resisted accepting a second label for a just-named referent (46%). Older children were significantly more likely to adhere to original maps than were younger children.

The effect of multiple-choice L1 glosses and input-output cycles on lexical acquisition and retention

The objective of the study was to determine the effect on lexical acquisition and retention of: (a) L1 multiple-choice glosses, (b) L2 text reconstruction with opportunities to recheck input and (c) combined treatments. These treatments were chosen for the following reasons: multiple-choice glosses are said to require ‘mental effort’, increasing the likelihood of retention. Reconstructing the text in the L2 may prompt learners to notice ‘holes’ in their lexicon and focus their attention on subsequent input. Seventy-six fourth-semester learners of German read a text in one of the four conditions (3 experimental; 1 control). Productive and receptive word gains were tested immediately after the treatment and again five weeks later. Findings suggest that the multiple-choice gloss treatment resulted in significantly deeper productive and receptive word gains immediately after the treatment. A significant receptive word gain was retained for five weeks only for the combined treatment condition.

WORD EXPOSURE CONDITIONS AND PRESCHOOLERS' NOVEL WORD LEARNING DURING SHARED STORYBOOK READING

In this experiment, 23 preschool children participated in two adult-child shared storybook reading sessions over a 1-week period. The objective was to characterize the influence of various conditions of word exposure upon children's receptive and expressive learning of novel words occurring within storybook reading interactions. Specifically, the effects of two contrasting conditions were examined: (a) adults' questioning versus labeling of novel words, and (b) adults' use of perceptual versus conceptual questions about novel words. Results suggested that adults' labeling of novel words facilitated children's receptive word learning more so than questioning; however, this effect was not observed for expressive word learning. Results also suggested no difference in receptive or expressive word learning as a result of conceptual versus perceptual questions. Implications of these findings are discussed.

FAMILIAL PROGRESSIVE APHASIA: INSIGHTS INTO THE NATURE AND DETERIORATION OF SINGLE WORD PROCESSING

We present a longitudinal investigation of the language deficits of RB and CB, two brothers with primary progressive aphasia. Experiments 1 to 5 assessed word production in picture naming, naming with progressive phonemic cueing, reading, immediate and delayed repetition of single words, and repetition of two-word strings. Experiment 6 investigated receptive word processing using a picture-name judgement task with phonologically related, semantically related, and unrelated distractors. RB was less successful in naming than CB, and made most errors to semantically related distractors in the input task, whereas CB was more impaired than RB in repetition tasks and in detecting phonological distractors at input. The brothers are considered to have different processing deficits with reference to an interactive spreading activation model of speech production (Dell, 1986; Martin & Saffran, 1992).

A Receptive Language Deficit in Schizophrenic Thought Disorder: Evidence for Impaired Semantic Access and Monitoring

Introduction: Two issues have been overlooked in the literature describing the language abilities of schizophrenic patients with formal thought disorder. The first concerns whether such patients have a comprehension deficit in addition to their obvious expressive problems. The second concerns the extent to which any expressive and receptive deficits vary across time. The examination of these issues has important consequences for the likely focus of any underlying cognitive deficit in thought disorder. Method : The current study used a cognitive neuropsychological case-study approach to examine the expressive and receptive language abilities in a schizophrenic patient (TC) with severe formal thought disorder. Results : Expressive (naming) and receptive (word and sentence comprehension) language abilities were tested across time. TC's naming ability was inconsistent across both time and modality (i.e. to-picture and to-description). He also showed a severe comprehension deficit that was highly variable across time. Further testing revealed that the comprehension deficit did not reflect a disorder of working memory, but stemmed directly from impaired access to word meaning. Conclusion : It is suggested that a central semantic memory deficit would most parsimoniously account both for TC's expressive and receptive language problems. Moreover, this deficit appears to affect semantic access rather than a degradation of the semantic knowledge base itself.

Symbolic gesturing in normal infants: A longitudinal study of sixteen infants

Augmentative signs may facilitate word learning in children with vocabulary difficulties, for example, children who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) and children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Despite the fact that augmentative signs may aid second language learning in populations with a typical language development, empirical evidence in favor of this claim is lacking.We aim to investigate whether augmentative signs facilitate word learning for DHH children, children with SLI, and typically developing (TD) children.Whereas previous studies taught children new labels for familiar objects, the present study taught new labels for new objects. In our word learning experiment children were presented with pictures of imaginary creatures and pseudo words. Half of the words were accompanied by an augmentative pseudo sign. The children were tested for their receptive word knowledge.The DHH children benefitted significantly from augmentative signs, but the children with SLI and TD age-matched peers did not score significantly different on words from either the sign or no-sign condition.These results suggest that using Sign-Supported speech in classrooms of bimodal bilingual DHH children may support their spoken language development. The difference between earlier research findings and the present results may be caused by a difference in methodology.

Gender Differences in the Description of Erotic and Mystical Experiences

Using three different samples, self reports of sexual and mystical experiences, and forced choice utilization of agentive and receptive words to describe both mystical and erotic experiences, this research offers at least partial support for predicted gender differences in descriptions of erotic and mystical experiences. As predicted, females used receptive language to describe both erotic and mystical experiences. While males, as predicted, used agentive language to describe erotic experiences, they did not use agentive language to describe mystical experiences. The failure of males to use agentive language for mystical experiences is discussed in terms of the historically documented difficulty of males to experie:nce, union, agentively expressed, with a masculine conceptualized god image.

The Hearing Handicap Scale as a Measure of Hearing Aid Benefit

Use of the Hearing Handicap Scale as a measure of hearing aid benefit was investigated. New hearing aid users with bilateral, sensorineural hearing losses ranging from 5 dB HL to 55 dB HL served as subjects. Changes in speech reception threshold, word identification, and Hearing Handicap Scale were derived by comparing data obtained prior to hearing aid use with that obtained following four weeks of hearing aid use. Results showed a significant improvement for all three measurements and indicated that improvement in word identification presented at conversational level was more related to self-reported hearing aid benefit than was improvement in speech reception threshold. Also, word identification ratings obtained with the stimuli presented at conversation speech level produced a significant correlation with Hearing Handicap Scale scores.