Purpose: Cross-situational statistical learning is one mechanism by which typically developing toddlers map words to referents. Yet, this type of statistical learning has been found less efficient in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). The purpose of this article is to evaluate cross-situational statistical learning in very young…

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…

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…

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the learning potential of French-speaking children, either with typical development (TD) or with developmental language disorder (DLD), when learning an invented inflectional morphological rule. We tested the children's performance in learning pseudomorphemes of gender and number with dynamic assessment…

Purpose: Parent engagement is a critical component of optimizing services for young children with disabilities, including those with language disorders. Without training, however, many parents may lack the knowledge and skills to effectively facilitate their children's language development during the essential early childhood years. The Parents…

Background: People with language disorders (including developmental language disorder--DLD) often struggle to learn new words and, for young adults, this could affect their success in future work. Therefore, it is crucial to support their learning of career-specific vocabulary. However, little published evidence exists regarding the effectiveness…

Purpose: Learning novel words, including the specific phonemes that make up word forms, is a struggle for many individuals with developmental language disorder (DLD). Building robust representations of words includes encoding during periods of input and consolidation between periods of input. The primary purpose of the current study is to…

Background and aims: Previous research into word learning in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) indicates that the learning of word forms and meanings, rather than form-referent links, is problematic. This difficulty appears to arise with impaired encoding, while retention of word knowledge remains intact. Evidence also suggests…

Background: A growing body of work shows that children with developmental language disorder (DLD) perform poorly on statistical word learning (SWL) tasks, consistent with the predictions of the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis that predicts that procedural memory is impaired in DLD. To date, however, SWL performance has not been compared across…

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) served as a test case for determining the role of extant vocabulary knowledge, endogenous attention, and phonological working memory abilities in cross-situational word learning. First-graders (M[subscript age] = 7 years; 3 months), 44 with typical development (TD) and 28 with DLD, completed a…

Purpose: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) are at increased risk for reading difficulties. While oral language interventions benefit emergent literacy, studies specifically targeting preliteracy abilities in preschoolers with DLD are limited. This study examined the effects of a Multitiered System of Language Support (MTSLS) on…

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…

Purpose: Laboratory-based word learning research demonstrates that retrieval-based practice supports learning and retention more than passive training strategies. The goal of the current study was to determine whether incorporating retrieval-based practice into an interactive book reading intervention contributed to better learning and retention…

Purpose: This study investigated the attentional tendencies of preschool children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and their typical language (TL) peers during a word learning task to examine what visual properties of novel objects capture their attention. Method: Twelve children with DLD and 12 children with TL completed a novel name…

Purpose: The purpose of this investigation was to compare the efficiency of dialogic reading strategies (DRS) provided bilingually (Spanish and English) and solely in English on the acquisition of vocabulary by young school-aged dual-language learners (DLLs) with developmental language disorders (DLD). Method: Five participants (N = 5) between the…