ERIC Number: EJ1031555
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014-Mar
Pages: 25
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
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Available Date: N/A
Do Statistical Segmentation Abilities Predict Lexical-Phonological and Lexical-Semantic Abilities in Children with and without SLI?
Mainela-Arnold, Elina; Evans, Julia L.
Journal of Child Language, v41 n2 p327-351 Mar 2014
This study tested the predictions of the procedural deficit hypothesis by investigating the relationship between sequential statistical learning and two aspects of lexical ability, lexical-phonological and lexical-semantic, in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Participants included forty children (ages 8;5-12;3), twenty children with SLI and twenty with typical development. Children completed Saffran's statistical word segmentation task, a lexical-phonological access task (gating task), and a word definition task. Poor statistical learners were also poor at managing lexical-phonological competition during the gating task. However, statistical learning was not a significant predictor of semantic richness in word definitions. The ability to track statistical sequential regularities may be important for learning the inherently sequential structure of lexical-phonological, but not as important for learning lexical-semantic knowledge. Consistent with the procedural/declarative memory distinction, the brain networks associated with the two types of lexical learning are likely to have different learning properties.
Descriptors: Phonemes, Child Language, Semantics, Correlation, Sequential Learning, Language Impairments, Phonology, Task Analysis, Predictor Variables, Vocabulary Development, Language Acquisition, Definitions, Memory, Brain Hemisphere Functions
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
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Language: English
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