Learning New Word Meanings Through Reading by Children With Language Impairment and Typically Developing Peers

Abstract

This study investigated word learning during reading in 15 children with language impairment (LI), 15 age matched peers, and 12 language compared children. The study sought to determine whether children with LI differed from their peers in their ability to learn new word meanings during reading, and whether position of informative context and number of exposures to target words influenced word learning. One significant finding from the study showed that children with LI scored lower than typically developing children on word learning tasks. Additionally, all children scored higher on words presented more frequently, though the position of informative context did not affect scores. Supplementary information was gained through post-hoc analysis of children's oral definition responses. First, all children benefitted from being given a contextual clue, though the typically developing children benefitted more than the children with LI. Second, children with LI produced a different pattern of error responses than the typically developing peers. The findings of the study point to clinical implications and directions for future research.