title: Do children with specific language impairment and autism spectrum disorders benefit from the presence of orthography when learning new spoken words?
abstract: This experiment investigated whether children with specific language impairment (SLI), children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and typically developing children benefit from the incidental presence of orthography when learning new oral vocabulary items. Children with SLI, children with ASD, and typically developing children (n=27 per group) between 8 and 13 years of age were matched in triplets for age and nonverbal reasoning. Participants were taught 12 mappings between novel phonological strings and referents; half of these mappings were trained with orthography present and half were trained with orthography absent. Groups did not differ on the ability to learn new oral vocabulary, although there was some indication that children with ASD were slower than controls to identify newly learned items. During training, the ASD, SLI, and typically developing groups benefited from orthography to the same extent. In supplementary analyses, children with SLI were matched in pairs to an additional control group of younger typically developing children for nonword reading. Compared with younger controls, children with SLI showed equivalent oral vocabulary acquisition and benefit from orthography during training. Our findings are consistent with current theoretical accounts of how lexical entries are acquired and replicate previous studies that have shown orthographic facilitation for vocabulary acquisition in typically developing children and children with ASD. We demonstrate this effect in SLI for the first time. The study provides evidence that the presence of orthographic cues can support oral vocabulary acquisition, motivating intervention approaches (as well as standard classroom teaching) that emphasize the orthographic form.
authors: Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK. Electronic address: jessie.ricketts@rhul.ac.uk.
authors: Jessie
authors: J
authors: Ricketts
authors: UCL Institute of Education, University College London, London, WC1H 0AL, UK.
authors: Julie E
authors: JE
authors: Dockrell
authors: Division of Language and Communication Science, City University London, London EC1V 0HB, UK.
authors: Nita
authors: N
authors: Patel
authors: Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London WC2R 2LS, UK.
authors: Tony
authors: T
authors: Charman
authors: Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research (CEDAR), University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
authors: Geoff
authors: G
authors: Lindsay
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D013561:Symbolism; D014706:Verbal Learning
keywords: Autism spectrum disorders; Orthographic facilitation; Orthography; Specific language impairment; Vocabulary; Vocabulary acquisition; Word learning