Optimising word learning in post-secondary students with Developmental Language Disorder: The roles of retrieval difficulty and retrieval success during training.
Katherine R Gordon, Karla K McGregor, Timothy Arbisi-Kelm
PMID 32933317WHAT IT FOUND
Free recall practice with feedback produced more accurate word forms after 24 hours than cued recall.
More successful retrievals during training, especially without phonological cues, were linked to better later word production in students with and without DLD.
Key findings
01After the 24-hour delay, syllables trained through free recall were produced with a higher percentage of phonetic features correct than syllables trained through cued recall.
02As the percentage of correct productions during training increased, the probability of correct production after the 24-hour delay increased; when training accuracy was 100%, the probability was 95% for students with DLD and 87% for students without DLD.
03A syllable produced with 100% accuracy on the last training trial was likely to be produced with 86% accuracy after the delay if its worst training trial was 75% accurate, and with 73% accuracy if its worst training trial was 19% accurate.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
This paper reports new analyses of data from an earlier lab study, so the current questions were not the main outcome of the original experiment. All participants were post-secondary students aged 18 to 24 who scored within the typical range for non-verbal IQ and passed hearing screening, so the results may not apply to younger students or people with other conditions. The words were made-up English-like forms paired with unusual objects, not discipline-specific vocabulary or words used in real courses or workplaces. The outcome was naming accuracy and phonological precision after 24 hours, not classroom performance, professional communication, or long-term retention. The current analysis found a free recall advantage when data were combined across groups, while the earlier study did not find a statistically significant difference between free and cued recall within groups. Very easy cued first-syllable responses were excluded from some models because they were near ceiling, so not all training demands were compared equally. The study tested lab training conditions within participants, not separate groups receiving therapy, and it did not show that the method changes real-world communication.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that cueing is harmful or that free recall alone will solve word learning. The free recall advantage was measured as phonological precision after 24 hours for made-up lab words, not as classroom or occupational communication.