Retrieval Practice and Word Learning by Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Does Expanding Retrieval Provide Additional Benefit?
Laurence B Leonard, Sharon L Christ, Patricia Deevy and 2 others
PMID 38592972WHAT IT FOUND
Expanding retrieval practice (increasing gaps between recall attempts) did not improve long-term word recall in children with DLD compared to equally spaced retrieval.
While children recalled more words during early practice trials with expanding schedules, this advantage disappeared by the end of learning and did not translate to better retention one week later.
Key findings
01There was no significant difference in word form recall scores between the expanding retrieval schedule (01133) and the equally spaced retrieval schedule (03333) at either 5 minutes or 1 week post-learning.
02Children successfully retrieved more novel words during the learning phase when using the expanding schedule, particularly at early trial points, but this advantage faded by the final trials of the session.
03Differences in word recall between children with DLD and typically developing peers were statistically accounted for by their existing vocabulary scores (PPVT-5), rather than the retrieval schedule used.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study had a small sample size (28 children), which limits the power to detect small differences between conditions. The results may not generalize to other types of words (e.g., verbs, adjectives) or to older children, as the study focused only on nouns in preschoolers. The word sets were small (8 words per child), which may not reflect the complexity of learning vocabulary in naturalistic settings. The finding that PPVT-5 scores accounted for group differences suggests that the task may have been influenced by general language ability rather than isolating the specific effect of retrieval spacing on DLD-specific deficits.
Declared interests
The research was supported by funding from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (Grant R01 DC014708). No commercial conflicts of interest were reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that expanding retrieval is ineffective for all learning tasks or populations. This study tested only one specific expanding schedule (01133) versus one equally spaced schedule (03333) for novel noun learning in preschoolers. It does not rule out benefits for other word types, other schedules, or different age groups.