Spoken Word Learning in Children With Developmental Language Disorder or Dyslexia.
Suzanne M Adlof, Lauren S Baron, Bethany A Bell and 1 others
PMID 34185581WHAT IT FOUND
Children with dyslexia-only struggled to learn new spoken words across all tasks, despite having average vocabulary and language skills.
Children with DLD-only showed only mild difficulties, primarily with verbal semantic recall. The dyslexia group's struggles appeared to be linking new words to meanings, not just phonology.
Key findings
01Children with dyslexia-only and DLD + dyslexia scored significantly lower than typically developing peers on all five word learning tasks, whereas children with DLD-only differed from peers on only one task (verbal semantic recall).
02Secondary analyses showed children with dyslexia-only recalled as much semantic information as typically developing peers but failed to correctly link it to the new word forms, indicating a linking deficit rather than a pure semantic knowledge gap.
03Children with DLD-only performed significantly better than those with DLD + dyslexia on three of five tasks, suggesting that comorbid reading impairment exacerbates word learning difficulties.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used explicit, computerized instruction with spaced retrieval, which differs from naturalistic, incidental word learning in daily conversation. Word learning was measured immediately after instruction; retention over time was not assessed. The finding that children with dyslexia-only have normal vocabulary despite poor word learning is paradoxical and requires replication to understand the mechanisms. Participants were recruited from a single suburban school district in South Carolina, which may limit generalizability to other populations.
Declared interests
The research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIH). The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a child with dyslexia who has a normal vocabulary size does not have word learning difficulties. This study found that children with dyslexia-only struggled significantly to learn new words in explicit training despite having average vocabulary and language scores.