The Impact of Dose and Dose Frequency on Word Learning by Kindergarten Children With Developmental Language Disorder During Interactive Book Reading.
Holly L Storkel, Rouzana Komesidou, Mollee J Pezold and 3 others
PMID 31600474WHAT IT FOUND
How you space 36 word exposures during book reading did not change learning, so pick the schedule that fits your caseload.
However, children forgot most words within days of ending treatment. Monitor retention after discharge and plan for follow-up encounters to support memory.
Key findings
01Varying the dose (exposures per session) and dose frequency (number of sessions) to achieve 36 total exposures did not significantly affect word learning outcomes.
02Children showed significant learning during treatment but experienced significant forgetting immediately after treatment ended, retaining only a fraction of learned words at follow-up.
03General language skills, specifically CELF Core Language and Understanding Spoken Paragraphs scores, predicted word learning outcomes, while phonological and semantic measures from prior research did not.
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 relatively small sample size of 34 children, which may limit the power to detect subtle differences between dose/frequency combinations. The definition task used for outcome measurement may have been influenced by the testing context; performance during treatment (supported context) was significantly higher than at post-test (less supported context). Treatment was delivered primarily by graduate students, which may affect generalizability to experienced clinicians. The study focused on Tier 2 vocabulary words in book reading contexts, so results may not generalize to all word types or intervention formats.
Declared interests
Research was supported by NIH grants. No conflicts of interest were declared by the authors.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the lack of significant differences between dose schedules as evidence that intensity does not matter. The study held total exposures constant at 36, which was previously established as adequate intensity. The finding is that *how* you distribute those 36 exposures is flexible, not that you can reduce the total number of exposures.