Word Learning by Preschool-Age Children: Differences in Encoding, Re-Encoding, and Consolidation Across Learners During Slow Mapping.
Katherine R Gordon, Stephanie L Lowry, Nancy B Ohlmann and 1 others
PMID 35442754WHAT IT FOUND
Children with poorer working memory and vocabulary start with weaker word forms but learn at the same rate as peers.
They need more repetitions to reach mastery. Retention drops after one month. Practice tests did not prevent this forgetting.
Key findings
01Children with higher nonword repetition scores produced more correct forms overall, but they improved at the same rate during training and between sessions as children with lower scores.
02After one month, children produced fewer words correctly and with less phonological precision than at the end of training.
03Retesting words at 1 or 2 weeks did not improve retention at the 1-month mark compared to children who were not retested.
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 nonsense words, so results may not apply to real vocabulary where children have existing semantic knowledge. Training was one-on-one and highly supportive, which is not typical of classroom or clinic settings. The sample was small and limited to children with typical development, excluding those with diagnosed language disorders.
Declared interests
The research was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The authors declared no other conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that children with poor working memory cannot learn words as well as peers. They encode less initially but learn at the same rate; the difference is in the starting point and the number of repetitions needed, not in their ability to consolidate or retain information once it is learned.