Use of Speaker Intent and Grammatical Cues in Fast-Mapping by Adolescents With Down Syndrome

• Published in: Journal of speech, language, and hearing research language, and hearing research, 2007-12, Vol.50 (6), p.1546-1561
• Main Authors: McDuffie, Andrea S, Sindberg, Heidi A, Hesketh, Linda J, Chapman, Robin S
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Children & youth; Cognitive Mapping; Cognitive Processes; Comparative Analysis; Competence and performance (Linguistics); Comprehension; Cues; Developmentally disabled children; Down Syndrome; Evaluation; Female; Grammar; Hearing (Physiology); Hearing Disorders - diagnosis; Hearing Disorders - epidemiology; Humans; Influence; Intention; Language; Language Skills; Linguistics; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Mass Screening; Memory; Mental Age; Nouns; Novels; Physiological aspects; Predictor Variables; Reading comprehension; Receptive Language; Semantics; Skills; Speech; Speech Perception; Syntax; Verbs; Vocabulary; Vocabulary Development; Young Children
• ISSN: 1092-4388; 1558-9102
• DOI: 10.1044/1092-4388(2007/105)

Linda J. Hesketh University of Oregon Robin S. Chapman Waisman Center Contact author: Andrea S. McDuffie, who is now at 3234 School of Education, Indiana University, 201 North Rose Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47405. E-mail: mcduffie{at}indiana.edu . Purpose: The authors asked whether adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) could fast-map novel nouns and verbs when word learning depended on using the speaker's pragmatic or syntactic cues. Compared with typically developing (TD) comparison children, the authors predicted that syntactic cues would prove harder for the group with DS to use and that action verbs would be harder to fast-map than nouns. Method: Twenty participants with DS, aged 12–18 years, and 19 TD participants, aged 3–6 years, were matched on syntax comprehension and engaged in 4 fast-mapping tasks. Both comprehension and production of novel words were assessed for each task. Through use of hierarchical regression models, hearing, cognition, and working memory were considered as predictors of total comprehension and production performance for each group. Results: Both groups used speaker intent in fast-mapping labels to object referents but performed more poorly on fast-mapping verbs. Neither group appeared to use grammatical cues to disambiguate the intended referent. Syntax comprehension was replicated as a predictor of fast-mapping comprehension for the DS group. Syntax comprehension and chronological age were replicated as predictors of TD fast-mapping. Conclusion: Participants with DS had better recall for the object or action seen most recently during speaker intent tasks. They had better recall for the object presented first and the action presented last during grammatical cue tasks. Response patterns may have depended on the structure of specific task paradigms. Verb acquisition may be facilitated when either the action or label is familiar. KEY WORDS: Down syndrome, receptive language, vocabulary CiteULike     Connotea     Del.icio.us     Digg     Facebook     Reddit     Technorati     Twitter     What's this?