Age of acquisition (AoA) is a measure of word complexity which refers to the age at which a word is typically learned. AoA measures have shown strong correlations with reading comprehension, lexical decision times, and writing quality. AoA scores based on both adult and child data have limitations that allow for error in measurement, and increase…

Understanding discourse connectives is an important step to achieving effective verbal communication. Yet, the ability of adult native speakers to understand the broad range of connectives found in most Indo-European languages has seldom been assessed. In this article we demonstrate that some adults have difficulties recognizing correct and…

The study of homophones--words with different meanings that sound the same--has great potential to inform models of language production. Of particular relevance is a phenomenon termed "frequency" inheritance, where a low-frequency word (e.g., "deer") is produced more fluently than would be expected based on its frequency…

Spelling is a prerequisite to expressing vocabulary in writing. Research has shown that children with dyslexia are hesitant spellers when composing. This study aimed to determine whether the hesitant spelling of children with dyslexia, evidenced by frequent pausing, affects vocabulary choices when writing. A total of 31 children with dyslexia,…

The present study explored how average- and high-skilled second-grade readers (as identified by their Woodcock-Johnson III Test of Academic Achievement Broad Reading scores) differed on behavioral measures of reading related to comprehension: eye movements during silent reading and prosody during oral reading. Results from silent reading implicate…

Literature suggests that illiterate subjects are unaware of the phonological structure of language. This fact may influence the characteristics of aphasic speech, namely the structure of paraphasias. A battery of tests was developed for this study to be used with aphasic subjects (literate and illiterate), in order to explore this topic in more…

The British Picture Vocabulary Scale, second edition (BPVS-II), a measure of receptive vocabulary, is widely used by speech and language therapists and researchers into speech and language disorders, as an indicator of language delay, but it has frequently been suggested that receptive vocabulary may be more associated with socio-economic status.…