Purpose: Recent findings in preschool children indicated novel adjective recall was enhanced when learned using repeated retrieval with contextual reinstatement (RRCR) compared to repeated study (RS). Recall was similar for learned pictures used during training and new (generalized) pictures with the same adjective features. The current study…

Purpose: Retrieval practice has been found to be a powerful strategy to enhance long-term retention of new information; however, the utility of retrieval practice when teaching young children new words is largely unknown, and even less is known for young children with language impairments. The current study examined the effect of 2 different…

Purpose: Recent behavioral studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of implementing retrieval practice into learning tasks for children. Such approaches have revealed that repeated spaced retrieval (RSR) is particularly effective in promoting children's learning of word form and meaning information. This study further examines how retrieval…

Purpose: Using 2 different scoring methods, the authors examined the diagnostic accuracy of both real-word and nonword repetition in identifying Italian-speaking children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Method: A total of 34 children ages 3;11-5;8 (years;months) participated--17 children with SLI and 17 typically developing…

Purpose: In this study, the authors examined the diagnostic accuracy of a composite clinical assessment measure based on mean length of utterance (MLU), lexical diversity (D), and age (Klee, Stokes, Wong, Fletcher, & Gavin, 2004) in a second, independent sample of 4-year-old Cantonese-speaking children with and without specific language impairment…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the diagnostic accuracy of the Nonword Repetition Test (NRT; Dollaghan & Campbell, 1998) using a sample of 4- and 5-year-olds with and without specific language impairment (SLI) and to evaluate its feasibility for use in universal screening. Method: The NRT was administered to 29 children with SLI…

Brief tonal stimuli and spoken sentences were utilized to examine whether adolescents (aged 14;3-18;1) with specific language impairments (SLI) exhibit atypical neural activity for rapid auditory processing of non-linguistic stimuli and linguistic processing of verb-agreement and semantic constraints. Further, we examined whether the behavioral…

Purpose: Recent research suggests that nonword repetition (NWR) and sentence repetition (SR) tasks can be used to discriminate between children with SLI and their typically developing age-matched (TDAM) and younger (TDY) peers. Method: Fourteen Cantonese-speaking children with SLI and 30 of their TDAM and TDY peers were compared on NWR and SR…