Strategies for Teaching Verbs to Children with and without Language Impairment

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Linguistics
• Speech-Language Pathology

Background:

• Intransitive verb acquisition is crucial for language development.
• Limited research exists on effective strategies for teaching novel intransitive verbs.
• Understanding verb learning in children with and without language impairments is essential.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate and compare three strategies (syntactic, semantic, combined cues) for teaching novel intransitive verbs.
• To extend the evidence base on intransitive verb learning in children.
• To assess vocabulary expansion through receptive and expressive verb learning.

Main Methods:

• Feasibility study involving children with typical development, developmental language disorder, and Down syndrome.
• Teaching novel intransitive verbs using syntactic, semantic, and combined cues.
• Assessing participants' ability to receptively identify and expressively label novel verbs.

Main Results:

• Participants demonstrated successful receptive learning of novel intransitive verbs across all conditions.
• Children with typical development and Down syndrome also showed significant expressive verb learning.
• No significant differences in learning outcomes were observed between the different cueing strategies.

Conclusions:

• Syntactic, semantic, and combined cues are effective strategies for teaching novel intransitive verbs.
• The findings support vocabulary expansion in children with and without language impairments.
• This research contributes to understanding both receptive and expressive verb learning.