Age of acquisition and meaningfulness as predictors of word availability

Recognition latencies were obtained for words about which age-of-acquisition data were directly available on individual children. Latencies to name 50 words were obtained for each of 20 ninth-grade children. In addition, each child was asked to give associations to each word as a measure of its meaningfulness. Although latencies were significantly related to age-at-acquisition, confirming earlier reports, the partial correlation with meaningfulness removed was not significant. Age-of-acquisition determines word availability only because early-learned words elicit more associations.