word learning tasks

[McGregor, Karla K]

Hi,

If you have a large enough set of novel words, you can keep the adults
away from ceiling. You might try a "quick incidental learning paradigm,"
the variant on fast mapping that Mabel Rice has used in the past in
which multiple new targets are embedded in a story script. 

You might also try multiple dependent variables, the children with
cognitive impairments might demonstrate learning in recognition tasks
only or in production tasks when given multiple retrieval cues; the
children with normal development and the adults may learn well enough
for production without the need of scaffolding.

I'll be interested to see the other suggestions,



Karla K. McGregor, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Speech Pathology and Audiology
University of Iowa
121c WJSHC
Iowa City, IA 52242

phone 319-335-8724
fax 319-335-8851

-----Original Message-----
From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
[mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Michael Ullman
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 11:53 AM
To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
Subject: 


We are looking for a task or tasks that probe word learning. Ideally we
would
be able to use the task (or variants of it) in both cognitively impaired
and
intact kids and adults.

We are *not* looking for episodic memory types of tasks such as
the AVLT or CVLT, in which the subjects have to remember a list of real
words.
Rather we want to test learning of new words, ideally in a 
(relatively) naturalistic context.
Note that fast mapping tasks seem to be good in principle, though
in practice one would likely get ceiling effects for adults.

Any ideas?

Best,

Michael Ullman