word learning tasks

[Barbara Pearson]

Dear Michael,

You might look at the DELV-NR (Seymour, Roeper, &
de Villiers, 2005).  There is a long section on Fast-mapping
in the Semantics domain (and we have even more items from
the pilot version, the Dialect Sensitive Language Test).
And Valerie Johnson has even more in her dissertation
(UMass, 2001, "Fast mapping verb meaning from  argument structure.")
There are fairly complex "complement" sentences
as well as easier intransitives.

When we tried it with children 4 to 12, it is one of the few
areas we didn't get a ceiling effect, although I don't know
how it would be for "intact adults."
There's a scaled score for the children 4 to 9, but of course
you can use it with older people.

Let us all hear what you come up with.

Cheers,
Barbara Pearson
*****************************************
Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph. D.
Project Manager, Research Assistant
Dept. of Communication Disorders
University of Massachusetts
Amherst MA 01003

413.545.5023
fax: 545.0803

bpearson at comdis.umass.edu
http://www.umass.edu/aae/


On Nov 28, 2005, at 1:30 PM, McGregor, Karla K wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
>

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