In this screening test the children were asked to play a game with the computer. In that game
they had to answer as quickly as they could. For the naming task, each child was asked iiIVhat
is this?” (pointing to the target item). For the comprehension task, the experimenter asked
the child: iiShow me the x”. All the pictures both for the naming and comprehension test
were presented on the computer screen.
7.3.4.3 Intervention procedure
Control groups
There were two groups, the Control group and the Phonological control group. The no
intervention Control group received no intervention; they only took part in the last session
the story reading. During the story reading session each child was invited to listen to a very
nice story, that only a special puppet knew. The Phonological control group during the first
two sessions was invited to repeat the word (in the context of a repeating game) in order to
be phonologically sensitized. In the third session they were invited to listen to some stories.
The stories that were read to the children, included the following information for the target
words: (1) Description/What it can do; (2) Where it can be found; (3) Be Kind of a
superordinate category. Also, each word appeared an equal number of times (three) in each
story and each target word was presented in relation to other items from the same semantic
category.
Experimental groups
The experimental groups were exposed to different linguistic information (Ostensive
definition, Lexical contrast, Definitions, Stories). The content of the information given at
each of the sessions is presented in Appendix 7.3.
Ostensive definition group
Each child in the Ostensive definition group during the first two sessions were shown a new
picture by a puppet and was told iiThis is an x” by pointing to the picture of the target word.
In the third session they were invited to listen to stories as before.
Lexical contrast group