The children from the Lexical contrast group during the first session, were shown a new
picture by a puppet and were told: ^tiThis is an x” by pointing to the picture of the target word.
In the second session the puppet showed the child three pictures, and asked the child to pass
the puppet the target one, while the other two were already-known items from the same
semantic category. If the child did that correctly, the puppet gave information about the
target item. If the child chose the wrong item the puppet showed the correct one and
continued: ⁱⁱYou see the x is different from the у and z because it... (see Appendix 7.3).
During the second session the target words were heard three times, in order to draw the
child’s attention to the contrast between the words.

Definition group

The children from the Definition group in the first session were shown a new picture by the
puppet and were told: ⁱⁱThis is an x” by pointing to the picture of the target word. In the
second session they were given a definition about each of the target words. The puppet
showed the target picture to the child and invited the child to a game. The experimenter said
that she had some favourite pictures she would like to talk about them saying ⁱⁱan x is a....”.
In each definition, the target words were heard only once by the children, since it is a
powerful condition on it’s own. The format of the definitions was the same for all the target
words. The information given for each of the target words included the following: (1) What
the target word is a kind of; (2) Description of the target item; (3) What it can do∕be used for.
In the last session the children were invited to listen to stories.

7.3.4.4 Procedure for the Post test Measures

Naming task

Naming of each target word was assessed in the naming task. Each child was told that he∕she
was going to play a game with the puppet. The child was required to name the target picture.
Pictures were presented one at a time. Each time the puppet asked the children: ⁱⁱWhat is
this?” (pointing to the target picture). If the child said ⁱⁱIdon ^,t know” the experimenter asked
him/her to think what it was like (see Appendix 7.4 for the recording sheet).

Multiple choice task

The multiple choice task had four trials. Each child was asked to play another game with the
puppet. S/he was presented with each of the four plates and s/he was asked ⁱⁱShow me the
x ?”(the picture of the target word) (see Appendix 7.4 for the recording sheet).

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