contexts) for novel word learning were assessed. Children’s word knowledge was assessed
in seven different lexical tasks (particularly designed for the Experiment 1) immediately
after the introduction and one week later. The different pre- and post- assessments
measures are presented in the following table.
Table 1.1 Lexical Assessments used in Experiment 1____________________________
______________________________Pre-test measures______________________________
1. The British Picture Vocabulary Scale BPVS
2. The short term phonological memory test
3. The target and control vocabulary pre-test_________________________________________
_______________________________Post-test measures______________________________
Control vocabulary post-test_______________Target vocabulary post-tests_____________
!.Multiple choice test 1. Naming task
2. Inference task
3. Analogy task
4. Contrast task
5. Multiple choice task
6. Definition task
7. Sentence generation task
Chapter 6 provides the rationale for Experiment 2. Chapter 7 presents the aims, method
and results OfExperiment 2. The second experiment considered additional child based
factors (the child’s general prior lexical knowledge and prior knowledge of the lexical
items), the nature of the input in more naturalistic situations (repeated exposure to
different sources of information) as well as the nature of the novel lexicon (semantic
domain of the lexical items) on the longitudinal acquisition of the new terms. Children’s
word knowledge was investigated in seven lexical tasks, particularly designed for
Experiment 2. Examination of the children’s lexical representations took place over three
consecutive periods. The assessments used during the pre- and post- test measurements
are presented in the following table.
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