NVESTIGATING LEXICAL ACQUISITION PATTERNS: CONTEXT AND COGNITION



To what extent does the child’s prior lexical knowledge (Comprehension and Naming)
influence the provision of animal contrasts in the Contrast taskT,

The provision of contrasts did not differ significantly by the level Ofbaseline comprehension
vocabulary. The same pattern was found for each group. On the other hand, children with
high baseline naming vocabulary provided more contrasts than children with low baseline
naming vocabulary across testing. Significant differences were found for post test 2 (Mann-
Whitney U: Z=2.7, p<.05) and post test 3 (Mann-Whitney U: Z=2.2, p<.0005). The analysis
was repeated separately for each group. The same pattern was found for all the groups.
Significant differences were found for the Lexical contrast group in post test 2 (Mann-
Whitney U: Z=2.2, p<.05).

Qualitative analysis

Children provided different types of contrasts which are presented in Table 7.15 below.

Table 7.15 Types of contrasts provided in the contrast task

Justifications_____________

____________Example__________________________

Don’t know

No responses were provided

Animals contrast

E.g. “The ostrich is different from an elephant”

Cutlery contrast

E.g. “The ladle is different from a spoon ”

Furniture contrast

E.g. “The stool is different from a chair”

Other contrasts_________

________Contrast with items from other semantic categories

Examination of the distribution of children’s contrasts for each target word over time was
carried out. The table in Appendix 7.7 presents the results. From the responses given, it is
evident that the children provided appropriate contrasts for each target word. These contrasts
were mainly semantic. For example, for the ostrich and the mole they provided contrasts with
animals, e.g
“the ostrich is different from a duck” or “the mole is different from the badger”
while for the ladle contrasts were made with cutlery, “the ladle is different from a spoon” and
for the stool contrasts were made with other furniture, e.g
“the stool is different from a
chair”.

Statistical analysis revealed that the children provided significantly more animal contrasts for
the ostrich and the mole than for the other words across testing (Pl: X2=26.4 , df=3,
p<.0000; P2: X2 =16.3 df=3, p<.005; P3: X2=34.3 df=3, p<.0000). They also provided
significantly more cutlery contrasts for the ladle than for the other words (Pl: X2= 12.5, df=3,

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