Does the children ,s prior knowledge of the lexical items influence the use of target words
when referring to the target items ?
Statistical analysis revealed no significant differences by the children’s prior knowledge.
Is the use of target words influenced by the semantic domain of the lexical items?
The children used the target words more when referring to words describing animals than
to words for describing artifacts across testing. The differences were significant for post test
1 (Wilcoxon: Z=2.3, p<.005) and post test 3 (Wilcoxon: Z= 3.6, p<.0005). The same pattern
was found for each one of the groups. The differences were significant for the Lexical
contrast group during post test 3 (Wilcoxon: Z=2.2, p<.05) and the Definition group during
post test 1 (Wilcoxon: Z=2.5, p<.05).
Key findings from the story generation task
Is there a differential impact of the type of exposure to new lexical items that the children
receive to the provision of stories?
• The provision of stories differed significantly by the type of exposure during post
tests 2 and 3. The Definition group provided significantly more stories than the
Ostensive definition and the Lexical contrast group during post test 2. During post
test 3, the Lexical contrast group provided significantly more stories than the Control
and Phonological control groups. In addition, the Definition group performed
significantly better than the two Control and Experimental groups. No significant
differences were found between the two Control groups and the Ostensive definition
group in any of the post tests.
Does children’s provision of stories increase with increased exposure to the lexical items?
• The children provided significantly more stories in post test 3 than in post test 1.
Does the children ,s prior knowledge of the lexical items influence the provision of stories?
• Children’s provision of stories did not differ significantly by their prior knowledge
of the lexical items.