comprehension and naming vocabulary provided more stories than children with low
level baseline comprehension and naming vocabulary.

Children during their stories mentioned different properties (descriptive, functional,
contextual and functional) for the target words. The Definition group provided more
of the above properties than the other groups. No significant differences were found
in the provision of “descriptive” properties over time. On the other hand, children
provided more “contextual”, “functional” and “semantic” properties over time. The
provision of “descriptive” and “semantic” properties did not differ by children’s prior
knowledge of the lexical items and by the semantic domain of the target words. On
the other hand, children provided more “contextual” and “functional” properties for
the partially represented than the unknown words. Moreover, they provided more
“contextual” properties for the words describing artifacts than animals.

Children from the Definition and Lexical contrast groups referred to the target words
significantly more frequently than the other groups. They referred to the target word
by using the target word or a synonym or a pronoun. Overall, they mostly used the
target than the other types of words. Again the Definition group used more frequently
the target words than the other groups. Moreover, all the children performed better
over time by using the target word as a way of reference. No significant differences
were found in children’s use of the target word as a way of reference by their prior
knowledge of the lexical items. On the other hand, the children used the target word
more frequently when referring to animals than to artifacts.

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