7.4.3.4Is there any correlation between children ,sperformance on the naming and
the other understanding tasks?
A series of bivariate correlations were carried out to investigate the above question. It was
found that during post test 1, children’s performance on the naming task was significantly
correlated with their performance on the “world knowledge ' questions. During post test 2
their performance on the naming task was significantly correlated with their performance on
the contrast, definition, “categorisation" questions and story generation task. Last, during
post test 3 children’s performance on the naming task was significantly correlated with their
performance on all the other understanding tasks (see Appendix 7.9 for correlations).
7.4.3.5Is there any correlation between children’s existing vocabulary knowledge
(expressive and receptive) and their performance on the naming and
multiple choice tasks?
A series ofbivariate correlations were carried out between children’s existing expressive and
receptive vocabulary and performance on the multiple choice and naming task across testing.
It was found that children’s performance on the naming and multiple choice tasks was
significantly correlated with their existing vocabulary knowledge (expressive and receptive)
(see Appendix 7.10 for correlations).
7.4.3.6 Is there any relation between children’s prior lexical knowledge by
semantic domain and the acquisition of the target words
Whether there was any correlation between children’s existing lexical knowledge (by
semantic domain) and their performance on the relevant target words was investigated. A
series ofbivariate correlations were carried out between children’s existing knowledge for
animals and their overall performance on the acquisition of the target words describing
animals across tasks as well as between children’s existing knowledge for artifacts and their
performance on the acquisition of the target words describing artifacts.
It was found that children’s existing vocabulary knowledge for animals (expressive and
receptive vocabulary) was positively correlated with the acquisition of the target words
describing animals as this was measured by most of the measurements. On the other hand,
children’s existing vocabulary knowledge for artifacts was not related to the acquisition of