College of Behavioral & Social Sciences

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PRESCHOOLERS' WORD LEARNING DURING SHARED STORYBOOK READING INTERACTIONS AND CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR EARLY INTERVENTION
(2014) O'Fallon, Maura Kathleen; Newman, Rochelle; Hearing and Speech Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Previous research shows that shared storybook reading interactions can function as effective speech and language interventions for young children, helping to improve a variety of skills--including word learning. This study sought to investigate the potential benefits of elaboration of new words during a single storybook reading with preschoolers. Children were read a storybook containing novel words that were either elaborated with a definition, repeated twice, or only said once. Their word learning for these novel words was then evaluated, and compared across levels of elaboration. Results showed that preschoolers could successfully learn new words during a single storybook reading interaction with an adult. Further analyses found that their learning was most robust when words were repeated twice, rather than elaborated or only said once. These results support the use of storybook reading with children during language interventions, and highlight the importance of repeated exposure to novel material.