Kindergarten Children Acquiring Words Through Storybook Reading

Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) are slower to learn new words than their
peers, placing them at risk for academic failure. Our long-term goal is to develop an
effective word learning treatment for kindergarten children with SLI, thereby improving their
academic and vocational outcomes. During the prior funding period, we successfully taught new
words to children with SLI via interactive book reading, a treatment involving an adult
reading a storybook to a child and deviating from the text to teach new words. We identified
the adequate intensity of the treatment and showed that children with SLI learn an
appropriate number of words by the end of 8-weeks of treatment, approximating the number of
words learned by typically developing children in prior studies. However, this successful
support of short-term word learning revealed new challenges that must be overcome in this
renewal to continue to understand and improve long-term word learning by children with SLI.
Thus, a second preliminary clinical trial involving 60 kindergarten children with SLI is
proposed. Aim 1 addresses the challenge that newly learned words were forgotten once
treatment was withdrawn. We attempt to buffer forgetting by comparing different amounts of
testing during interactive book reading (low vs. mid vs high testing). Incorporating testing
into training is a well-established and highly replicated means of reducing forgetting by
adults and typically developing children. Aim 1 will determine whether testing can be
harnessed to buffer forgetting by children with SLI under real world conditions. Aims 2 and 3
address the challenge that not all children benefitted equally from interactive book reading.
In Aim 2, we identify pre-treatment characteristics of children with SLI that are associated
with the slope of learning during treatment or the slope of forgetting post-treatment.
Moreover, we select a pre-treatment battery that samples a wide array of skills likely to be
associated with learning (language processing, working memory, and episodic memory) or
forgetting (overall learning during treatment, decay rate). Aim 2 will provide a foundation
for predicting which children will benefit from interactive book reading and will identify
which skills are major barriers to long-term word learning by children with SLI. In Aim 3, we
classify each child's response at the end of treatment (learner vs. non-learner) and at the
end of post-treatment monitoring (rememberer vs. forgetter). Then, we examine earlier
performance to determine when treatment and post-treatment outcomes can be predicted. This
yields empirically based benchmarks for progress that can be used to tailor the treatment to
individual children and establishes the stability of learning and forgetting over time.
Overall, this research advances a promising treatment to effectively overcome the significant
word learning challenges faced by children with SLI and reveals the contribution of learning
and forgetting to language normalization by children with SLI. The results will have impact
beyond word learning and SLI because all treatments require boosting learning and buffering
forgetting. Thus, the knowledge gained will further catalyze clinical research.

Inclusion Criteria:

Eligible for kindergarten enrollment Age 5-6 years Normal hearing Normal nonverbal IQ --
Nonverbal IQ of 85 or higher Language impairment as documented by language score SPELT-3 or on DELV,
Exclusion Criteria:

Speaks more than one language Health history indicating neurologic or other disorder that
would exclude a diagnosis of SLI (e.g., autism, developmental disability)