[phono-tx] Storkel, Maekawa & Hoover (2010) phon prob vs. n'hood density

Storkel, H. L., Maekawa, J., & Hoover, J. R. (2010). Differentiating the
Effects of Phonotactic Probability and Neighborhood Density on Vocabulary
Comprehension and Production: A Comparison of Preschool Children With Versus
Without Phonological Delays, Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing
Research, 53(4), 933-949.

http://jslhr.asha.org/cgi/content/abstract/53/4/933

Purpose:
To differentiate the effect of phonotactic probability from that of
neighborhood density on a vocabulary probe administered to preschool
children with or without phonological delays.

Method:
Twenty preschool children with functional phonological delays and 34
preschool children with typical language development completed a 121-item
vocabulary probe in both an expressive and receptive response format. Words
on the vocabulary probe orthogonally varied on phonotactic probability and
neighborhood density but were matched on age of acquisition, word frequency,
word length, semantic set size, concreteness, familiarity, and imagability.

Results:
Results show a Phonotactic Probability x Neighborhood Density interaction
with variation across groups. Specifically, the optimal conditions for
typically developing children were rare phonotactic probability with sparse
neighborhoods and common phonotactic probability with dense neighborhoods.
In contrast, only rare phonotactic probability with sparse neighborhoods was
optimal for children with phonological delays.

Conclusions:
Rare sound sequences and sparse neighborhoods may facilitate triggering of
word learning for typically developing children and children with
phonological delays. In contrast, common sound sequences and dense
neighborhoods may facilitate configuration and engagement for typically
developing children but not for children with phonological delays because of
their weaker phonological and/or lexical representations.

KEY WORDS: word learning, vocabulary, neighborhood density, phonotactic
probability, phonological delay

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