Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, Volume 39, 177-190, February 1996

Lexical Learning by Children With

Specific Language Impairment:
Effects of Linguistic Input Presented
at Varying Speaking Rates

Susan Ellis Weismer

Linda J. Hesketh
Walsman Center on Mental
Retardation and Human Development
and
Department of
Communicative Disorders
University of Wisconsin-Madison
filir"""p""""s""ss "0MMsa I
The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of speaking rate variations in the
linguistic input provided to children during a novel word learning task. Thirty-two school-age
children participated in this investigation, including 16 children with specific language impair-
ment (SLI) and 16 normal language (NL) controls matched on mental age (MA). The younger half
of the NL group also served as a vocabulary level comparison for the older half of the children
with SLI. No significant rate effects were found for comprehension of novel words, with all
children performing at relatively high levels of accuracy. The group with SLI demonstrated the
same recognition accuracy pattern as MA matched controls for target labels versus phoneti-
cally similar/dissimilar foils only for words trained at slow rate. Rate effects were most
pronounced for items with the highest difficulty level, namely production of novel words.
Children with SLI produced significantly fewer words that had been presented at fast rate
during training than NL children matched on mental age or vocabulary level. Individual
differences and production error patterns on fast rate items were examined. The finding that
variations in speaking rate had a disproportionate impact upon word learning for children with
SLI was interpreted within a framework of limited processing capacity.

KEY WORDS: specific language impairment, lexical learning, speaking rate, limited
processing capacity, linguistic input

There is considerable evidence that even though children with specific language
impairment (SLI) do not have generalized cognitive deficits, they demonstrate certain
perceptual and cognitive limitations including temporal processing and memory
difficulties (see reviews by Bishop, 1992; Ellis Weismer, 1993; Johnston, 1992;
Leonard, 1987). The pattern of difficulties exhibited across nonlinguistic as well as
linguistic tasks has prompted a number of investigators to posit that these children
have limited processing capacities (Bishop, 1992; Ellis Weismer, 1994; Gathercole &
Baddeley, 1990, 1993; Johnston, 1994; Johnston & Smith, 1989; Kirchner & Klatzky,
1985; Lahey & Bloom, 1994; Leonard, McGregor, & Allen, 1992; Montgomery, 1993).
Although there is reason to suspect that children with SLI have certain processing
constraints, very little is known about how the manner in which linguistic signals are
presented affects their ability to process and acquire language.
Prosodic characteristics of linguistic input are easily manipulated and have the
potential to influence various levels of linguistic processing, presumably having an
impact on auditory perception/comprehension of language, and thereby language
use (cf. Ellis Weismer, 1992). In the current study, the particular prosodic modifica-
tion that was investigated involved variations in speaking rate. Examination of
manipulations of the linguistic input may provide insight into factors that facilitate or

D 1996, American Speech-Language-Hearing Assoclation 177 0022-4685/96/3901-0177

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 178 Journal of Speech and Hearing Research
deter initial language learning, as well as shedding light on
processing mechanisms underlying SLI.
Various studies have examined the effect of manipulating
speaking rate on linguistic processing by individuals with
normal language and those with different types of language
disorders. Fast speaking rates have been shown to have an
adverse effect on auditory comprehension and on produc-
tion. Older adult listeners (with normal language abilities)
exhibit significantly reduced auditory comprehension of pas-
sages presented at fast speaking rates compared with their
performance on passages presented at normal rates
(Schmitt, 1983; Schmitt & Carroll, 1985; Schmitt & Moore,
1989). It has been shown that children with auditory percep-
tual language problems have more difficulty perceiving
speech presented at a fast rate than do their age-matched
peers (Manning, Johnston, & Beasley, 1977). Further, chil-
dren with learning disabilities evidence less accuracy than
age-matched controls at repeating sentences that were
presented at fast speaking rates (McNutt & Chi-Yen Li,
1980). In a related line of research, numerous investigations
by Tallal and colleagues have demonstrated temporal pro-
cessing constraints for rapidly presented verbal and nonver-
bal stimuli in children with SLI (Fellbaum, Miller, Tallal, &
Curtiss, 1994; Johnston, Stark, Mellits, & Tallal, 1981; Tallal
& Piercy, 1973a, 1973b; Tallal, Stark, & Mellits, 1985).
Findings from these studies indicate that the amount of time
children with SLI require for sensory information processing
is substantially greater than that required by children with
normal language abilities and that significant differences
between children with SLI and NL on tasks of temporal
integration disappear when stimuli are presented more
slowly.
Based on the findings from speaking rate manipulation
studies, there is evidence to suggest that slower rates of
speech can promote auditory comprehension. Several stud-
ies have reported that slower rates of speech led to im-
proved comprehension of spoken paragraphs for adults with
aphasia (Lasky, Weidner, & Johnson, 1976; Pashek & Brook-
shire, 1982; Weidner & Lasky, 1976), though findings from
other investigations have called into question the positive
effects of rate reduction for this population (Blumstein, Katz,
Goodglass, Shrier, & Dworetsky, 1985). Investigations of
speech rate reduction with children have demonstrated
beneficial effects of slower speaking rate for children with
learning disabilities (McCroskey & Thompson, 1973) as well
as for children with acquired aphasia (Campbell & McNeil,
1985). Using a dual processing paradigm, Campbell and
McNeil (1985) found that slowing the rate of the primary
sentence improved comprehension of a secondary sen-
tence that had been presented at normal rate. This result
was interpreted within a limited capacity model (Kahneman,
1973), such that it was hypothesized that slowing the rate of
the primary sentence allowed more cognitive resources to
be allocated to the processing of the secondary sentence,
thereby increasing comprehension levels.
We were interested in extending the findings from re-
search focused on the impact of variations in speaking rate
upon language processing, to explore how this type of
modification of the linguistic input might affect language
learning in children with SLI. One area of particular concern
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39 177-190 February 1996
with these children, for both clinical and academic reasons,
involves vocabulary learning. It is well established that
children with SLI exhibit late onset of words and often have
restricted vocabularies at the point when they enter school
(cf. Leonard, 1988). There has been considerable interest in
examining factors related to lexical learning difficulties in
children with SLI (Dollaghan, 1987; Rice, Buhr, & Nemeth,
1990; Rice, Buhr, & Oetting, 1992; Rice, Oetting, Marquis,
Bode, & Pae, 1994). Rice et al. (1992) examined the effect of
pause insertion in a quick incidental learning (QUIL) task.
They reported that this particular prosodic modification of
the linguistic input had no effect on the initial comprehension
of unfamiliar words by kindergarten children with SLI. Con-
trary to these findings, a recent study by Ellis Weismer and
Hesketh (1993) found that speaking rate variations signifi-
cantly affected comprehension and production abilities of
kindergartners with SLI on a novel word learning task. Inthat
study, novel word learning was assessed under linguistic
input conditions involving variations in speaking rate, em-
phatic versus neutral stress, or use of supplemental visual
cues (i.e., gestures). It was hypothesized that certain of
these input manipulations could serve to reduce the de-
mands of linguistic processing in various ways and thus
mitigate processing constraints of children with SLI. Sixteen
kindergarten children participated in that preliminary study,
8 children with SLI and 8 with normal language (NL). Results
for the Rate Condition indicated that both groups correctly
produced significantly more novel words trained at slow rate
than fast rate and significantly more words trained at normal
rate than fast rate. Children also demonstrated significantly
better understanding of novel words trained at slow rate
than at fast rate. Although the group x rate interaction did
not reach statistical significance inthat limited sample study,
there was a clear trend for the group with SLI to exhibit more
pronounced effects in response to rate variations than the
NL group in both comprehension and production. The
purpose of the present study is to further investigate the
influence of speaking rate manipulations upon language
learning in a larger sample of children with SLI, using a
modification of the original novel word learning task that
provides an assessment of recognition abilities in terms of
accuracy and reaction time measures, as well as providing
measures of comprehension and production accuracy.
The particular limited capacity framework that was em-
ployed in the current investigation was Just and Carpenter's
(1992) Capacity Theory of comprehension. The main thesis
of this theory is that cognitive capacity constrains compre-
hension and does so more for some individuals than others.
Capacity is defined in terms of the maximum amount of
activation available in working memory to support storage
and processing. According to the Capacity theory, when
task demands exceed the available resources, both storage
and computational functions are degraded. Just and Car-
penter's theory is based on Kahneman's (1973) limited
capacity theory of attention and also draws on Baddeley's
(1986) notions of working memory, in that there is a trade-off
between information maintenance and computation. There
are, however, important differences between Baddeley's
notions of working memory and the view underlying the
Capacity theory. Baddeley proposes that working memory is

composed of two distinct components, a central executive
and another component consisting of modality-specific
storage buffers including the articulatory loop that is impli-
cated in language processing and retention. Rather than
invoking modality-specific buffers, Just and Carpenter con-
ceptualize working memory for language as a global set of
processes and resources that perform language compre-
hension. Although Capacity theory was developed as a
reading comprehension model, it has been extended to
investigations of children with reading disabilities, and to
auditory language processing in adults with aphasia (cf.
Carpenter, Miyake, & Just, 1994). Similarly, it can be em-
ployed to evaluate claims regarding capacity limitations in
children with SLI and the impact that modifications of the
linguistic signal have on their language processing and
acquisition.
The research questions addressed by this study were:
1. Do prosodic manipulations of the linguistic input involv-
ing variations in speaking rate affect lexical learning by
children with SLI?
2. Do these linguistic input modifications result in different
patterns of performance for children with SLI than for
those with NL development?
We hypothesized that presentation of linguistic stimuli at
fast speaking rates may exceed children's capacity limita-
tions and lead to reduced novel word learning whereas the
additional processing time afforded by slow speaking rates
may facilitate linguistic computation and storage, resulting in
better learning. Additionally, we predicted that these input
manipulations would have the most impact upon language
learning by children with SLI given their presumed process-
ing limitations.
Method
Participants
A total of 32 children participated inthis study, 16 children
with SLI and 16 children with NL. Children with SLI had a
mean chronological age of 7 years, 2 months (with a
standard deviation of 12 months). The group with NL also
had a mean CA of 7 years, 2 months (with a standard
deviation of 13 months). The group with SLI was comprised
of 6 girls and 10 boys, whereas the group with NL included
3 girls and 13 boys. Children with SLI were compared to
same age children with NL who had equivalent mental ages
(MAs) on a nonverbal cognitive measure, the Columbia
Mental Maturity Scale (Burgemeister, Blum, & Lorge, 1972).
A subset of the children involving the oldest half of the group
with SLI and the youngest half of the NL group was also
compared on the basis of a vocabulary match, using raw
scores from the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised
(PPVT-R), Form M (Dunn & Dunn, 1981).
All children demonstrated normal-range cognitive abilities
(i.e., obtained Age Deviation Scores of at least 85 on the
Columbia). None of the children evidenced physical, motor,
or emotional handicaps according to teacher and parent
report and school records. Children in both groups dis-
played normal hearing and vision as assessed at the time of
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Ellis Weismer & Hesketh: Effects of Linguistic Input 179
testing. Middle ear screening (per ASHA, 1990 guidelines)
and bilateral acuity screening (500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz
at 20 dB HL per ASHA, 1985 guidelines) were conducted in
an audiometric sound booth. Visual screenings were per-
formed using the Snellen E chart. Children who served as NL
controls had no history of speech, language, or hearing
problems, or any other exceptional educational needs ac-
cording to school records and background information
provided by parents. All children were monolingual, native
English speakers. Based on parent report of their own
educational levels and occupations, families in both groups
ranged from working class to upper-middle class using the
criteria employed by Hoff-Ginsberg (1991).
All children with SLI had previously been diagnosed by a
certified speech-language clinician and were receiving lan-
guage services in their schools. Five of the 16 children in the
group with SLI were also demonstrating written language/
learning difficulties based on parent and school reports. A
battery of assessment measures was administered at the
same time as the experimental tasks for the purposes of
confirming diagnoses of language impairment and compar-
ing the performances of the children in the two groups. As
mentioned previously, nonverbal cognitive skills were as-
sessed using the Columbia and receptive vocabulary abili-
ties were measured by the PPVT-R. Syntactic comprehen-
sion skills were assessed via the Grammatical Morpheme
(Section II)and Elaborated Sentences (Section III) subtests
of the Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language-Re-
vised (Carrow-Woolfolk, 1985). Auditory comprehension
was further evaluated by the Token Test for Children
(DiSimoni, 1978). Twelve-minute narrative language samples
were analyzed using Systematic Analysis of Language Tran-
scripts (SALT) (Miller & Chapman, 1992) and findings were
compared to SALT Reference Data Base norms collected on
Madison area children (Leadholm, Miller, Contrucci, Britting-
ham, & Odell, 1992). It should also be noted that phonolog-
ical skills of the children with SLI were assessed from the
spontaneous language samples. Based on this evaluation it
was determined that they did not demonstrate articulation
errors on the sounds in the experimental target words or
phonological processes such as final consonant deletion
that would interfere with their production of these particular
words.
The results of the cognitive and language testing are
summarized in Table 1 in terms of group means and
standard deviations (SD) for standard scores (or raw scores
where appropriate) for both the children with SLI and those
with NL. Although the mean score on the Columbia was
somewhat higher for the NL group than for the SLI group in
the MA comparison, a t-test revealed that this difference was
not statistically significant and the overall distribution of
scores was reasonably well matched. As expected, the
mean scores on all the language measures were significantly
lower for the group with SLI than for the NL controls
matched on MA (p < .05). Half of the children with SLI
evidenced both receptive and expressive delays; the other
half demonstrated difficulties in only one area (either com-
prehension or production). The vocabulary match involved
comparing older children with SLI to younger NL children
who exhibited equivalent raw scores on the PPVT-R. The
 180 Journalof Speech and Hearing Research 39 177-190 February 1996

TABLE 1. Summary of participant characteristics for the groups measures. Eight of the 16 children with SLI scored 2 SDs
with specific language impairment (SLI) and normal language below the mean on one or more language measure. Six
(NL) for the mental age comparison (MA) and the vocabulary
level comparison (VOCAB). Group means are reported for each children in the group with SLI performed below 1.5 SDs
variable, with standard deviations noted in parentheses. below the mean on at least one language measure and the
scores for the remaining 2 children fell more than 1 SD below
VOCAB the mean on two or more language measures. All of the
MA comparison comparison children with language disorders were judged to have a
SLI NL SLI NL specific language impairment such that there was a discrep-
(n = 16) (n = 16) (n = 8) (n = 8) ancy between their language skills and cognitive abilities
(e.g., the 2 children who met the minimum criterion of 1 SD
Age (months) 86 86 96 75 below the mean across several language measures dis-
(12) (13) (8) (7) played Age Deviation Scores of 114 and 116 on the
Columbia (ADSa) 105 110 102 113 Columbia).
(9) (9) (8) (12)
PPVT-Rb 97 113 95 114
(10) (11) (9) (13)
Raw score 87 86 Procedure
(8) (13)
Token (V)c 493 502 494 502 Children were seen individually for a total of three ses-
(6) (3) (7) (2) sions, each lasting approximately 1 hour. All testing was
Raw score 13 16 completed in the Language Processes Laboratory in the
(4) (2) Waisman Center. The first session was devoted to the
d
TACL (11) 41 53 41 57 administration of the majority of the assessment measures
(7) (11) (8) (13) (i.e., the Columbia, PPVT-R, language sample, hearing
Raw score 31 31
(6) (6) screening). During the second and third sessions the exper-
e
TACL (111) 43 57 41 60 imental task was administered, along with an auditory de-
(8) (7) (8) (6) tection measure, vision screening, and the remainder of the
Raw score 28 31 language assessment tests (TACL-R, Token). The experi-
(7) (4) mental task involved two training sessions-one in which
MLU - SALT' 5.3 8.1 6.1 8.1 three consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) novel words were
(1.4) (1.8) (1.2) (2.4) taught and one in which three consonant-vowel-consonant-
aADS refers to Age Deviation Scores, which are standard score consonant (CVCC) targets were taught. The order of presen-
equivalents from the Columbia Mental Maturity Scale that have a tation of the experimental conditions (CVC vs. CVCC tar-
mean of 100 and standard deviation of 16.
bStandard score equivalents from the Peabody Picture Vocabulary gets) was counterbalanced across participants.
Test-Revised based on a mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15.
cStandard scores for Part V of the Token Test for Children, based on
a mean of 500 and standard deviation of 5. Experimental Task
dStandard scores from the Grammatical Morphemes Section II of
the Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language-Revised that have The basic paradigm was similar to that used in our prior
a mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10. investigation of novel word learning (Ellis Weismer & Hes-
eStandard scores from the Elaborated Sentences Section III of the
Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language-Revised that have a keth, 1993), with the addition of recognition items. Children
mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10. were shown a toy figure identified as an outerspace creature
fMean length of utterance (MLU) inmorphemes based on 12-minute named Sam and instructed that they were going to learn
narrative language samples analyzed using Systematic Analysis of some "funny-sounding" words in Sam's outerspace lan-
Language Transcripts (SALT). According to the SALT Reference guage. Modeling procedures were used to teach labels for
Data Base, the mean MLU for 7-year-olds' narrative samples is 7.32
with a standard deviation of 1.06 and the mean MLU for 9-year-olds' unusual objects, such that children heard a given target
narrative samples is 8.80 with a standard deviation of 1.64. word repeatedly being paired with a certain object. These
objects were ones that were judged to have low codability
vocabulary matched subgroups also demonstrated similar based on adults' inability to name them (as determined by
performance on other measures of language comprehen- responses from 20 adult judges who also served as listeners
sion (i.e., there were no significant differences between their for perceptual judgments of taped stimuli).
mean raw scores on these tests); however, it should be The novel target words were identified as the names of
noted that they differed in expressive language functioning. Sam's toys (i.e., object labels). The CVC targets consisted of
That is, the children with SLI evidenced significantly lower /pon/, /ted/, and /kub/, and the CVCC targets were /bimp/,
MLUs than the vocabulary-matched controls (p < .05). /tAnd/, and /gsnt/. Thus, the novel words all involved single-
None of the children selected for the NL group attained syllable forms comprised of early-developing sounds (stops
scores that fell below 1 SD below the mean for their CA on and the nasals /n/ and /m/). These target words were
any of the assessment measures. To be included in the presented in 5-syllable sentence frames so children heard,
group with SLI, children had to score more than 1.5 SDs for example, "Sam is by the /kub/." Each lexical item was
below the mean for their CA on at least one of the language consistently presented at a certain speaking rate for a given
measures administered at the time of testing or more than 1 child and this variable was counterbalanced across partici-
SD below the mean on two or more of the language pants. For instance, /pon/ was consistently presented at

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slow rate for one child, /ted/ at normal rate, and /kub/ at fast
rate; whereas, for another child /pon/ was always presented
at normal rate, /ted/ at fast rate, and /kub/ at slow rate.
Stimuli consisted of tape-recorded, natural speech that had
been digitized (described below). The stimulus sentences
were presented at approximately 2.8 syll/sec for slow rate,
4.4 syll/sec for normal rate, and 5.9 syll/sec for fast rate.
These particular target rates were chosen because they
correspond with values reported in the literature (cf. McNutt
& Chi-Yen Li, 1980; Schmitt & Moore, 1989), were used
successfully in our prior investigation of speaking rate vari-
ations (Ellis Weismer & Hesketh, 1993), and were perceptu-
ally discriminable (see Stimuli Validation section).
Instructions for the comprehension and production por-
tions of the experimental task were as follows:
We're going to play a game. This is an outerspace man. His
name is Sam. We're going to learn some funny-sounding words
in his outerspace language. These are words for the names of
Sam's toys. First, a person on the tape will tell you the names of
the toys. Sometimes she will talk very fast [spoken at fast rate],
sometimes she will talk very slowly [spoken at slow rate], and
sometimes she will talk like we normally do [spoken at normal
rate]. You listen and try to remember the words so when it's your
turn you can say the words or put Sam by the right toy.
Note that children were alerted about the variable that would
be manipulated (i.e., speaking rate variations) through both
verbal instructions and demonstration. The motivation for
providing these advance cues was based on pilot testing,
which indicated that children often interrupted the task to
question or comment on the varying speech rates when this
variable was not explicitly mentioned prior to the task.
The experimental task consisted of four types of trials:
Exposure trials, Production probes, Comprehension probes,
and Recognition probes. During the Exposure trials, children
were shown an array of three unfamiliar objects. The toy
figure of Sam was placed next to the target object and
children heard the tape-recorded training stimulus sentence,
"Sam is by the /pon/." Production probes, which immedi-
ately followed the exposure trials, involved a live-voice
prompt, "What's this called?," as the experimenter pointed
to each of the objects. Comprehension probes followed the
production probes. On these probes an additional object
that served as a foil was added to the unfamiliar target
objects. Children heard tape-recorded utterances instruct-
ing them where to place Sam, e.g. "Put him by the /kub/."
On the Recognition probes, both accuracy and manual
RTs were recorded. Children heard sentences of the form
"This is the " and were instructed to press a two-
button mouse YES/NO. Instructions for the Recognition
portion of the experimental task were as follows:
The woman on the tape isgoing to tell you the names of the toys.
If she says the right name for the toy, press the button with the
happy face. If she says the wrong name for the toy, press the
button with the sad face. I want you to press the button as fast
as you can, but try to be right. Let's practice.
Pretraining was conducted prior to the Recognition probes
using real objects to ensure that the children understood the
task. On the Recognition probes, target labels (L) were
presented, as well as phonetically similar (PS) and phoneti-
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Ellis Weismer & Hesketh: Effects of Linguistic Input 181
cally dissimilar (PD) novel word foils. The phonetically similar
items varied from the target labels only in the final consonant
(CVC) or final consonant blend (CVCC), that is, the PS item
for /kub/ was /kum/ and the PS item for /gent/ was /gEmp/.
Phonetically dissimilar items had no sounds incommon with
target labels so they were maximally different, that is, the PD
item for /g£nt/ was /visk/. The PS and PD foils for the CVC
and CVCC target words are listed in Table 2. On the
Recognition probes, CSpeech (Milenkovic, 1992) was used
to present digitized stimulus utterances and to record re-
sponse accuracy and reaction time. Responses were made
via a button press on a mouse, using the index finger of the
preferred hand that was maintained in a uniform resting
position. Within the CSpeech program the resolution of
measured values is 1 msec and resolution accuracy is 5
msec. Reported RTs on the Recognition probes reflect the
interval between the offset of the stimulus utterance and the
button press that terminated the timer.
On the Production and Comprehension probes children
were given feedback about the correctness of their re-
sponses. Feedback consisted of comments such as "Good,
that's right" or "Yes, you got it" when the child responded
appropriately, or "No, that wasn't it" or "Good try, but that
wasn't quite right" for incorrect responses. The correct
object label was not mentioned in the feedback to ensure
that variation was not introduced in the number of expo-
sures of the novel word each child received. Additionally,
children were given a penny for each correct response, so
both the verbal comments and tangible reinforcers served
as feedback concerning the correctness of the response. No
feedback was provided on the Recognition probes given the
timed nature of the task.
The experimental task was divided into two sets of trial
blocks (see Appendix A). In Trial Block 1, a single exposure
of each target word was followed by production and com-
prehension probes. Then another exposure of each target
was provided, followed by production, comprehension, and
recognition probes. This first block of trials was designed to
assess the initial phase of learning and was designated as
the Fast Mapping portion of the task. In the remainder of the
task, target words were presented three times each (rather
than once) during each set of Exposure trials. The sequence
of trials (exposure, production, comprehension, recognition)
was repeated four times within Block 2. Block 1 plus Block
2 constitute the Total Task, and represent the outcome of
more extended training. The focus of the present report is on
TABLE 2. Phonetically similar (PS) and phonetically dissimilar
(PD) foils for the consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) and con-
sonant-vowel-consonant-consonant (CVCC) target labels on
the Recognition probes.
PS foils PD foils
CVC targets
/kub/ /kum/ /wis/
/pon/ /pob/ /fik/
/ted/ /ten/ /ZAg/
CVCC targets
/gent/ /gemp/ /visk/
/blmp/ /bint/ /fAntf/
/tAnd/ /tAmp/ /oesk/
 182 Journal of Speech and Hearing Research
the Total Task. Combining across the two training sessions
(one for CVC targets and one for CVCC targets), the Total
Task involved 84 exposure trials, 60 production probes, 60
comprehension probes, and 240 recognition probes per
child. In the current report, Total Task data are reported. A
separate report of the Fast Mapping data from this study
and from another investigation of linguistic input modifica-
tion are being reported elsewhere (Ellis Weismer & Hesketh,
1995).
Auditory Detection Measure
Stimuli
The stimuli for this study consisted of tape-recorded,
natural speech utterances produced by an adult female
speaker. Rate changes were accomplished via natural
speaking rate adjustments since the sampling techniques
used in electronically altered (time-compressed or time-
expanded) speech potentially involve intelligibility concerns
similar to those of synthesized speech (Greene, Manous, &
Pisoni, 1984; Logan, Pisoni, & Greene, 1985), especially for
children with language disorders (Massey, 1988). Stimulus
utterances were recorded on a Harman/Kardon CD491
cassette deck in an acoustically isolated booth. A head-
mounted microphone (Shure SM10A) was used so that
consistent mouth-to-microphone distance could be main-
tained. Approximately 10 productions of each stimulus sen-
tence were initially recorded. Following acoustic measure-
ments and perceptual judgments (described below), the
best exemplar of each sentence was selected for inclusion
on the actual experimental tapes. Computerized speech
analysis programs (VOCAL, a program developed at the
Waisman Center and CSpeech, Milenkovic, 1992) were used
to digitize utterances and arrange them in the desired
sequences for presentation during the experimental task.
Taped stimuli for the exposure trials and comprehension
probes on the experimental task were presented in the
sound field via a Harman/Kardon CD491 cassette tape deck
with Polk Audiospeakers. Recognition stimulus utterances
were presented directly from the computer via headphones
(Sony MDR-7502).
Validation of Stimuli
Stimuli were selected on the basis of a combination of
acoustic and perceptual criteria. The VOCAL and CSpeech
programs were used to perform acoustic analyses of the
stimulus utterances. Articulatory rate was determined by
measuring total utterance durations and converting these to
syllables/second. Total utterance durations were measured
from the onset of frication noise for sentences beginning
with a fricative ("Sam . . . ") or from the stop burst
("Put..."), to the last glottal pulse of the sentence-final
word. A tolerance range of .2 syllables/second was al-
lowed inthe target rates of 2.8, 4.4, and 5.9 syllables/second
for slow, normal, and fast rate utterances, which still resulted
in nonoverlapping speaking rates. Perceptual judgments
were obtained for utterances that met the target rates based
on acoustic measurements. Twenty adults who had normal
hearing and language and were naive to the hypothesis of
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39 177-190 February 1996
this investigation served as listeners. A paired-discrimination
task format was employed such that two sentences were
presented on each trial. Listeners heard a pair of sentences
and were required to judge whether the first or second
sentence was produced at a faster rate than the other or if
both sentences were spoken at the same rate. Rate varia-
tions in utterances selected for inclusion on the stimulus
tapes were judged with 99% accuracy.
In addition to the experimental task, an Auditory Detection
Measure was administered to all children to assess manual
reaction times (RTs) to nonlinguistic stimuli and provide a
baseline against which to assess RTs on the Recognition
probes. In this task, children were instructed to press a
button as quickly as possible in response to a white noise
stimulus that followed an alerting tone by randomly varying
intervals. The alerting tone consisted of a 1000 Hz pure tone,
300 msec in duration (generated by an HP 204D Oscillator).
The white noise imperative stimulus was also 300 msec in
duration (generated by a Grason Stadler 455-B Noise Gen-
erator). The interstimulus interval (ISI) between the alerting
tone and the noise stimulus signal varied between 500 and
1300 msec in 200 msec steps (500, 700, 900, 1100, and
1300 msec). The time between the response and the start of
the next trial (alerting tone) was 2000 msec. The CSpeech
program was used to present sequences and to store
responses. The Auditory Detection Measure consisted of
five practice trials, 30 pre-test trials (presented before the
experimental task), and 30 post-test trials (presented at the
end of the experimental task). Detection responses were
made by pressing a button on a mouse. A uniform resting
hand position was maintained, with children using the index
finger of their preferred hand to respond. RTs on the
Auditory Detection Task were measured from the onset of
the noise signal to the button press terminating the timer.
Scoring and Interrater Agreement
Responses were scored as correct on the Production
probes if all sounds were produced correctly in the appro-
priate sequence. Each child's responses were initially re-
corded on-line and were audiotaped for later analysis by a
second judge. Both judges have graduate degrees in Com-
municative Disorders and have extensive experience with
phonetic transcription. Production data from 8 randomly
selected children across the two groups were rescored by a
second transcriber. This constituted approximately 15% of
the total production data (291/1920 production responses).
Interrater agreement was 93.8% based on a phoneme-by-
phoneme comparison (874/932 phonemes). On the compre-
hension probes, responses were scored as correct if the
child placed Sam by the appropriate object. A second judge
viewed videotapes of six randomly selected sessions (out of
64) and independently recorded responses to the compre-
hension probes. Interrater agreement for the comprehension
data was 100% (168/168). Recognition responses and re-
sponses to the Auditory Detection task were recorded by the
computer.
 Ellis Weismer & Hesketh: Effects of Linguistic Input 183

Procedural Validity TABLE 3. Group means (and standard deviations) for the chil-
dren with specific language impairment (SLI) and normal lan-
Six of the 64 experimental sessions were randomly se- guage (NL) for the mental age comparison (MA) and the vocab-
lected to be video/audiotaped for analysis of procedural ulary level comparison (VOCAB). Mean accuracy scores are
reported for production and comprehension. For recognition,
validity. Three measures were analyzed, including: (a) the both accuracy and manual reaction times (sec) are reported.
examiner's pairing of novel objects with novel words during
the exposure trials; (b)appropriate feedback from the exam- VOCAB
iner for correct/incorrect responses on production trials; and MA comparison comparison
(c) appropriate feedback for responses on comprehension SLI NL SLI NL
trials. Results of these analyses indicated that the examiner (n=16) (n=16) (n=8) (n=8)
correctly paired the novel objects and words during expo-
sure trials with 99.6% accuracy (242/243), and provided Production
correct feedback for responses on both comprehension and (Total = 60)
Mean 12.1 25.7 17.9 22.2
production trials with 100% accuracy (180/180). (SD) (10.6) (13.0) (12.0) (12.5)
Comprehension
(Total = 60)
Results Mean 41.9 49.8 47.6 47.5
(SD) (12.5) (8.8) (7.0) (10.1)
A mixed-model design was employed in which the be- Recognition accuracy
tween-subjects factor was Group (SLI vs. MA or older SLI vs. (Total = 120)
Mean 91.5 94.3 101.3 82.3
VOCAB) and the within-subjects factors were Rate (slow, (SD) (23.1) (25.7) (6.8) (31.5)
normal, fast) and Syllable Shape (CVC, CVCC). Two sepa- Recognition reaction time
rate analyses were conducted to assess the influence of (in sec.)
Group, such that all of the children with SLI were compared Mean 1.25 1.02 1.17 1.17
to the total group of MA controls in one analysis and a (SD) (.22) (.48) (.24) (.63)
subset of the experimental and control groups (i.e., older SLI
and younger controls matched on VOCAB) were compared
in a different analysis. Separate MANOVA repeated mea- older SLI and younger vocabulary matched groups. No main
sures analyses were conducted for production, comprehen- or interaction effects for Rate were observed for the com-
sion and recognition data, such that the dependent variables prehension data, across either comparison.
represented measurements of the same variable across time
(cf. SPSS Reference Guide, 1990, p.392). For the Recogni-
tion accuracy data, these analyses were conducted using Recognition Data
both the original percentage data (percentages were neces-
On the Recognition items, both accuracy and reaction
sary since there were unequal numbers of the various item
time were examined. For Recognition Accuracy for the MA
types) and arcsine transformations of the percentage data.
matched groups, a significant three-way interaction was
Similarly, MANOVA analyses were completed on both the
found involving Group x Item Type x Rate [F(4, 108) = 3.31,
original RT data from the Recognition probes and the log
p < .05], as illustrated in Figure 1. Post hoc tests (Tukeys)
transforms of these data. Results reported for Recognition
indicated that the group with SLI demonstrated the typical
are based on the statistical analyses of the transformed
pattern of item difficulty exhibited by the NL group only at
data. For post hoc comparisons, Tukey HSD tests were
Slow rate; that is, a pattern in which accuracy was signifi-
used. To analyze error patterns in the production data,
cantly higher for recognition of PD items than PS (p < .05)
nonparametric statistics (Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests)
and significantly higher for the target labels than PS items
were used due to the small number of responses in each
(p < .05). At normal rate, the recognition accuracy for the
category per child (see Siegel & Castellan, 1988, pp. 128-
SLI group did not differ significantly across item types and at
137).
Fast rate only the PD items were recognized with signifi-
Group means and standard deviations for the Total Task
cantly more accuracy than the PS items (p < .05). For the
(untransformed) data on the Production, Comprehension,
Vocabulary level comparison, there was a significant Item
and Recognition probes are reported in Table 3.
Type effect for Recognition Accuracy [F(2, 24) = 17.1, p <
.05] in which the ordering from most to least accurate was
Comprehension Data PD > L > PS, with each of the three comparisons being
statistically significant (p < .05).
Results of the MANOVA revealed a significant Group Analyses of Recognition Reaction Time for correct re-
effect for Comprehension such that the MA matched con- sponses revealed a significant Item Type x Syllable Shape
trols performed better than the group with SLI [F(1, 30) = x Rate interaction for the MA comparison [F(4, 68) = 4.74,
4.26, p < .05], though both groups performed at relatively p < .05), as illustrated in Figure 2. For the phonetically more
high levels of accuracy (70% for the group with SLI and 83% complex CVCC targets, reaction time to PS items was
for the NL group). Chance level of responding on the significantly longer than to PD items across all speaking
comprehension items was 25%. There was no significant rates (p < .05), mirroring the recognition accuracy data with
difference between the comprehension performance of the respect to the relative difficulty of these two item types. For

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 184 Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 39 177-190 February 1996

RECOGNITION
MA MATCHED GROUPS
Item Type-Op
100 . B
-
-

* PD-NL
O PD-SLI
90 * L-NL
O O
o L-SLI
0
OJ 80 O A PS-NL
O

!
Q A
O a
O
O
A PS-SLI

70
I A
[]----
60

a0o __ I
--

BLOW NORMAL FAST

Rate
FIGURE 1. Mean percent Recognition Accuracy on the phonetically dissimilar foils (PD),
phonetically similar foils (PS), and target labels (L) for the group with specific language
impairment (SLI) and the MA matched group with normal language (NL) for the slow, normal,
and fast rate targets.

the less complex CVC targets, RT was not significantly
different for the various item types except at Fast rate. For
CVC targets presented at Fast rate during training, RT to PS
items was significantly longer than reaction time to PD items
(p < .05), as was the case for the CVCC targets. No
significant rate effects in Recognition RT were found for the
Vocabulary comparison.
A significant Group x Syllable Shape interaction was
observed in Recognition Reaction Time for both the MA
comparison [F(1, 17) = 6.63, p < .05] and the Vocabulary
level comparison [F(1, 8) = 5.36, p < .05]. For the MA
comparison, this interaction stemmed from the fact that the
NL group responded significantly more quickly to CVC
targets than the group with SLI (p < .05). For the Vocabulary

RECOGNITION
MA MATCHED GROUPS
Item Type-Syll. Shape
2 -

* PD-CVC

o PD-CVCC
l
1.5 A la * L-CVC
A
A A a L-CVCC
Pi
W Id A Ps-Cvc
0 1 0 0 A PS-CVCC
0
o
Af
0.5

0 I B~~~~~~~
I !
SLOW NORMAL FAST

RATE
FIGURE 2. Mean Recognition reaction time (sec) for the MA matched groups on the consonant-
vowel-consonant (CVC) and consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant (CVCC) phonetically dis-
similar foils (PD), phonetically similar foils (PS), and target labels (L) for the slow, normal, and
fast rate targets.

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 Ellis Weismer & Hesketh: Efects of Linguistic Input 185

level comparison, the younger NL children responded sig-

nificantly faster to CVC items than CVCC (p < .05) and the PRODUCTION
MA MATCHED GROUPS
older children with SLI responded significantly faster than 100
the younger, NL children for the CVCC items (p < .05). This
was the only finding suggesting that the children with SLI
80
performed better than the younger vocabulary controls on
certain items. For the Vocabulary level comparison, a signif-
icant main effect for Item Type was also found [F(2, 16) = o
0 60
38.5, p < .05]. Post hoc analyses indicated that RTs
increased inthe following order, PD < L < PS, with all three 40
I0
comparisons being statistically significant (p < .05). These
results exactly parallel those for Item Type effects in Recog- 20
nition Accuracy; that is, the PD items resulted in the highest
number correct and the shortest RTs whereas the lowest 0
number correct and longest RTs were associated with PS Slow Normal Fast
items. RATE
A second set of analyses was conducted to evaluate LSLI EINL
Recognition Reaction Time on PD versus PS items, which FIGURE 3. Mean percent correct Production of novel target
both required a NO response, while omitting L items that words presented at slow, normal, and fast rate for the group
required a YES response. The basic pattern of findings was with specific language impairment (SLI) and the mental age
identical to the previously reported combined analyses for matched group with normal language (NL). (Error bars denote 1
both the MA comparison and the Vocabulary level compar- standard deviation above the mean.)
ison.
Results (based on t-test analyses) from the Auditory significantly fewer fast rate items correctly than the NL
Detection Measure administered before and after the exper- children matched on MA (p < .05) or vocabulary level (p <
imental task indicated that there were no statistically signif- .05). Further, the SLI group produced significantly fewer
icant differences in RTs across the groups or across pre- to items correctly that had been presented at Fast rate than at
post-task conditions. Group means and standard deviations Normal rate (p < .05). Results for the MA comparison are
for the Auditory Detection Measure are presented in Table 4. graphed in Figure 3 and those for the Vocabulary level
Since no significant group differences were found, actual comparison are presented in Figure 4.
scores (rather than adjusted scores) were used in the
analyses of recognition reaction time reported above.
Production Error Pattern Analysis

Production Data To further explore the Group x Rate interaction described

above, production error patterns were examined for the Fast
Analyses of production data indicated a significant main rate targets for the SLI and MA matched groups using
effect for Syllable Shape for the MA comparison [F(1, 30) =
8.42, p < .05] and the Vocabulary matched comparison [F(1,
14) = 11.61, p < .05], such that novel words consisting of a PRODUCTION
CVC syllable shape were produced correctly by all children VOCABULARY MATCHED GROUPS
significantly more often than those with a CVCC syllable 100
shape. A significant Group x Rate interaction was also
found for the MA comparison [F(2, 60) = 3.21, p < .05] and 80
the Vocabulary level comparison [F(2, 28) = 5.43, p < .05]. (-
Post hoc tests revealed that children with SLI produced a
0
0 60
0
TABLE 4. Means (and standard deviations) for pre- and post- U 40
a-
task reaction times (RT) on the Auditory Detection Measure for el
'U
the children with specific language impairment (SLI) and normal
language (NL) for both the mental age (MA) and vocabulary level
(VOCAB) comparison.

Pre-task
RT
Post-task
RT
20

0 FL Slow Normal Fast

RATE
MA comparison OSLI E]NL
SLI (n = 16) .635 (.300) .651 (.224)
NL (n = 16) .568 (.092) .599 (.149) FIGURE 4. Mean percent correct Production of novel target
VOCAB comparison words presented at slow, normal, and fast rate for the group
SLI (n = 8) .519 (.089) .573 (.073) with specific language impairment (SLI) and the vocabulary
NL (n = 8) .588 (.084) .657 (.153) matched group with normal language (NL). (Error bars denote 1
standard deviation above the mean.)

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 186 Journal of Speech and Hearing Research
nonparametric analyses (Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests).
Since production errors were subdivided into a number of
categories, this analysis was only completed on the largest
set of data involving the MA matched groups. There was no
significant difference in the number of attempted produc-
tions for the two groups (i.e., there were equivalent numbers
of "no responses"), indicating that both groups demon-
strated a basic understanding of the task and willingness to
respond. However, there were a number of differences in
patterns of errors exhibited by the groups. The group with
SLI was significantly more likely than the NL group to
convert the novel words trained at fast rate into real words
(W= 735.5, p < .05). This effect could not be explained on
the basis of a misunderstanding of the task by the group
with SLI, since the groups were equivalent with respect to
their substitution of real words for novel words for targets
trained at Normal rate (W = 1110, p = .3323). Within-group
analyses for the children with SLI indicated that real words
were substituted significantly more often for fast rate targets
than for Normal rate targets (W = 855.5, p < .05).
Children with SLI made significantly more changes in the
syllable shape of the novel words trained at fast rate than the
NL group, who rarely made such changes in their produc-
tions (W = 795.5, p < .05). These changes involved both
additions and omissions of sounds (e.g., /kub/ was incor-
rectly produced as /krub/ as well as /ku/). Thus, the failure to
maintain the basic CVC or CVCC syllable shape of the target
did not just appear to reflect a tendency to reduce the form
phonetically to increase the ease of production.
Mislabeling was another error pattern that distinguished
the groups, though this type of error occurred less often than
the previous two kinds of errors. The group with SLI was
significantly more likely than the NL group to confuse the
label for one object with that for another novel object (W =
894.5, p < .05) (e.g., referring to the /pon/ as the /kub/).
An analysis of vowel and consonant errors was conducted
for the incorrect productions that did not involve the use of
real words or labels for other objects, that is, for instances in
which the child's intended target appeared to be the novel
word. Although the group with SLI made more errors of both
types than the NL group for targets trained at fast rate, only
the difference between the two groups' vowel errors was
statistically significant (W = 1214.5, p < .05).
Discussion
Children with SLI were less proficient than MA matched
peers at comprehending and producing novel words. Al-
though there were some group differences in Recognition,
these items turned out to be quite easy for all children. No
significant group differences were observed in terms of
baseline levels of processing speed on the Auditory Detec-
tion Measure; that is, the groups did not differ in RTs to
nonlinguistic auditory stimuli. It is important to note, though,
that the detection task did not entail memory or sequencing
demands. With respect to the Vocabulary level comparison,
the performance of children with SLI was equivalent to that
of the younger controls with one exception: Children with
SLI demonstrated poorer production of words trained at fast
speaking rates than the younger, NL controls.
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39 177-190 February 996
The results of this investigation support the conclusion
that manipulations inthe speaking rate of the linguistic input
influence lexical learning in children with SLI. Children in the
group with SLI produced significantly fewer novel words
correctly that had been modeled in utterances presented at
fast rate than at normal rate, and significantly fewer fast rate
words than NL peers. This finding indicates that the limita-
tions exhibited by children with SLI in processing rapidly
presented information that have been extensively docu-
mented by Tallal and colleagues (cf. Tallal, 1988) also
translate into learning difficulties for these children.
Contrary to our expectations, presentation of novel words
at slow rate did not result in significantly better learning for
the group with SLI. Unlike prior studies demonstrating
beneficial effects of slowed rate on auditory comprehension
for adults with aphasia (e.g., Pashek & Brookshire, 1982),
our task involved target words embedded in sentences
rather than paragraphs. We might speculate that the distinc-
tion between linguistic input presented at normal versus
slow rates would become even more apparent due to
cumulative effects of increased processing time and re-
duced processing load as the task progresses beyond the
individual sentence level to the level of connected discourse.
In examining this issue of response to slow presentation
rate, individual analyses were revealing. When individual
difference scores across the rates were computed, we found
that 6/16 (38%) of the children in the group with SLI
evidenced benefits of slower speaking rates in Comprehen-
sion whereas no NL children demonstrated consistent ben-
efits for slower rate in terms of their comprehension scores.
All but one of the children with SLI who appeared to perform
better at slow rate had evidenced language comprehension
deficits on at least one of our assessment measures. Differ-
ence scores across rates indicated that 8/16 (50%) of the
children with SLI demonstrated improved performance un-
der slow rate for production, as did a few of the younger NL
children. Six out of 8 of these children with SLI exhibited
expressive language delays. It was also noteworthy that at
the level of the individual child, there was a lack of corre-
spondence between comprehension and production perfor-
mance with respect to rate effects; that is, of the 8 children
who demonstrated production benefits for slow rate, only 3
also showed benefits for comprehension.
As far as the predictions of differential responsiveness of
the groups to these linguistic input modifications, some
group interaction effects were observed for recognition, but
the clearest pattern was found for production. Children with
SLI produced significantly fewer fast rate target words than
MA matched or Vocabulary matched peers. In our prelimi-
nary study, both the children with SLI and NL responded
more poorly to fast rate than other rates, but there was a
clear trend for the group with SLI to exhibit more pro-
nounced effects in response to rate variations than the NL
group in both comprehension and production. The lack of a
statistically significant group interaction effect in the prior
study was most likely due to the relatively small sample size.
Consider now the pattern of results that was observed
with respect to comprehension versus production effects.
Manipulations of speaking rate primarily affected production
of novel words, rather than comprehension or recognition of

the words. Examination of the overall levels of accuracy for
comprehension, recognition, and production items, shows
that adjustments in the linguistic input have had the greatest
effect on the most difficult items, namely production. Com-
prehension accuracy levels ranged from 70%-83% correct
(25% chance level) and recognition ranged from 76%-79%
correct (50% chance level), whereas production ranged
from 20%-43% correct. Consistent with our findings, we
would expect on the basis of Capacity Theory that linguistic
input modifications would have the greatest impact as
cognitive demands of the task increased and as available
resources were stretched to the limits. Although we found
rate effects in comprehension in our preliminary study, the
overall level of accuracy was lower than in the current study
since comprehension items were apparently more cogni-
tively demanding for the younger, kindergarten children who
participated in that study.
Rather than viewing this as an ease of task or cognitive
load difference, we might entertain the possibility that com-
prehension and production are dissociable mechanisms.
This claim has been made within the adult aphasia literature,
as well as on the basis of evidence for individual differences
inearly patterns of development in language comprehension
and production (Bates, 1993; Bates, Bretherton, & Snyder,
1988). Although the focus of Just and Carpenter's (1992)
Capacity Theory is language comprehension, they have also
briefly addressed language production mechanisms, sug-
gesting that capacity limitations similarly operate on speak-
ing but that comprehension and production draw on sepa-
rate pools of working memory resources. Our prior findings
and those of others indicate that linguistic input modifica-
tions can operate on both comprehension and production;
nevertheless, the way in which they influence these lan-
guage mechanisms may be somewhat different due to
differing processing constraints.
Next, we might consider the nature of the problem under-
lying the disproportionately poor production of fast rate
targets by the children with SLI and question whether these
were the result of phonological working memory constraints
or more generalized capacity constraints. Gathercole and
Baddeley (1990, 1993) have suggested that phonological
memory deficits underlie SLI; however, van der Lely and
Howard (1993) and Rice et al. (1994) report that their findings
do not support this claim. Unlike Baddeley's (1986) theory of
working memory, Just and Carpenter (1992) do not posit
modality-specific storage buffers akin to the articulatory
loop. Using Just and Carpenter's theory as a framework, we
can speculate that capacity limitations may affect phonolog-
ical representation or other aspects of lexical processing if
activation is inadequate, but the source of the problem
would not be seen as stemming from a specific phonological
memory deficit tied to speech-based rehearsal mecha-
nisms. In our investigation, there was some evidence of
differences in the groups' abilities to recognize labels versus
PS or PD foils, but, overall, these items were surprisingly
easy for all children. A production error analysis of fast rate
target words suggested that capacity limitations affected
phonological representations, in that children with SLI made
significantly more errors involving substitution of real words
for novel words, changes in syllable shape, and vowel errors
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Ellis Weismer & Hesketh: Effects of Linguistic Input 187
than the NL controls. However, the group with SLI also was
significantly more likely than NL children to confuse the label
for one object with that for another novel object. These types
of mislabeling errors seem to suggest an additional problem
with association processes involved in mapping the label to
the appropriate referent or in lexical retrieval, rather than
simply a deficit in the phonological store of the word.
In terms of clinical implications, the findings indicate that
fast rates of presentation provide a degraded signal for
children with SLI and should be avoided in instructional
situations. Individual analyses suggest that some children
with language difficulties may find slowed speaking rate
beneficial, though this was not true for the group as a whole.
A good deal of individual variation would be expected in
response to input modifications. In future studies we plan to
assess the clinical utility of these input manipulations for
real-language targets with a limited number of children,
using single-case treatment designs.
Prior to concluding, some general comments are war-
ranted pertaining to control group issues and interpretation
caveats. In studies of language disorders, the basis for
comparison is critical to the interpretation of findings. Given
the nature of the questions posed by this investigation we
opted to focus most heavily on an MA comparison, with a
secondary look at a vocabulary comparison. How should we
interpret the fact that there were no significant differences
between the group with SLI and younger, vocabulary-
matched children, with the exception of production of fast
rate targets? Does this mean that extant language level,
vocabulary comprehension in this case, plays a central role
in determining the extent to which children are able to learn
new words? We would argue against this interpretation on
several counts. To begin with, one should be cautious about
interpreting the lack of statistically significant findings in
these relatively small subgroups. More importantly, vocab-
ulary level was not found to be significantly correlated with
performance on the novel word learning task in the current
study, even though the initial assumption that vocabulary
knowledge should be relevant to this type of lexical task had
logical appeal. Rice and colleagues (Rice et al., 1992; Rice et
al., 1994) also failed to find significant correlations between
PPVT scores and unfamiliar word learning in children with
SLI. Interpretations of findings based on language matches
within investigations of language disorders have been ques-
tioned by Plante, Swisher, Kiernan, and Restrepo (1993).
Studies employing such designs usually equate children on
the basis of a single index of language (as we did in the
present study) across a number of possible domains (syn-
tax, semantics, pragmatics) and processes (comprehension
and production), so groups are not actually "language-
matched" in a more general sense. Further, when compar-
ing younger, NL children to older children with language
disorders, it is evident that they differ considerably in a
number of important ways, including world knowledge,
conceptual abilities, memory span, and rehearsal strategies,
that may affect learning and contribute to the findings as
much as the one aspect of language functioning in which
they are similar.
In conclusion, the results of this investigation indicate that
speaking rate variations influence the acquisition of novel
 188 Journalof Speech and Heanng Research
vocabulary by children with SLI. Presentation of novel words
at fast speaking rates had a disproportionately adverse
effect on the production of these words for children with SLI
compared to NL peers. As has been suggested by Rice and
colleagues (1994), it seems likely that multiple, interacting
factors may underlie the problems that children with SLI
have in word learning. Findings from the present study are
consistent with the claim that processing capacity limita-
tions, especially temporal processing constraints, appear to
be at least one component of the difficulty that these
children are experiencing. Like other researchers who have
invoked various accounts of capacity limitation explanations
of SLI (e.g., Bishop, 1992; Johnston, 1994), we acknowledge
that its usefulness rests on the ability to make more specific
predictions about the particular patterns of strengths and
weaknesses demonstrated by children with SLI and to tie
these more directly to observed profiles of linguistic abilities;
we are working toward this goal in our ongoing research.
The implications of these results are that it may behoove us
to carefully consider how linguistic models are presented to
children and to seek more integrated frameworks of speech-
language-cognitive processing that can help us better un-
derstand the task facing children with limitations in language
learning.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Chris Everman Hollar and Cheryl Neylon
who have contributed to this project in various ways, including
language sample and acoustic analyses, data entry, and reliability
scoring. Others involved at different phases of the project include
Pao-Hsiang Chi, Dawn Meyer, and Samantha Wolfson. Special
thanks to the Madison, Middleton-Cross Plains, and Monona Grove
School Districts for their cooperation and to the speech-language
clinicians who helped recruit children, especially to Kathy Lyngaas.
Thanks also to the children and parents who participated in this
project. This project was funded by NIH NIDCD grant
#1R29DC01101 awarded to the first author.
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Received November 15, 1994
Accepted May 15, 1995
Contact author: Susan Ellis Weismer, PhD, University of Wiscon-
sin-Madison, Waisman Center Room 473, 1500 Highland Avenue,
Madison, WI 53705-2280. E-mail: SWEISMER@vms. macc.wisc.edu
 190 Journal of Speech and Heanng Research 39 177-190 February 1996

Appendix
Format of Trials

Trial Block 1 The A, B, C sequence is repeated a total of two times, Trial Block 2 The A, B, C sequence is repeated four times, with D
followed by D (i.e., ABC ABCD). occurring after the second and fourth presentation
(i.e. ABC ABCD ABC ABCD).
A. Exposure Trials: "Sam is by the _ " (Fast rate)
(3 items) "Sam is by the " (Slow rate) A. Exposure Trials - 9 items, 3 repetitions of each word
"Sam is by the _ " (Normal rate)
B. Production Probes - 6 items, each word probed twice
B. Production Probes:"What's this called?" (Live voice)
(Normal rate target) C. Comprehension Probes - 6 items, each word probed twice
(3 items) (Fast rate target) D. Recognition Probes - 24 items, each word probed four times
(Slow rate target) plus two probes of the phonetically
C. Comprehension Probes: Child is instructed to place Sam by similar and dissimilar word for each
the correct toy. target
(3 items) "Put him by the " (Slow rate target) Trial Block 1 = Fast Mapping
"Put him by the " (Normal rate target) Trial Block 1 + Trial Block 2 = Total Task
"Put him by the " (Fast rate target)
D. Recognition Probes: "This is the "
(Yes/No response; button press)
(12 items; Each target word is presented twice, plus one
word that is phonetically similar and one that is dissimilar to
the target)

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