Vocabulary Development & Word-Finding Difficulty Flashcards
Vocabulary 1
- Enticing vocabulary- pragmatic, discourse skill
- Receptive language assessments usually go from concrete to abstract nouns
- An assessment is a snapshot of a particular skill or time- so the score is not always accurate and the score is a very limited view
Vocabulary 2
- “Vocabulary is addressed in the Common Core Standards in every subject, at every grade level, in every state. It never ceases to be a critical component of language comprehension and use, in speaking and writing.” Judy Montgomery: Author of Montgomery Assessment of Vocabulary Acquisition
- 48 of 50 states have adopted common core standards vocab
Vocabulary Acquisition:
- At 18 months, have about 110 words expressive vocabulary (at least 50)
- Enter school with about 5,000 words in receptive/expressive vocabulary
- Up to school-age, vocabulary obtained via experiences, contexts, direct teaching (concrete nouns) a lot of direct teaching when little
- May learn some abstract nouns (letters)
- Learn 2000+ (sources vary, most say 3000) of words per school year
- Montgomery (2012) says only 400 are directly taught by teachers
- LI kids need direct instruction, even typical kids need direct instruction
Whole language approach
-Whole language approach- connections should be made across the curriculum. If you are doing plants in science, have plant spelling words and read a book about plants, in math you would have word problems about plants.
Fast Mapping Reviewed
- Mapping info seems to relate to initial vocabulary acquisition in context
- Generally map a word in 3-5 exposures
- But Montgomery says need 25 repetitions to retain a word for TYPICAL learners!
- Mapping is just the FIRST step in the process (initial exposure, how you learn a word)
Word-Concept-Thing
- Labeling (mapping?)
- Packaging (concept development continues)
—–Horizontal development (more & more of the concept, approach adult definition)
—–Vertical development (multi-level understanding, such as multiple meanings, abstract vs. literal)-polyesomous words
- Building the semantic network
- The initial part of vocabulary word-concept-thing problem. A baby sees a dog, the baby will hear dog, the name of the dog, or other words associated with the dog (thing). Concept- dog must apply to all dogs, not just the family’s dog.
- Labeling- attaching the word to a thing
Storage vs. Retrieval
- Words are encoded (stored)-engram
- Phonological/phonemic
- Conceptual
- Syntactic info- we know how we should use it
- Encoded form is retrieved
- Word-finding then is a combination of storage strength & retrieval strength
- Activation level (“Hotness”) impacts retrieval
- How hot a word is- is how easy it is to retrieve, these are high frequency words and they are not hard to retrieve
Storage vs. Retrieval
- Words are encoded (stored)-engram
- Phonological/phonemic
- Conceptual
- Syntactic info- we know how we should use it
- Encoded form is retrieved
- Word-finding then is a combination of storage strength & retrieval strength
- Activation level (“Hotness”) impacts retrieval
- How hot a word is- is how easy it is to retrieve, these are high frequency words and they are not hard to retrieve
Use it or lose it
- Often easier to retrieve something just stored
- Usually (Always?) easier to retrieve something just retrieved
- Activation and interference (competition) are considered instrumental in this
- The more you retrieve it, the stronger the engram (encoding is) , and less is required to activate (retrieve) it
- Rehearsal helps!
- If there is response competition, it is harder to retrieve due to interference or competition
Use it or lose it (Competition and Semantic network)
- Competition increases with similarity of concepts
- Have similar storage strength, activation levels are similar, so retrieval strength is weak
- Semantic network seems to be key as well
- Typically think of embedded circles or a web, with center having strongest strengths
- Center is a prototypical item or most used item
Semantic Network
- Robin may be in the center of the circle, litte storage strength, easiest to retireve
- As you move further from the center of the circle it is harder to retrieve that information.
- Chicken could be the second circle and penguin could be the furthest circle. (move further out, less semantic relationship)
Levels of vocabulary (tiers)
Tier 1- High frequency words, oral language (e.g. conversational)
Tier 2- Also high frequency, but more literate, or mature (lectures)
Tier 3-Technical, specialized words, low frequency
Tier 1 words are different for everyone
MAVA breaks words up into Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3
Word finding
- W-f difficulty occurs when the word doesn’t come out
- No word (I need the …uhm, uh, [shrug]
- Wrong word (I need the lock-I mean key)
- Struggle (I need the k, k, KEY)
- Errors are typically phonemically or semantically close
- Rarely say dinosaur when you want to say key
- Sometimes recall function and then may gesture
-Tip of the tongue phenomenon- usually happens with low frequency occurring words
Can happen because conversation is quick
Listening Vocab (Montgomery)
- the words you understand when you hear them spoken
- Largest corpus of words
Speaking Vocab (Montgomery)
- the words you know well enough to speak yourself
- smallest corpus of words (5-7K)
Reading Vocab (Montgomery)
- the words you read, some of which you do not speak often, or at all- may miss pronounce a word the first time you say it
Writing Vocab (Montgomery)
the words you carefully select when you try to write what you know or think (have more time)
Montgomery and vocabulary
- Vocabulary: a “bookend” of academic success (Montgomery, 2012)
- Improves reading comprehension!
- Word-finding difficulty is highly correlated to a reading disorder (.85)
-Decoding (sounding out words)
comprehension
- If they have this problem, reading out loud will be difficult
- Hard to know what causes the issue
- Reading can improve vocabulary
- World knowledge (increases over time) may be as important as word knowledge in vocabulary acquisition & use, and academic tasks
CLD kids do not have the same world knowledge
Deictic terms
-Perspectives or relationships and how they shift. Over there, on top, below
Assessment of Vocabulary
Standards:
-Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (had to be diversified) pointing- 2.6-90 y/o
-Receptive One Word Picture Vocabulary Test
4 pictures
-Expressive One Word Picture Vocabulary Test
both test 2-70 y/o
Newish Assessments of Vocab
- Comprehensive Receptive-Expressive Vocabulary Test: Tests more than basic nouns
- Montgomery Assessment of Vocabulary Acquisition
Extended vocabulary tests
- The Word Test- replace with a word that is similar in meaning (world and word knowledge)
- Subtests of the CASL
Criterion referenced tasks
- Criteria is what the standardized test covers
- Come up with material that typical learners know and make sure you have a reference that typical kids can do and the criteria is that the kids will have the same reference as the typical kids
Assessment of word finding
- Test of word finding- 4-12;11months
- Boston Naming Test for kids
- Confrontation naming (CELF)- 5-21
- Divergent Naming Task
- Convergent Naming Task