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The ability of language-disordered children to use and modify hypotheses in discrimination learning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Alan G. Kamhi ,
Lauren K. Nelson ,
René Friemoth Lee  and
Barry Gholson
Alan G. Kamhi*
Affiliation:
Memphis State University
Lauren K. Nelson
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
René Friemoth Lee
Affiliation:
Memphis State University
Barry Gholson
Affiliation:
Memphis State University
*
Alan G. Kamhi, Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology, Memphis State University, 807 Jefferson Ave., Memphis, Tennessee 38105.
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Abstract

Blank-trial probe discrimination learning tasks were used to evaluate the hypothesis-testing abilities of 15 language-disordered and 30 normally developing children matched for mental age and language age. Children were presented with a series of two-dimensional learning set and orthogonal problems. No significant group differences were found in the learning set problems. All the children reached learning set criterion quickly, used a high proportion of simple object hypotheses, and maintained a high proportion of confirmed hypotheses. On the orthogonal problems, however, the language-disordered and mental-aged- (MA) matched children performed significantly better than the younger normal children. These findings suggest that the cognitive and linguistic deficits language-disordered children exhibit do not reflect an underlying failure to generate and test hypotheses. This conclusion, however, does not seem to apply to all language-disordered children. In the final section of the paper, language-disordered children's cognitive strengths and weaknesses are interpreted within the context of an information-processing model.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , December 1985 , pp. 435 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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