Lexical storage and retrieval in language-impaired children

ABSTRACT We tested 20 language-impaired children, 20 age-matched normal children, and 20 language-matched normal children. In free recall, children simply remembered as many words possible; in cued recall, the experimenter provided the category names as retrieval cues; in repeated free recall, children recalled the list three times in succession. The principal results were that (1) language-impaired children recalled fewer words than their agemates in both free and cued recall, and (2) the pattern of repeated free recall suggested that language-impaired children were less likely than their agemates to store a word when presented, and were less consistent in their retrieval of words. Our discussion concerns the roles of lexical acquisition and lexical retrieval in language-impaired children's word-finding problems.