Relationship between word repetition accuracy and lexical knowledge in children

Abstract

There is in the literature a divergent description between lexical knowledge and word production accuracy. The aims of this study were: (a) to investigate the influence (effect) of the word lexical knowledge over production accuracy; (b) in case there is, to characterize acoustically this interference. Eight children (5-6 years old) with typical development language participated of this study. The methodological procedure consisted of: (a) survey of the children lexical knowledge concerning to IAFAC’s words; (b) recordings of the IAFAC’s words; (c) identifi cation and characterization of the linguistic cues, by acoustic analysis, in the IAFAC’s word production in function of the different knowledge degrees. Our results suggest a negative correlation (r=-0,13, p=0,000) between lexical knowledge and presence of the linguistics cues in word’s production. However, the linguistics cues refer to hesitative cues instead of phonological errors. Implications of these results for clinical practicing are discussed.