Lexical errors produced during category generation tasks by bilingual adults and bilingual typically developing and language-impaired seven to nine-year-old children

The development of category knowledge is in part a function of one's experiences with the world. The types of errors produced during category generation tasks may reveal the boundaries of these experiences and the ways in which they are organized into lexical networks. Examining the errors made by bilingual children with and without language impairment (LI) and bilingual adults may help to distinguish the effects of ability versus experience on the development and organization of lexical-semantic categories. The purpose of this study was to examine the types of errors made by bilingual (Spanish-English) children with (n=37) and without (n=35) LI and bilingual adults (n=26) on category generation tasks in both their languages and at two category levels: taxonomic and slot-filler. Results revealed a main effect for level (taxonomic vs. slot-filler) and error type (semantic vs. other) and suggest that bilingual seven to nine-year-old children's and adults' proportions and types of errors produced on category generation tasks differ significantly based on ability (i.e., TD or LI) but not on experience (i.e., TD or Adults).

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Grantor

The University of Texas at Austin

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• McKinney, Kellin Lee

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Peña, Elizabeth D.

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Sheng, Li

• Category generation
• Verbal fluency
• Bilingual
• Bilingualism
• Language impairment
• Semantic errors
• Lexical errors
• Language development

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/2152/ETD-UT-2009-12-562

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/ETD-UT-2009-12-562