The Syntactic-Paradigmatic Shift in Learning Disabled and Normal Children

Abstract

Forty-eight children in a private school for the learning disabled (LD), and 48 children in public school classes were administered a word association test of 50 stimulus words. All children performed best when the stimulus word was a noun and performed most poorly on prepositions. Older children performed better than younger, overall. No significant differences were found between normal and LD children. Among LD children, a significant interaction between IQ and age was found, with young children of low IQ performing most poorly. Young, low-IQ children also showed perseveration to a much greater extent than did any other group, resulting in a significant age X IQ interaction on perseveration. Discussion centers around memory and attention as possible explanations for the findings.