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Developmental word-finding difficulties and phonological processing: The case of the missing handcuffs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Alison Constable,
Joy Stackhouse and
Bill Wells
Alison Constable*
Affiliation:
University College London
Joy Stackhouse
Affiliation:
University College London
Bill Wells
Affiliation:
University College London
*
Alison Constable, Department of Human Communication, University College London, Chandler House, 2 Wakefield Street, London WCIN IPG Email: a.constable@ucl.ac.uk
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Abstract

The case of a 7-year-old boy (Michael) with severe word-finding difficulties is presented. In an attempt to investigate the cause of these difficulties, a series of theoretically motivated questions was used as a framework for psycholinguistic investigation. A range of tasks was administered, including word association, semantic knowledge, auditory discrimination, auditory lexical decision, naming, and real word and nonword repetition. Michael's performance on the tasks was compared with that of controls matched in terms of chronological and vocabulary age. Results revealed significant differences between Michael's performance and that of the control groups. Although he showed no apparent semantic deficit, he did show pervasive deficits in phonological processing.

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Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 1997, pp. 507 - 536
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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