TY - JOUR
T1 - Structural priming of adjective-noun structures in hearing and deaf children
AU - van Beijsterveldt, Liesbeth M.
AU - van Hell, Janet G.
N1 - Funding Information:
The first author was supported by Grant 015-001-036 from the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO) awarded to the second author. We thank Anne Heesakkers, Marian Roeterdink, and Fenneke Verberg for their help in collecting the data, and we thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor of this journal for their helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.
PY - 2009/10
Y1 - 2009/10
N2 - We examined priming of adjective-noun structures in Dutch hearing and deaf children. In three experiments, hearing 7- and 8-year-olds, hearing 11- and 12-year-olds, and deaf 11- and 12-year-olds read a prenominal structure (e.g., the blue ball), a relative clause structure (e.g., the ball that is blue), or a main clause (e.g., the ball is blue). After reading each prime structure, children described a target picture in writing. Half of the target pictures contained the same noun as the prime structure and half contained a different noun. Hearing 7- and 8-year-olds and 11- and 12-year-olds, as well as deaf 11- and 12-year-olds, showed priming effects for all three structures in both the same-noun and different-noun conditions. Structural priming was not boosted by lexical repetition in the hearing and deaf 11- and 12-year-olds; a lexical boost effect was observed only in the 7- and 8-year-olds and only in the relative clause structure. The findings suggest that hearing and deaf children possess abstract representations of adjective-noun structures independent of particular lexical items.
AB - We examined priming of adjective-noun structures in Dutch hearing and deaf children. In three experiments, hearing 7- and 8-year-olds, hearing 11- and 12-year-olds, and deaf 11- and 12-year-olds read a prenominal structure (e.g., the blue ball), a relative clause structure (e.g., the ball that is blue), or a main clause (e.g., the ball is blue). After reading each prime structure, children described a target picture in writing. Half of the target pictures contained the same noun as the prime structure and half contained a different noun. Hearing 7- and 8-year-olds and 11- and 12-year-olds, as well as deaf 11- and 12-year-olds, showed priming effects for all three structures in both the same-noun and different-noun conditions. Structural priming was not boosted by lexical repetition in the hearing and deaf 11- and 12-year-olds; a lexical boost effect was observed only in the 7- and 8-year-olds and only in the relative clause structure. The findings suggest that hearing and deaf children possess abstract representations of adjective-noun structures independent of particular lexical items.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jecp.2009.05.002
DO - 10.1016/j.jecp.2009.05.002
M3 - Article
C2 - 19497585
AN - SCOPUS:67649499816
SN - 0022-0965
VL - 104
SP - 179
EP - 196
JO - Journal of experimental child psychology
JF - Journal of experimental child psychology
IS - 2
ER -