Phonological sensitivity and the acquisition of new words in children

Two studies are reported which aimed to examine the relationship between ph onological sensitivity and the acquisition of new words that systematically differed in the familiarity of their sound structures. In the first study measures of phonological sensitivity, phonological short-term memory, vocab ulary, and nonverbal ability were administered to forty-one 5-year-old chil dren. Phonological sensitivity was related to the paired-associate learning of phonologically unfamiliar words, but not to the learning of familiar wo rds. In the second study a group of 14 nonreading 5-year-old children recei ved phonological sensitivity training. A control group was trained in seman tic categorization. After the training, the phonological sensitivity group did perform better on measures of letter knowledge and phonological sensiti vity (rhyme and first-sound categorization) and appeared to learn phonologi cally unfamiliar words more easily. The findings of both studies suggest th at phonological sensitivity can support the acquisition of novel words, (C) 2000 Academic Press.