The role of semantic distance in learning and generalization of novel names in typically developing and atypically developing children

Children often learn the extension of novel words with a limited number of exemplars. There is evidence that the opportunity to compare stimuli is beneficial for learning and generalizing novel names in typically developing (TD) children. This is important since they are in need of well-devised learning situations. We manipulated the role of semantic distance within training stimuli and between training and test stimuli and their influence on taxonomically-based generalization. We hypothesized more difficulties for ID children especially in “larger” semantic distance cases. Our results revealed that ID children were better than the matched TD children, suggesting functional lexical learning mechanisms. Even ID low-Raven-scores children, surprisingly, obtained better results than high-Raven-scores TD children. ID children, who were significantly older than TD children, could rely on their more developed world knowledge to learn and extend novel names. Close generalization was also significantly better than far generalization. We interpret our results in terms of cognitive constraints associated with comparison activities which might impact LR children in remote conceptual domains. We predict that ID participants should experience more difficulties with less familiar conceptual domains or with more difficult concepts such as relational concepts, which we currently test.