Lexical access in children with and without specific language impairment: a cross-modal picture-word interference study

Two experiments examined the time course of lexical information availability in 20 adults, 20 children (8;0-10;0) with typical language development, and in 20 children (8;0-10;0) with specific language impairment. A cross-modal picture-word interference paradigm was used in which participants named the pictures as quickly as possible while ignoring the phonologically and semantically related interfering words. A novel early phonological interference effect appeared in all groups. Similar temporal patterns were revealed for the adults and the typical language development group, supporting the notion of similar underlying lexicalization mechanisms. Parametric differences were found in overall response times and errors, with children responding slower and producing more errors than adults. The presence of a phonological facilitation effect suggests that children with specific language impairment utilize phonological primes to ease lexical access. Children with specific language impairment exhibited lingering semantic inhibition and a late semantic inhibition effect suggesting difficulty in processing semantic information. Data from all participants support the cascaded processing model of lexical access.