REFERENTIAL COMMUNICATION: TRANSFERABLE EFFECT OF A SPEAKER-TRAINING PROGRAM ON LISTENER PERFORMANCE

摘要

The purpose of this study was to determine if training children to recognize differences in similar word pairs during message production can facilitate their ability to detect subtle distinctions in similar word pairs during message evaluation.;The subjects, 64 fifth graders, were randomly assigned, 16 each, to a four-group design. One group received a pretest and training, whereas, a second group received a pretest and no training. A third group received training, but no pretest. A fourth group, however, received neither training nor a pretest. All groups were each administered three posttests--a posttest for the immediate effect of training, maintenance of the training effect, and a transferable effect of training.;Data were analyzed using a two-way analysis of variance. Groups were compared in the following manner: (a) the two experimental groups with the two control groups, (b) the two pretested groups with the two unpretested groups, and (c) the pretested experimental and control groups with the unpretested experimental and control groups.;Although the unpretested treatment subjects outperformed the pretested treatment ones, training improved the performance of both groups relative to the control groups. Maintenance of the training effect lasted at least one month. Also, the experimental subjects scored higher than the control subjects on the listener task. Results of this study indicated that training children to speak for the purpose of identifying differences in similar word pairs enhanced their ability to listen for the purpose of evaluating messages on word-pair tasks.