Britishlowrnal of Deuelopmcntal Psychology (1994). 12.

147-163 Pnnted in G e n t B& 147

0 1994 The British Psychological Society

The link between phonological memory

and vocabulary acquisition

Irene C. Michae* and Lucy A. Henry*

Universio of Reading, Department of Psyrhology, Building 3, Eurky Gate, Wbitekn&bts, Reoding
RG62AL, UK

The present study investigated two issues: (1) whether two measures of phonologi-
cal memory, non-word repetition and non-word memory span, were related to
acquired vocabulary at the age of 5 years; and (2) whether these measures of
phonological memory could predict the ability of children to learn new words.
Children’s phonological memory, spatial memory and receptive vocabulary were
assessed in one session. Next, a new colour word was introduced incidentally,
followed by the explicit instruction of three new words and their definitions. The
children were tested on word production and word comprehension for all of the
words, and additionally for recall of definitions for the three taught words. They
were retested one week later. The findings confirmed that phonological memory
was significantly related to acquired vocabulary at age 5. Phonological memory was
also a significant predictor of the ability to learn new words as tested by production
and delayed comprehension measures for explicitly taught words. It did not predict
word learning for the incidentally introduced word.

There is a growing body of evidence indicating the involvement of the working

memory system (Baddeley, 1986,1990) in various cognitive processes such as reading
(Jorm, 1983), language comprehension (Baddeley, Papagno & Vallar, 1988) and
long-term phonological learning (Baddeley,1990). In particular, the role of phonolo-
gical memory, a subcomponent of working memory, in the acquisition of language
and vocabulary learning has attracted a lot of interest. Phonological memory has
been shown to be a good predictor of children’s vocabulary development over a one-
year time period (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1989) and of children’s ability to learn new
words following instruction (Gathercole & Baddeley, 19906). The purpose of the
present study was to investigate further the link between phonological memory and
vocabulary acquisition.
‘Language development’, according to Bloomfield (1933), ‘is doubtless the
greatest intellectual feat any one of us is required to perform’. In terms of vocabulary
development alone, it has been observed that children are able to expand their
vocabulary to over 14,000 words within the first six years of their life. As Carey
(1978) points out, taking into account that true vocabulary learning begins during

Requests for reprints to either author.

148 Irene C.Micbus and Lng A. Henry
the child’s second year of life, children must learn an average of nine new words per
day.
Gathercole & Baddeley (1989; 1990u,6) have suggested more specifically that ease
of word learning in young children is predicted by the ability to construct temporary
phonological representations of unfamiliar sound sequences in working memory.
The working memory model (Baddeley, 1990) postulates a short-term phonological
storage system specialized for verbal material with rapid decay. The link between
phonological memory and vocabulary learning rests upon the assumption that this
short-term storage may contribute to the longer-term storage of the sounds of words
and their meanings. Gathercole & Baddeley (19906) suggested that phonological
memory was implicated in the ‘process of establishing a stable phonological
representation’ (page 452) of a new word. A temporary representation of the sound
of a word is used to construct a more permanent specification of the word’s
phonology. Children who have poor phonological memory will be hampered in
learning new words because they find it more diflicult to remember particular
phonological forms long enough to establish a long-term memory representation.
Reasons for individual differences in phonological memory are currently unclear,
although Gathercole & Baddeley (19906) suggest that poor phonological memory
may result from faster decay rates or noisier initial representations. Belmont (1972)
argued that decay functions in short-term memory did not differ with age, but there is
some evidence that poor readers may suffer from poorer quality phonological
encoding (Brady, 1991). As there is evidence linking reading and vocabulary skill
(Gathercole & Baddeley, 1990u), it may be that explanations for individual dif-
ferences in phonological representation in terms of quality of initial encoding may be
more plausible than those that posit differences in decay rates.
There is a considerable range of evidence that phonological memory plays an
important role in the development of vocabulary. Suggestive evidence came from the
study of the word-learning abilities of an Italian short-term memory patient, P.V.
This patient had greatly limited phonological memory (Vallar & Baddeley, 1984) and
although her performance was comparable to that of control subjects in learning
pairs of familiar Italian words, her learning performance for Italian words paired
with Russian words was impaired. This suggested that P.V. lacked the specific ability
to learn new sound sequences for already known concepts because of her severely
limited phonological memory.
More direct evidence for the role of phonological memory in vocabulary
acquisition was provided by Gathercole & Baddeley ( 1 9 9 0 ~ ) They
. compared the
phonological memory skills of a group of children with disordered language
development to that of two control groups matched for intelligence. Although the
language-disordered group’s non-verbal intelligence was within the normal range for
their age, their vocabulary knowledge and reading ability was found to lag about 20
months behind their chronological age. In addition, their phonological memory
skills were dramatically impaired as assessed using a non-word repetition test and a
serial memory-span test. The performance of the language-disordered group was
comparable to the performance of children four years younger on the non-word
repetition task. This strongly suggested that temporary phonological encoding and
storage skills were critical for language acquisition.
 Phonological memory and vocabulary acquisition 149
There is also evidence that temporary phonological memory is involved in
vocabulary acquisition in subject populations without specific language disorders.
Gathercole & Baddeley (1989) carried out a longitudinal study which involved
testing vocabulary knowledge, phonological memory and non-verbal intelligence at
age 4 years and then again at age 5 years. At both ages, phonological memory, as
assessed by the non-word repetition task, was strongly associated with vocabulary
scores even after the effectsof age and non-verbal intelligence were accounted for. In
addition, phonological memory at age 4 predicted vocabulary score at age 5, even
once vocabulary score at 4 was taken into account. Gathercole & Baddeley (1989)
argued that this suggested that phonological memory was not merely a by-product of
current vocabulary knowledge.
In an attempt to explore whether a causal relationship exists between phonological
memory and vocabulary development, Gathercole & Baddeley (1990b) looked at
whether phonological memory skills predicted future word-learning ability. They
compared children with high and low phonological memory on their ability to learn
words in a situation constructed to simulate natural vocabulary acquisition. The
children were required to learn names for two sets of four toy animals. One set was
given phonologically familiar real names, such as ‘Michael’ and ‘Peter’, and the other
unfamiliar ‘non-names’, such as ‘Menton’ and ‘Pimas’. Although the groups did not
differ in their learning speed for the familiar names, the low phonological memory
group was significantly slower at learning the unfamiliar non-names. In addition, at a
delayed-memory test, 24 hours following the training session, the low-repetition
group was poorer than the high group in remembering labels that had been initially
learned.
Therefore, evidence is accumulating to link phonological memory with vocabul-
ary acquisition. The current study was designed to provide further evidence on the
relation between phonological memory and vocabulary acquisition in a word-
learning task similar to Gathercole & Baddeley (19906). One issue addressed
concerned the relationship between different measures of phonological memory.
Gathercole & Baddeley (1990b) used non-word repetition rather than memory span.
The main advantage of non-word repetition is that it does not tap children’s lexical
knowledge or their use of strategies such as rehearsal. It simply requires them to
repeat unfamiliar phonological forms of differing lengths and complexity. However,
Snowling, Chiat & Hulme (1991) have argued that difficulties, in particular with
repeating long non-words, could result not from poor phonological memory, but
from difficulties in phoneme segmentation and assembly of articulatory instructions.
These latter problems could delay the acquisition of long-term representations of
words. Non-word repetition, they argue, places more than just memory demands on
the subject, and the link between non-word repetition and vocabulary knowledge
could reflect any one of the processes involved in non-word repetition tasks.
Snowling et al. (1991) argued: ‘In this way, we can turn the argument about causation
advanced by Gathercole and her colleagues on its head: children with good
vocabulary knowledge are better able to cope with the processing demands of non-
word repetition tasks than are children with poor vocabulary knowledge’ (pp.
372-373).
To counter this criticism, the present study compared non-word repetition with
150 Irene C.Micbas and Jhg A. Hen9
non-word memory span as a measure of phonological memory. The choice of non-
word memory span as an alternative measure of phonological memory was based on
several considerations. It closely resembles the traditional memory span measure
advocated by Snowling et al. (1991), but avoids using familiar lexical items which
may favour children with better vocabulary knowledge (Gathercole & Baddeley,
1989). All non-words used were single-syllable items to reduce possible problems
with segmentation and assembly of articulatory motor programmes. It was predicted
that if phonological memory is related to acquired vocabulary knowledge and if non-
word repetition does indeed measure phonological memory, both of these measures
should be highly related to each other and that each should predict vocabulary
learning equally well.
The second aim was to investigate further the link between phonological memory
and the ability to learn new words. In other words, can phonological memory predict
new word learning as well as acquired vocabulary? Word learning was assessed in
two ways. One method involved introducing children to three novel words. For each
word, there were also three pieces of information that the child was given. Thus,
children learned the word as well as three ‘definitions’ that explained in more detail
what the word referred to. This differed from Gathercole & Baddeley’s (1990&) study
which taught children names only. Once children had learned the novel words and
their three definitions, they were assessed on three measures of word learning: word
production, word comprehension and recall of the definitions. These measures were
designed to tap a range of aspects of word learning.
Word learning was also assessed using incidental learning (Heibeck & Markman,
1987). There has been recent evidence that children have the ability to learn words
very rapidly in incidental tasks. ‘Fast mapping’ allows learners to form quick
hypotheses about the meanings of new words by narrowing down their possible
meanings using the linguistic and communicative context. For example, about half of
preschoolers hearing the phrase, ‘Bring me the chromium one, not the red one’, were
able to recognize that chromium was an English word, that it referred to the property
of an object and that it was a colour word (Carey & Bartlett, 1978). Heibeck &
Markman (1987) replicated this finding and extended it to other lexical domains such
as shape and texture words. This ‘fast mapping’ has not, however, been related to
phonological memory skill. If the theoretical notion that adequate phonological
representations are required to acquire new words is correct, it may be expected that
children who are very good at fast mapping should also demonstrate good
phonological memory.
Therefore, the two primary questions concerned (1) the relationship between
different measures of phonological memory and acquired vocabulary; and (2) the
relationship between phonological memory and the ability to learn new words. Both
of these questions were motivated by the recent evidence linking phonological
memory to vocabulary acquisition in children.

Method
Snbjects
A total of 48 children, 24 boys and 24 girls, from a local education authority school in Reading
participated in the experiment. Their ages ranged from 5:2 to 6 2 years with a mean age of 5:6 years.
 Phonological memory and vocabulary acquisition 151
Due to illness, one child did not participate in sessions 2 and 3 and two did not participate in session 3.
Also, one subject was excluded from the analysis. Her score on the vocabulary test was very low (an
outlier in the vocabulary score distribution), although her non-word repetition score was in the top
quartile of the sample scores. It was noted by the teacher that this particular child was spoken to in
Spanish at home which could account for her poor English vocabulary knowledge despite her ‘normal’
non-word repetition score. Thus the final sample comprised 44 subjects.

Materials
The following tests were used for the initial assessments:

Non-wordrepetition test. This test was developed and used by Gathercole & Baddeley (1989; 1990u.b) to
assess phonological memory. There are two test versions, used for children of age 4 or younger and for
age 5 or older, respectively, which consist of 40 non-words that conform to the dominant stress
structure of spoken English words. The second version, used in the present study, consists of words
ranging from two to five syllables in length and varying in consonant complexity, that is, having single
consonants only or consonant clusters.

Memory spun test. Four non-word memory span protocols were made up from the 10 one-syllable non-
words taken from the first version of Gathercole & Baddeley’s non-word repetition test, used for
children of age 4 or younger. This version was not used in the present study for the non-word repetition
test. They were arranged in list lengths of two to six items, with three lists for each length. For each
child one of the protocols was randomly selected and administered.

Sputiu! mcmory. This test was used to assess the children’s non-verbal abilities. Children were shown a
set of nine paper boxes placed randomly on a sheet of paper. The experimenter pointed to sequences of
boxes in the array of varying lengths and the children were required to point to the same boxes in the
same order. Four test protocols (which included sequences of boxes in the array of varying length) were
made up, one of which was randomly selected and administered.

Tbe Short Form of the Britisb Pictwe Vocub~!uryScale ( B P V S ) (Dunn & Dunn, 1982). This scale was
used to assess the children’s acquired vocabulary.

Training materials
The training materials for the incidental learning paradigm included a set of colour markers and a red
pen. For the incidental learning comprehension test the children were shown a sheet of paper that had 12
pictures of fish coloured in maroon, well-known colours (brown, pink, purple, green, blue and red), a
dark shade of green and, in addition, ‘unknown’ colours produced by the combination of two or more
known colours (red-yellow-brown, red-yellow. brown-pink, green-grey).
The training materials for the instruction paradigm included five sheets of paper (one for each word).
On each page there were three colour pictures of the word illustrating three features related to the word.
For example. the three pictures of the platypus illustrated the fact that this animal had a long nose, liked
to swim in the water and ate worms (see Appendix for full details). For the comprehension tests, one
large A3-sized page was prepared for each target word containing 13 pictures in random positions. The
pictures included all of the target items as well as other known and unknown filler items which were
related to each target word. For example, pictures of types of boats for the coracle.

Apparatus
One small audio-cassette recorder and microphone were used to record some of the sessions (non-word
repetition, memory span).
152 Irene C.Micbas and L q A. Hemy
Procedure
The experiment was conducted in three sessions. In the initial session the children’s verbal and spatial
memory and acquired vocabulary were assessed. The following two sessions assessed the children’s
word-learning performance. All tests were conducted by the experimenter working done with the child.

Session 1. This began with a brief introduction to establish rapport between the child and the
experimenter. Each child was given four tests (non-word repetition, memory span, spatial memory,
vocabulary) in counterbalanced order. To make the assessments fun and interesting to the children a
teddy bear was brought dong to ‘participate in the games’. A cassette recorder was used to record the
session.
For the non-word repetition test, each word was read out by the experimenterand the child was asked
to try to say each of 40 words back to the teddy bear ‘who liked funny words and who was holding a
specid machine (the cassette recorder) to help him hear better’.
For the memory span test, each child was administered a randomly chosen protocol of the test. The
experimenter read out the words and the children were asked to repeat them to the teddy bear in the
same order. The children were given three trials at each list length, starting with two items. The
criterion for moving on to the following list length was to repeat correctly the items in two out of three
trials. The memory span score was the longest list length correctly repeated in two out of three trials. In
addition, half scores were given for correct repetitions in one out of three trials.
The non-word and memory-span repetitions were scored both at the time of testing and later from the
cassette recording by the experimenter and a second rater. The q d t y of the recordings from 14 out of
the 48 subjects was poor. However, for the rest, scoring agreement was 98 per cent and the first
observer’s opinion was used to resolve disagreements.
For the spatial-memory test the experimenter pointed to a sequence of boxes and the child’s task was
to point to the same boxes in the same order. Similar to the memory-span procedure, the children w e n
shown progressively longer sequences of boxes and were given three trials at each sequence length. The
criterion for moving on to the following sequence length was to perform comctly in two out of the
three trials at the lower sequence length. The spatial-memory score was the longest sequence length of
boxes that the child correctly pointed to in two out of three trials. In addition, half points were given for
correct responses in one out of the three trials.

Session 2. This involved teaching children new words using an incidental learning Procedure and an
instructed learning procedure. After teaching. children were tested on their retention of the words. The
order of the session was: incidental learning, instructed learning, incidental testing, instructed testing.
Incidmtaf kaming. The word ‘maroon’ was introduced using an incidental learning paradigm (Carey
& Bartlett, 1978; Heibeck & Markman, 1987). The experimenter pointed to two pens at the edge of the
table and gave the instruction: ‘Please give me the maroon marker. Not the red one, the maroon one’.
Once given, the marker was put in its case among other coloured markers. This was done to show that
the instruction was purposeful (i.e. to put the marker in its place; the red marker was not from the same
set) and to ensure that the maroon marker was not in direct view during the rest of the training session
which could influence the word comprehension test.
Children were tested for word production with the following instructions: ‘In the beginning I asked
you to give me a marker. Do you remember what colour it was?’. Word comprehension was tested by
showing the child a variety of colour patches in the shape of fish. The children were asked to point to the
maroon fish. Thus, two aspects of word learning were examined: ability to recalland say the word (word
production) and ability to identify the colour among other colours (word comprehension).
Instrnctcd kaming. Children were taught three new words. The words were chosen out of a pool of
five. These included either a gondola or a coracle from the ‘boat’ category, a tapir or a platypus from the
‘animal’ category, and a minstrel from the ‘person’ category. Children were taught one word from each
category. When asked for the names of the pictures at the beginning of the session, the children either
gave no response, gave a general term (e.g. ‘boat’ for coracle), or an incorrect term (e.g. ‘duck’ for
platypus). This indicated that the words chosen for instruction were initially unfamiliar to the children
(see the Appendix for the full list of words and definitions).
Each word was introduced by showing the child a colour picture of the word and, underneath, two
other pictures relevant to the word. The experimenter said the word and asked the child to repeat it.
 Phonological memory and vocabnlaty acquisition 153
Then, pointing to the corresponding pictures, she gave three characteristics, ‘definitions’, of the word
that the child was asked to remember. For example, the definitions given for the platypus were that it
has a flat nose, it likes to swim and it eats worms, and for the minstrel, that he plays music, he travels by
horse and he wears leggings. For each word. the child was required to name the word at least three times
and produce the three definitions of the word at least once.
At the end of the session, children were tested on word production, word comprehension and on
their ability to recall the three definitions of the taught words. Word production was tested by showing
the children a colour picture of each target item and asking them to name it. Word comprehension was
tested by showing the children a large page with a range of pictures, including the taught words and
other filler items. The child had to point to the target item. Each target item had a separate set of
pictures to choose from. At the end of the word-comprehension test, children who had given incorrect
responses were shown the correct pictures which corresponded to each word. For the definition-recall
test, all pictures were removed from view and the child was asked to recall the three things that were
taught for each word.
At the end of session 2, the word ‘maroon’, the three instructed words, and the definitions were
reviewed by the experimenter for 1-2 minutes.

Session 3. One week later, the children were given the word learning tests again. The tests were exactly
the same as in the second session except that the order of the pictures presented in the comprehension
was altered.
Results

Mean performance projles and correlational anahsis

The mean performance on the initial assessments from session 1 is shown in Table 1.
Mean non-word memory span was 2.51; mean non-word repetition score was 24.41
out of 40,mean spatial memory span was 3.77 and mean vocabulary score was 12.38.
Table 2 shows the results for the incidental learning task. Percentages of children
succeeding in producing the name of the word (production) and recognizing the
word’s colour (comprehension) are given for both sessions: the first test session
(session 2) and the second delayed-test session (session 3). Only two (4per cent) of
the children produced the word maroon, although 21 (48 per cent) out of the 44
pointed to the maroon-coloured fish. Thus, the production task was much more
difficult than word comprehension. It is important to note that only the results of
session 2 can be considered purely ‘incidental’ because, at the end of session 2, the
children were reintroduced to the word ‘maroon’ and shown its colour. This review
at the end of session 2 gave them additional exposure to the word. In session 3,after a
delay of one week, performance improved on both production and comprehension:
18 and 66 per cent of the children correctly produced and indicated comprehension of
the target word, respectively.

Table 1. Initial session mean performance profile

M SD
Memory span 2.51 0.64
Non-word repetition 24.41 5.77
Spatial memory 3.77 0.91
Vocabulary 12.38 2.72
154 Irene C.Micbas and L#g A. Henry
Table 2. Incidental learning: Frequencies and percentages of children giving correct
responses on word production and comprehension tests

Incidental learning Session 3

Session 2
(N=44) (N=44)
Production 2 (4%) 8 (18%)
Comprehension 21 (48%) 29 (66%)

Table 3 gives the mean performance of children in the instructed-learning tests. In

session 2 the mean word production and word comprehension scores were 0.64 and
2.09, respectively, out of a possible maximum score of 3, and mean definition recall
was 6.64, out of a maximurn score of 9. The mean word production, comprehension
and definition recall scores for delayed recall in session 3 were 0.82, 2.66 and 5.50,
respectively.
In order to determine whether performance changed across the two testing
sessions (2 and 3, one week apart), paired-sample t tests were carried out for each of
the three measures, word production, word comprehension and definition recall.
There was no significant difference in performance on word production over the two
testing sessions (t (43) = 1.66, n.s.). However, there was a significant improvement in
word comprehension (t (43) = 3.54, p < .OOl) and a significant decrease in perform-
ance on definition recall (t (43)=4.31, p < .OOOl) over the two testing sessions.
Table 4 contains the correlations (Pearson’s product moment correlation coefi-
cients) between all of the initial measures as well as the word-learning measures. For
this analysis, word production, comprehension and definition scores were summed
over the two sessions to obtain a larger range of values and to simplify the correlation
matrix (although the later regressions were carried out separately for sessions where
there were differences). The means of these summed scores were 1.45 and 4.75,
respectively, out of a possible maximum of 6, and 12.14 out of a possible 18.
The two measures of phonological memory, non-word repetition and memory
span for non-words, were quite highly correlated (r= .626). Both of them were also

Table 3. Word instruction: Mean performance profile

~~ ~

Word production 0.64 (0.65) 0.82 (0.87) 1.45 (1.35)

[31 [31 [61
Word comprehension 2.09 (1.03) 2.66 (0.68) 4.75 (1.38)
[31 [31 r61
Word definition 6.67(1.79) 5.50 (2.09) 12.14 (3.49)
recall [91 191 P
I
Note. Maximum scorns possible in square brackets.
 Phonological memory and vocabulary acquisition 155
Table 4. Pearson’s product moment correlation matrix

Spatial Non-word Memory Vocabulary Word Word Word

memory repetition span production compre- definition
hension

Age .049 .332* .158 .183 -.023 -.062 .169

Spatial .185 .114 .211 .200 -.111 .150
memory
Non-word .626** .484** .303* .278 .391**
repetition
Memory .476** .448** .291 .347*
span
Vocabulary .279 .378* .376*
Word .496** .479**
production
Word .489**
compre-
hension

significantly correlated with vocabulary knowledge ( r = .484 and .476, respectively);

word production ( r = .303 and .448,respectively) and definition recall ( r = .391 and
.347, respectively). The instructed-learning measures were significantly correlated
with each other (production and comprehension, r = .496; production and definition
recall, r = .479; comprehension and definition recall, r = .489). Word comprehension
and definition recall correlated with acquired vocabulary ( r = .378 and .376, respect-
ively). The correlations between vocabulary, memory span, non-word repetition and
the measures of incidental learning (scores were 0 or l), examined by calculating
point-biserial correlation coefficients, were not significant.

The relationship between phonological memory and acquired vocabulary

The simple correlations suggested links between vocabulary and both measures of
phonological memory. However, multiple fixed-order regressions were carried out
to examine the link between phonological memory and acquired vocabulary
knowledge after the effects of age and spatial memory ability had been taken into
account. The measures included in the regressions, namely, vocabulary knowledge,
spatial memory, memory span and non-word repetition, approximately corresponded
to those used by Gathercole & Baddeley (1989, 1990a).
Table 5 shows the simple correlation and simple and multiple fixed-order
regressions for models including age, spatial memory and one measure of phonologi-
cal memory, non-word repetition or non-word memory span. The predictive power
of non-word memory span versus non-word repetition was tested separately; each
was entered in step 3 of the fixed-order regression. Non-word repetition and non-
word memory span were equally good predictors: both accounted for a significant
156 Irene C. Micbas and Lug A . Henry
Table 5. Correlation between vocabulary scores at age 5 and age, spatial memory,
non-word repetition and memory span and percentage variance accounted for by
each based on simple and fixed-order regressions

Correlation Simple Fixed-order

coefficient regression regression
(per cent
variance) Total Additional
per cent per cent
variance variance

Chronological age .183 3.3 3.3

Spatial memory
(SM) .211 4.5 7.4 4.1
Non-word .484** 23.5** 25.1** 17.7**
repetition
(NWR) (step 3)
Memory span (MS) .476** 22.8** 26.3** 18.9**
(step 3)
* p < .05; * * p < .01.
Note. Non-word repetition and memory span were entered separately at step 3 in the fixed-order regressions.

17.7 and 18.9 per cent of the variance in vocabulary scores once the effects of age and
spatial memory were taken into account. The two full models (age, spatial memory
and non-word repetition; and age, spatial memory and non-word memory span)
accounted for a similar per cent of the variance in vocabulary, 25.1 and 26.3 per cent,
respectively.

The relationship between phonological memory and new-word learning

Correlations and simple and multiple fixed-order regressions were also used to
examine whether the phonological memory measures were good predictors of how
well children learned the new words.
With respect to the incidental word learning, the point-biserial correlations
between both of the phonological memory measures and each of the incidental
learning measures (production and comprehension) were not significant (production:
rpb=.195 and .254; comprehension: r = .195 and .162; for non-word repetition and
non-word memory span, respectively? Thus, phonological memory was not related
to incidental word learning.
The next series of analyses looked at whether phonological memory predicted the
three measures of instructed word learning: word production, word comprehension
and definition recall. All analyses were carried out using non-word repetition and
non-word memory span separately as predictors.

Wordproduction. Since there was no difference in performance on word production

between the two testing sessions, the analysis of the relationship between phonolog-
 Phonological memory and vocabdary acpisition 157
ical memory and word production was done on the sum of the production scores in
sessions 2 and 3. Fixed order regressions (see Table 6) were used to evaluate whether
the measures of phonological memory could predict word production scores after the
effects of age and spatial memory ability were taken into account. Non-word memory
span accounted for a significant 19.2 per cent of the variance in word production,
beyond that accounted for by age and spatial memory. Together, the three variables
(age, spatial memory and non-word memory span) accounted for 23.3 per cent of the
total variance in word production, which was significant (p < ,013). This analysis was
repeated using non-word repetition as the measure of phonological memory. It was
found that once the effects of age and spatial memory were taken into account, non-
word repetition was just significant (p < .049), but the total model-including the
three measures-accounted for only 13 per cent of the variance in word production,
which was not significant. Non-word memory span was therefore a better predictor
of the word production measures than non-word repetition.

Word comprehension. As there were differences in word comprehension performance

between the two testing sessions (performance improved), the analysis was carried
out for each session separately. In session 2, the first test session, phonological
memory failed to predict word comprehension. Together with age and spatial
memory, non-word repetition and non-word memory span accounted for 4.9 and 3.1
per cent of the variance, respectively. However, in the delayed-recall session (session
3), both phonological memory measures were found to be good predictors of word
comprehension (see Table 7). Partialling out the variance accounted for by age and
spatial memory, the contribution of non-word memory span (14.8 per cent) was

Table 6. Correlation between combined word production and age, spatial memory,
non-word repetition and memory span and percentage variance accounted for by
each based on simple and fixed-order regressions

Correlation Simple Fixed-order

coefficient regression regression
(per cent
variance) Total Additional
per cent per cent
variance variance

Chronological age .023 0.1 0.1

Spatial memory
(SM) .200 4.0 4.1 4.0
Non-word .303* 9.18* 13.0 8.9*
repetition
(NWR) (step 3)
Memory span (MS) .448** 20.1 ** 23.3* 19.23**
(step 3)
*p<.os; **p<.o1.
Note. Non-word repetition and memory span were entered separately at step 3 in the tixcd-ordcr regressions.
158 Irene C. Micbar and LAY A. Henry
highly significant (p < .01). The full model accounted for 23.1 per cent of the total
word comprehension variance. Non-word repetition accounted for 13.3 per cent
(p < .013) of the variance after the effects of age and spatial memory were taken into
account. The full model accounted for 21.6 per cent of the session 3 word-
comprehension variance (p < .05).

Definition recall. Each of two measures of phonological memory on their own

accounted for a significant portion of the variance in definition recall in both sessions
(session 2: RZ= 16 per cent,,&< .01 and R2= 12.0 per cent,,&< .05; session 3: R2= 9.5
per cent, p < .05 and RZ= 7.9 per cent, p < .05,for non-word repetition and memory
span, respectively). However, definition recall was not predicted by either phono-
logical memory measure, with age and spatial memory included in the regression
models (session 2: total RZ=16.4and 13.7 per cent; session 3: total R2=9.6 and 8.6
per cent, for the models age, spatial memory and non-word repetition, and age spatial
memory and non-word memory span, respectively).

Discussion
The present study investigated the relationships between phonological memory and
word learning in 5-year-olds. The main questions concerned whether acquired
vocabulary and new-word learning could be predicted from two measures of
phonological memory (non-word repetition and non-word memory span).
The first question concerned the relationship between acquired vocabulary
knowledge and measures of phonological memory. It was found, in line with

Table 7. Correlation between word comprehension at session 3 and age, spatial

memory, non-word repetition and memory span and percentage variance accounted
for by each based on simple and fixed-order regressions

Correlation Simple Fixed-order

coefficient regression regression
(per cent
variance) Total Additional
per cent per cent
variance variance
~~

Chronological age .135 1.8 1.8

Spatial memory
(SM) .261 6.8 8.3 6.5
Non-word .250 6.3 21.6* 13.3**
repetition
(NWR)(step 3)
Memory span (MS) .358* 10.8* 23.1* 14.8**
(step 3)
*p<.05; **p<.01.
Note. Non-word repetition and memory span were e n t c d scpacady at step 3 in the fked-order regressions.
 Phonofogicaf memory and vocabdary acqnisition 159
previous research (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1989), that acquired vocabulary was
related to phonological memory, even after the effects of age and spatial-memory
ability were taken into account. In fact, both measures of phonological memory were
equally strongly related to acquired vocabulary scores. This suggests that the non-
word repetition task does tap the same kind of phonological memory as the more
traditional memory-span task. However, the disparity between these measures is
shown by the fact that they were not perfectly correlated (r= .626). Clearly, both
tasks involve memory for unfamiliar forms, but the non-word memory-span task
required the ordered repetition of single-syllable units that are unconnected. Non-
word repetition requires the child to repeat items which are connected strings of
stressed syllables in ‘wordlike’ forms. Therefore, repeating three separate one-
syllable non-words is not equivalent to repeating one three-syllable non-word. The
maintenance of order information is much more difficult in the memory-span task.
Although both measures appear to tap phonological memory, methodological
considerations point to the non-word memory span as being the better measure.
Non-word span was found to be shorter and easier to administer than non-word
repetition. In contrast to Gathercole & Baddeley’s (1989) view of the non-word
repetition test as ‘simpler and faster to administer than word or digit span’ (p. 210), it
is actually a relatively long test, requiring the repetition of all 40 words. Occasionally,
children were found to become frustrated and refuse to repeat some words. Memory
span, however, is a progressive test, and ends once the child cannot manage certain
list lengths. In addition, it has been suggested that non-word repetition is not a
sensitive measure of phonological memory in older children and adults, since they
can do the task quite easily and make few errors (Gathercole & Baddeley, 19906).
It could be argued that the use of non-words in the memory-span test meant that it
suffered from the same drawbacks as noted by Snowling et af. (1991) with respect to
the non-word repetition task-in particular, that repeating non-words requires
phoneme segmentation and the assembly of articulatory instructions. Snowling et af.
( 1 991) point out that the traditional measure of phonological memory, ordered
repetition of familiar words or digits, does not tax these skills as heavily. Two points
can be made in response to this argument. First, the present study used only single-
syllable non-words which would have been far less complex than the longer words in
the non-word repetition task. In fact, Snowling et af. (1991) maintain that their
criticism applies particularly to longer non-words. Second, the nature of the
memory-span test means that words are drawn from a limited pool and re-used;
therefore, the subject does not encounter entirely new words on each trial. Both of
these points tend to negate the possible criticism that non-word-memory span is
overly taxing on segmentation and articulatory skills. However, it is impossible to
rule out some contribution of segmentation and articulatory skill. In fact, Gather-
Cole, Willis, Emslie & Baddeley (1991) find evidence that ‘wordlikeness’ is related to
the ease of repeating non-words. Therefore, there may well be reciprocal relation-
ships between phonological memory and vocabulary knowledge.
A correlation between vocabulary knowledge and phonological memory does not
address the causal issue of whether phonological memory is actually implicated in
vocabulary acquisition. In order to provide a more stringent test of this relationship,
phonological memory should predict how well children can learn new words. The
160 Irene C.M i c k und Li/ry A. Henry
present study taught children three new words. Subsequent to this, learning of these
new words was measured in three ways: ability to produce the word (production);
ability to recognize the word (comprehension); and ability to recall three pieces of
information about each word that was taught (definition recall). Evidence to support
the hypothesis that phonological memory predicts word-learning skill was found.
There were significant correlations between the phonological memory measures and
the word-learning measures of production and comprehension.
Word production was particularly strongly related to phonological memory. After
the effects of age and spatial memory were taken into account, phonological memory
still predicted word-production scores, accounting for 19 per cent of the total
variance. Thus, children with better phonological memory were better at producing
the names of recently introduced, previously novel, words. However, this was only
the case using the memory-span measure of phonological memory. Non-word
repetition, along with spatial memory and age (as a model) did not significantly
predict word-production scores.
This finding is consistent with the theoretical position that phonological memory
is required in order to help establish a long-term phonological representation for new
words (Gathercole 8c Baddeley, 1989, 1990u,b; Gathercole et ul., 1991). Producing
the name for a lexical item is dearly dependent upon having a phonological
representation. The current evidence suggests that phonological memory can predict
word learning in terms of production. It is not clear why memory span was a
significant predictor and non-word repetition was not. However, this finding may,
again, suggest that memory span for non-words is a slightly preferable measure of
phonological memory than non-word repetition.
Comprehension scores improved over the week between test sessions (there was a
short review of the words after the first test session). This was the only word-learning
measure to improve over the delay period, as word production scores remained the
same and definition recall fell. This probably reflects the fact that comprehension was
easier than either production or definition recall, requiring less explicit knowledge
about the word. Phonological memory predicted comprehension only in the delayed-
test session, however. Both non-word repetition and memory span were equally
good predictors. This longer-term relationship between phonological memory and
comprehension measures could suggest that the immediate measure was reliant on
factors other than understanding of the word via long-term memory representations.
One candidate could have been visual memory. Note that the comprehension
measure involved choosing a picture of the target item from foils and after a week’s
delay the visual memory for the item may have been degraded, forcing the subject to
rely upon a longer-term representation. In addition, the review of the new words
intervening between the two test sessions could have helped further to establish the
lexical entry for the new word. The fact that the longer-term comprehension measure
was related to phonological memory is consistent with the finding that phonological
memory predicts acquired vocabulary tested using recognition measures (as it was in
the acquired vocabulary test: the BPVS).
Using measures of ‘definition’ recall (recalling three pieces of information taught
about each word), phonological memory failed to predict word learning after the
dfects of age and spatial-memory ability were taken into account. These results imply
 Phonological memory and vocabulary acpisition 161
that phonological memory representations are not necessary in order to establish
general information about a lexical entry. The fact that phonological memory was
not predictive of definition recall would indicate that learning about a word does not
rely on establishing a phonological representation for the word in the way that
producing a name or recognizing an item after a delay does.
The results from the incidental-learning paradigm were similar to those found in
Heibeck & Markman’s (1987) fast mapping study. Roughly 48 per cent of the
children were able to recognize the new word after only one exposure (in session 2)
and 4 per cent were able to produce its name. After a brief reintroduction to the word
at the end of session 2, these percentages rose to 66 and 18 per cent in the delayed
recall test in session 3. However, phonological memory was not found to predict
incidental-learning performance. This could well be because the measure of inciden-
tal learning was constrained in that only one word was tested. With a more adequate
measure, we may expect measures of incidental learning to relate to phonological
memory.
The results add support to previous studies reporting links between phonological
memory and vocabulary knowledge (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1989; 1990a). This link
was clearly replicated. In addition, phonological memory was shown to predict
future word learning in terms of production and delayed comprehension measures. It
is important to note, however, that the models predicting vocabulary using age,
spatial memory and one measure of phonological memory (either memory span or
non-word repetition) at most accounted for 26 per cent of the variance. Similarly,
these models accounted for at most 23 per cent of the variance in word production
and comprehension scores. This suggests that other factors also play an important
role. These could include other cognitive factors as well as environmental factors,
such as the richness of the language to which the child is exposed. Future research in
vocabulary development should identify these contributing factors and develop
sensitive measures for their assessment.
To conclude, in this study of the link between phonological memory and
vocabulary acquisition, it was found that phonological memory measured by the
non-word repetition test and memory span for non-words was a significant predictor
of vocabulary knowledge. This result was consistent with previous findings and
indicated that both memory span for non-words and non-word repetition were
equally good predictors of acquired vocabulary. In addition, the results gave insight
to the nature of this link in that phonological memory was selectively related to the
production and long-term comprehension aspects of the word-learning process.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the headmaster, teachers and children of St Peters Primary School,
Earley, Reading, for their cooperation in the study.
This study was conducted as a part of the requirementsfor the Masters of Science Degree in Research
Methods in Psychology at the University of Reading awarded to the first author.

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Received 22 November 1991; mised version wcehd 22 Jnb 1992

 PhonoIogicaI memory and vocabdary acqtkition 163

Appendix: Instructed word definitions

Plotvpvr
-it has a flat nose
-it likes to swim
-it likes to eat worms
Topir
-it lives near the water
-it has a funny nose
-it eats small plants and animals
Corocle
-it is a round boat
-it was used for fishing
-you can carry it on your back
Gondoka
-it is a long, narrow boat
-it is moved by a long stick
-tourists sit in it and look at the buildings along the river
Minstrel
-he plays music
-he travels by horse
-he wears blue leggings