Children’s development of semantic verbal fluency during summer vacation versus during formal schooling
(2020) In Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology 45(3). p.134-142- Abstract
Purpose: Children’s results on school-related achievements tests, such as aspects of math, reading and writing, have been shown to decline following a lengthy summer vacation. Few studies have investigated whether this also applies to vocabulary skills. The purpose of this study is to investigate how lexical organization and retrieval, assessed by a semantic verbal fluency (SVF) task, develops during a lengthy summer vacation versus formal schooling. Method: Sixty-eight children with mean age of 7.9 (ranging from 6.5 to 9.1), were assessed pre- and post-summer vacation and post-fall semester using two SVF categories (Animals and Clothes). The number of words produced in both categories gave the total score. Results: The result of the... (More)
Purpose: Children’s results on school-related achievements tests, such as aspects of math, reading and writing, have been shown to decline following a lengthy summer vacation. Few studies have investigated whether this also applies to vocabulary skills. The purpose of this study is to investigate how lexical organization and retrieval, assessed by a semantic verbal fluency (SVF) task, develops during a lengthy summer vacation versus formal schooling. Method: Sixty-eight children with mean age of 7.9 (ranging from 6.5 to 9.1), were assessed pre- and post-summer vacation and post-fall semester using two SVF categories (Animals and Clothes). The number of words produced in both categories gave the total score. Results: The result of the SVF tests decreased following summer vacation. The loss was recouped at the post-fall semester assessment, but no gains compared to initial testing were shown. Neither level of parental education, general language ability, non-verbal IQ, nor bilingualism explained the variance in development during the summer vacation or the fall semester. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that a lengthy summer vacation causes a recess in the expected development of SVF ability and that this recess is recouped after a semester of formal schooling. The findings are in line with previous research indicating that summer vacation may have negative impact on the development of important scholastic abilities in children.
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- author
- Rosqvist, Ida LU ; Sandgren, Olof LU ; Andersson, Ketty LU ; Hansson, Kristina LU ; Lyberg-Åhlander, Viveka LU and Sahlén, Birgitta LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2020
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- language development, school calendar, semantic verbal fluency, summer loss, summer slide, Summer vacation, vocabulary development, word fluency
- in
- Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology
- volume
- 45
- issue
- 3
- pages
- 9 pages
- publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85068584059
- pmid:31272256
- ISSN
- 1401-5439
- DOI
- 10.1080/14015439.2019.1637456
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 11453cf8-4885-4799-9a8f-b042c811222d
- date added to LUP
- 2019-07-17 12:15:06
- date last changed
- 2024-08-07 02:24:45
@article{11453cf8-4885-4799-9a8f-b042c811222d, abstract = {{<p>Purpose: Children’s results on school-related achievements tests, such as aspects of math, reading and writing, have been shown to decline following a lengthy summer vacation. Few studies have investigated whether this also applies to vocabulary skills. The purpose of this study is to investigate how lexical organization and retrieval, assessed by a semantic verbal fluency (SVF) task, develops during a lengthy summer vacation versus formal schooling. Method: Sixty-eight children with mean age of 7.9 (ranging from 6.5 to 9.1), were assessed pre- and post-summer vacation and post-fall semester using two SVF categories (Animals and Clothes). The number of words produced in both categories gave the total score. Results: The result of the SVF tests decreased following summer vacation. The loss was recouped at the post-fall semester assessment, but no gains compared to initial testing were shown. Neither level of parental education, general language ability, non-verbal IQ, nor bilingualism explained the variance in development during the summer vacation or the fall semester. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that a lengthy summer vacation causes a recess in the expected development of SVF ability and that this recess is recouped after a semester of formal schooling. The findings are in line with previous research indicating that summer vacation may have negative impact on the development of important scholastic abilities in children.</p>}}, author = {{Rosqvist, Ida and Sandgren, Olof and Andersson, Ketty and Hansson, Kristina and Lyberg-Åhlander, Viveka and Sahlén, Birgitta}}, issn = {{1401-5439}}, keywords = {{language development; school calendar; semantic verbal fluency; summer loss; summer slide; Summer vacation; vocabulary development; word fluency}}, language = {{eng}}, number = {{3}}, pages = {{134--142}}, publisher = {{Taylor & Francis}}, series = {{Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology}}, title = {{Children’s development of semantic verbal fluency during summer vacation versus during formal schooling}}, url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14015439.2019.1637456}}, doi = {{10.1080/14015439.2019.1637456}}, volume = {{45}}, year = {{2020}}, }