Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil

• What was the aim?

  To analyse the developmental pattern of the phonological loop
• What was the sample size (+gender difference)


  570 voluntary ppts

  272 males

  298 females
• Where were the ppts from?

  public and private, pre schools, primary schools, and secondary schools in Madrid
• What was the sample size for the comparison group?

  25 healthy older people (controls)

  25 with Alzheimer’s disease

  9 with frontal temporal dementia
• What was the procedure?

  -ppts given a list of digits to recall

  -told to listen carefully to them and recall them in the same order

  -Started with 3 and increased by 1 on each trial until there was an error

  -Digit span was taken as the maximum length they could recall at least 2 out of 3 with no errors

  -Task was administered with breaks
• Which age group had the lowest digit span?

  5 years old (3.76)
• Which group had the highest digit span?

  Ages 15-17
• In comparison with the Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, what did they find?

  digit span increases throughout childhood to adolescence.
• What did Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil conclude?

  Digit span increases with age until 17.

  The digit span of children is lower than in English children (more syllables)
• Give 2 strengths of this study

  1.Sample: large sample (570) with both males and females- so is representative of children. However, only Spanish children- research is ethnocentric

  2.Reliability: procedure was standardised and controlled. Every child was given the same instructions, same example, and measured in the same way- easily repeated
• Give 1 weakness of this study:

  Ethnocentrism: sample was only from Spain so results may not apply to other areas of the world.