part 1

• aim?

  Investigate the development of phonological loop in spanish children between ages of 5-17 years using digit span as measure.

  • also compared to English speaking children and elderly Ps
• sample?

  570 volunteers from public/private preschools primary and secondary schools in Madrid. Nobody had learning impairments, reading/writing difficulties or any other cognitive difficulties
• procedure?

  individual tasks given out, 3 sequences of 3 digits read out by experimenters at rate of 1 per second.

  Ps then asked to listen carefully to them and recall in same order as presented.

  additional digit increased length of sentence with each round, digit span being taken as max length that Ps could recall 2/3 series with no errors
• results?

  • digit span increases with age but very young children (5) have significantly lower digit span than other ages.
  • digit span steadily rises between 5-11
  • increase in digit span slows at 11
  • digit span between 15-17 is fairly stable
  • data shows lower digit span for spanish speaking children than English.
• conclusions?

  • digit span increases with age
  • digit span with spanish children is lower, which could be due to word length effect
  • support for idea that word length is related to process of sub vocal rehearsal which appears at age 7. No significant difference between spanish and english children before 7.