Assessment for Verb Acquisition and Developing Its Computer Assisted Learning Program

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The aims of this project are (1) to obtain background information for verb acquisition through early stages of mother-child interaction, (2) to clarify developmental stages of verb acquisition in normal children in order to understand problems of the handicapped, (3) to develop computer assisted learning programs for some verbs which are difficult to differentiate with and extend their meanings.First, longitudinal studies are conducted to compare nonverbal contexts observed in mother-child interactions. In play, mothers were observed to use more environmental sounds and onomatopoeia with names of toys. Along with motor development of children, mothers began to demonstrate as well as use verbs with the objects. Children at first learned to play in actions, then uttered environmental sounds or onomatopoeia to mean the objects, and later learn to use appropriate verbs in handling the particular objects.Cross-sectional studies revealed that children's understanding about verbs extend from those relating to proximal to distal, i.e. gross-motor to fine motor co-ordination. It was also found that children seemed to learn verbs through association with frequently used objects or contexts. Physically handicapped children who could respond to non-verbal vocabulary tests by nodding, etc. were found to understand some verbs which they could never perform but observe through daily experiences. Some mentally retarded children showed that they could learn to use verbs, such as "throw, roll, catch" after playing ball with verbal stimuli.Various computer programs were made for children to learn and to extend meanings of some verbs by using VTR and animation materials. Normal as well as handicapped children showed more interests and attended longer to these computer-assisted program. The statistically significant gains were also obtained.