Taking into account children’s learning processes is important when SLPs design interventions aimed at teaching new skills or expanding abilities. This journal self-study – based on a special issue of Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools – focuses on the type of learning that happens implicitly and quickly, without effort or even the knowledge that we are learning. This type of learning – known as statistical learning – refers to the way that children recognize patterns in the world around them. As language is full of patterns, this type of learning plays a large role in how children learn sound production, words, grammatical structures, and more. The articles in this self-study explore how SLPs can capitalize on implicit learning processes during intervention to help learning happen faster.

Learning Outcomes
You will be able to:

• define statistical learning
• identify the types and features of statistical learning
• describe how children with autism spectrum disorder learn verb meanings implicitly
• explain how statistical learning can be applied to verb learning treatments
• discuss what is known about statistical learning in individuals with hearing impairment and bilingual individuals

Contents

The following articles are included in this course:

• Statistical Learning: How it Relates to Speech-Language Pathology, by MaryAlt
• Acquisition of Verb Meaning From Syntactic Distribution in Preschoolers With Autism Spectrum Disorder, by Sabrina Horvath, Elizabeth McDermott, Kathleen Reilly, and Sudha Arunachalam
• Effects of a Complexity-Based Approach on Generalization of Past Tense –ed and Related Morphemes, by Amanda J. Owen Van Horne, Maura Curran, Caroline Larson, and Marc E. Fey
• Individual and Developmental Differences in Distributional Learning, by Jessica Hall, Amanda J. Owen Van Horne, Karla K. McGregor, and Thomas A. Farmer
• Learning Without Trying: The Clinical Relevance of Statistical Learning, by Elena Plante and Rebecca L. Gómez
• The Role of Statistical Learning in Understanding and Treating Spoken Language Outcomes in Deaf Children With Cochlear Implants, by Joanne A. Deocampo, Gretchen N. L. Smith, William G. Kronenberger, David B. Pisoni, and Christopher M. Conway
• Statistical Learning and Bilingualism, by Federica Bulgarelli, Amy L.Lebkuecher, and Daniel J. Weiss
• Take Home Points: How to Use Statistical Learning, by Mary Alt

Learning Assessment
Online, multiple-choice exam