Lexical storage and retrieval: a developing skill?

A multivariate analysis of 472 adult and 208 child malapropisms suggests that there are important similarities and differences in the way in which adults and children retrieve, and, by implication, store lexical items. Both groups retrieve words by looking for certain salient phonological features, and both utilise the same set of features. However, adults and children differ in the relative importance assigned to the various features. Adults give priority to initial consonants, whereas children tend to pay attention to other aspects of the word. The differences found are not artefacts of associations with the other characteristics studied, neither are they due to biases within the data base. A number of interacting factors are proposed to account for the differences found.