Word associations in Mexican school children

Abstract

Free Word Associations reflect how words are organized in the lexicon. They have been generally performed with young and elderly adults. However, very little is known about semantic organization in school-age children. The current research presents associations for 60 words acquired early in life with 484 children between the ages of 6 and 12, who attended either public or private schools. We provide eight association measures traditionally reported. A trajectory analysis identified that changes in associations are non-linear and more gradual in children attending public schools compared to those attending private schools. Public school students exhibit higher associative strength indices, indicating a more interconnected lexicon. Although the number of blank responses is small in both populations, idiosyncratic responses decrease among public school children but not among those from private schools, suggesting an increase in vocabulary. Analyses on the type of lexical relations and the type of grammatical responses (paradigmatic versus syntagmatic) showed that children preferred to provide taxonomic and paradigmatic responses. However, neither response type increased significantly in correlation with their level of education.