Cascade models of word production assume that during lexical access all activated concepts activate their names. In line with this view, it has been shown that naming an object's colour is facilitated when colour name and object name are phonologically related (e.g., ‘blue' and ‘blouse'). Prevor and Diamond's (2005) recent observation that children take longer to name the colour of real objects than of abstract forms could also be attributed to cascaded processing, resulting in competition between colour name and object name. Experiments 1 and 2 replicate this ‘object-interference effect' in colour naming by children of 5-7 years of age and show that it generalises to position naming. Experiment 2 shows that the effect is also obtained with hard-to-name objects; a finding that is at variance with a lexical-competition account. The finding in Experiment 3 that the object-interference effect is absent in adults, is consistent with an alternative interpretation in terms of task-set competition. Implications for models of word production are discussed

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This study was aimed at assessing a new computer‐based system to promote task performance in three adults with severe developmental disabilities. The new system, which was small and battery powered, could provide auditory and vibratory prompts in addition to pictorial instructions concerning the task steps. To control for the effects of the computer‐based system, the subjects were also exposed to a card system. The results showed that the subjects had a significantly higher level of correct performance on the tasks presented with the computer‐based system than on the tasks presented with the card system. Two of the subjects, moreover, seemed to prefer the computer‐based system to the card system. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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