Phonological Short-term Memory and Vocabulary Development: Further Evidence on the Nature of the Relationship SUSAN E. GATHERCOLE, 1 * ELISABET SERVICE, 2 GRAHAM J. HITCH, 3 ANNE-MARIE ADAMS 4 and AMANDA J. MARTIN 1 1 University of Bristol, UK 2 University of Helsinki, Finland 3 Lancaster University, UK 4 University of Manchester, UK SUMMARY The nature and generality of the developmental association between phonological short-term memory and vocabulary knowledge was explored in two studies. Study 1 investigated whether the link between vocabulary and verbal memory arises from the requirement to articulate memory items at recall or from earlier processes involved in the encoding and storage of the verbal material. Four-year-old children were tested on immediate memory measures which required either spoken recall (nonword repetition and digit span) or recognition of a sequence of nonwords. The phonological memory±vocabulary association was found to be as strong for the serial recognition as recall-based measures, favouring the view that it is phonological short-term memory capacity rather than speech output skills which constrain word learning. In Study 2, the association between phonological memory skills and vocabulary knowledge was found to be strong in teenaged as well as younger children, indicating that phonological memory constraints on word learning remain signi®cant throughout childhood. Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Appl. Cognit. Psychol. 13: 65±77 (1999) One of the major natural constraints on an individual's ability to learn the sound patterns of new words in the native language is the capacity to hold a novel sound pattern in temporary phonological memory. Adults with acquired de®cits of phono- logical short-term memory resulting from left hemisphere damage have been found to be completely unable to learn the phonological forms of new words (Baddeley et al., 1988; Trojano and Grossi, 1995). Corresponding links between phonological memory and the phonological aspect of vocabulary learning are also found in children. Children with good phonological memory skills have been consistently found to have CCC 0888±4080/99/010065±13 $17.50 Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 15 December 1997 APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, VOL. 13, 65±77 (1999) *Correspondence to: Susan E. Gathercole, Department of Psychology, University of Bristol, 8 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TN, UK. E-mail: Sue.Gathercole@Bristol.ac.uk Contract grant sponsor: Medical Research Council of Great Britain, Economic and Social Research Council of Great Britain, The Academy of Finland.