The Reciprocal Influences of Working Memory and Linguistic Knowledge on Language Performance: Considerations for the Assessment of Children With Developmental Language Disorder

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 424-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. D. Archibald
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Language Performance ◽  
Reciprocal Influences ◽  
Memory Resources ◽  
Relationship Of

Purpose This article considers how the language performance of school-age children with language impairments, such as developmental language disorder, is influenced by the reciprocal relationship of existing linguistic knowledge and working memory resources and the resultant implications for assessment. Method A viewpoint is provided by reviewing working memory theory, empirical evidence of the reciprocal relationship between working memory and existing language knowledge, and critically evaluating available standardized and nonstandardized tools designed to assess working memory or linguistic skills. Conclusions Speech-language pathologists with an excellent understanding of the reciprocal relationship between working memory and linguistic knowledge will need to examine performance across tasks and contexts varying in these demands in order to achieve an accurate clinical profile of relevant strengths and weaknesses for individual children.

scholarly journals Executive Function, Working Memory, and Verbal Fluency in Relation to Non-Verbal Intelligence in Greek-Speaking School-Age Children with Developmental Language Disorder

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 604
Author(s):  
Asimina M. Ralli ◽  
Elisavet Chrysochoou ◽  
Petros Roussos ◽  
Kleopatra Diakogiorgi ◽  
Panagiota Dimitropoulou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Verbal Fluency ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
School Age ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Verbal Intelligence ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Digit Recall

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is often associated with impairments in working memory (WM), executive functions (EF), and verbal fluency. Moreover, increasing evidence shows poorer performance of children with DLD on non-verbal intelligence tests relative to their typically developing (TD) peers. Yet, the degree and generality of relevant difficulties remain unclear. The present study aimed at investigating WM capacity, key EFs and verbal fluency in relation to non-verbal intelligence in Greek-speaking school-age children with DLD, compared to TD peers (8–9 years). To our knowledge, the present study is the first to attempt a systematic relevant assessment with Greek-speaking school-age children, complementing previous studies mostly involving English-speaking participants. The results showed that children with DLD scored lower than TD peers on the non-verbal intelligence measure. Groups did not differ in the inhibition measures obtained (tapping resistance to either distractor or proactive interference), but children with DLD were outperformed by TD peers in the WM capacity, updating, monitoring (mixing cost), and verbal fluency (phonological and semantic) measures. The effects showed limited (in the case of backward digit recall) or no dependence on non-verbal intelligence. Findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications as well as in relation to future lines of research.

Syntactic complexity and verbal working memory in bilingual children with and without Developmental Language Disorder

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Racha Zebib ◽  
Laurice Tuller ◽  
Cornelia Hamann ◽  
Lina Abed Ibrahim ◽  
Philippe Prévost
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Core Ability ◽  
Language Measures

Sentence repetition (SR) tasks have been shown to be excellent indicators of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). However, there is still no consensus about which core ability they measure: language vs. Verbal Short-Term Memory (VSTM) and Verbal Working Memory (WM). Moreover, very few studies have investigated whether variables predicting SR performance differ in children with DLD compared to typically developing (TD) children, especially concerning bilingual children. This article reports on an SR study of 76 5- to 8-year-old bilingual children with ( n = 23) and without ( n = 53) DLD. The Bi-DLD group displayed significantly lower scores than the Bi-TD group on SR and on VSTM and WM measures. Regression analyses showed that SR was mainly linked to WM in the Bi-DLD group, but not in the TD group, where SR was mainly linked to (independent) language measures. This suggests that children with DLD, who have deficient linguistic knowledge, may rely more on their general processing ability (i.e. WM) in contrast to Bi-TD children, whose language skills are normal, and thus can be solicited for SR. Moreover, individual results suggested that performance on SR does not depend on minimal VSTM or WM spans.

scholarly journals Cognitive Processes Related to Memory Capacity Explain Nearly All of the Variance in Language Test Performance in School-Age Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald B. Gillam ◽  
Sarfaraz Serang ◽  
James W. Montgomery ◽  
Julia L. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Language Ability ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
School Age ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Structural Regression

The purpose of this study was to investigate the dimensionality of the cognitive processes related to memory capacity and language ability and to assess the magnitude of the relationships among these processes in children developing typically (TD) and children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Participants were 234 children between the ages of 7;0 and 11;11 (117 TD and 117 DLD) who were propensity matched on age, sex, mother education and family income. Latent variables created from cognitive processing tasks and standardized measures of comprehension and production of lexical and sentential aspects of language were tested with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural regression. A five-factor CFA model that included the constructs of Fluid Intelligence, Controlled Attention, Working Memory, Long-Term Memory for Language Knowledge and Language Ability yielded better fit statistics than two four-factor nested models. The four cognitive abilities accounted for more than 92% of the variance in the language measures. A structural regression model indicated that the relationship between working memory and language ability was significantly greater for the TD group than the DLD group. These results are consistent with a broad conceptualization of the nature of language impairment in older, school-age children as encompassing a dynamic system in which cognitive abilities account for nearly all of the variance in linguistic abilities.

Nonword Repetition Skills in Gulf Arabic–Speaking Children With Developmental Language Disorder

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (11) ◽  
pp. 3700-3713
Author(s):  
Saleh Shaalan
Keyword(s):  
Phonological Processing ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Gulf Arabic ◽  
Arabic Speaking ◽  
Phonological Complexity

Purpose This study examined the performance of Gulf Arabic–speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD) on a Gulf Arabic nonword repetition (GA-NWR) test and compared it to their age- and language-matched groups. We also investigated the role of syllable length, wordlikeness, and phonological complexity in light of NWR theories. Method A new GA-NWR test was conducted with three groups of Gulf Arabic–speaking children: school-age children with DLD, language-matched controls (LCs), and age-matched controls (ACs). The test consisted of two- and three-syllable words that either had no clusters, medial clusters, final clusters, or medial + final clusters. Results The GA-NWR distinguished between the performance of children with DLD and the LC and AC groups. Results showed significant syllable length, wordlikeness, and phonological complexity effects. Differences between the DLD and typically developing groups were seen in two- and three-syllable nonwords; however, when compared on nonwords with no clusters, children with DLD were not significantly different from the LC group. Conclusions The GA-NWR test differentiated between children with DLD and their ACs and LCs. Findings, therefore, support its clinical utility in this variety of Arabic. Results showed that phonological processing factors, such as phonological complexity, may have stronger effects when compared to syllable length effects. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12996812

Do Children With Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) Have Difficulties With Interference Control, Visuospatial Working Memory, and Selective Attention? Developmental Patterns and the Role of Severity and Persistence of DLD

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (9) ◽  
pp. 3036-3050
Author(s):  
Elma Blom ◽  
Tessel Boerma
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Interference Control ◽  
Developmental Patterns ◽  
Search Tasks ◽  
The Impact

Purpose Many children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have weaknesses in executive functioning (EF), specifically in tasks testing interference control and working memory. It is unknown how EF develops in children with DLD, if EF abilities are related to DLD severity and persistence, and if EF weaknesses expand to selective attention. This study aimed to address these gaps. Method Data from 78 children with DLD and 39 typically developing (TD) children were collected at three times with 1-year intervals. At Time 1, the children were 5 or 6 years old. Flanker, Dot Matrix, and Sky Search tasks tested interference control, visuospatial working memory, and selective attention, respectively. DLD severity was based on children's language ability. DLD persistence was based on stability of the DLD diagnosis. Results Performance on all tasks improved in both groups. TD children outperformed children with DLD on interference control. No differences were found for visuospatial working memory and selective attention. An interference control gap between the DLD and TD groups emerged between Time 1 and Time 2. Severity and persistence of DLD were related to interference control and working memory; the impact on working memory was stronger. Selective attention was unrelated to DLD severity and persistence. Conclusions Age and DLD severity and persistence determine whether or not children with DLD show EF weaknesses. Interference control is most clearly impaired in children with DLD who are 6 years and older. Visuospatial working memory is impaired in children with severe and persistent DLD. Selective attention is spared.

scholarly journals Lower verbalizability of visual stimuli modulates differences in estimates of working memory capacity between children with and without developmental language disorders

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 239694152094551
Author(s):  
Seçkin Arslan ◽  
Lucie Broc ◽  
Fabien Mathy
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Memory ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Short Term

Background and aims Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) often perform below their typically developing peers on verbal memory tasks. However, the picture is less clear on visual memory tasks. Research has generally shown that visual memory can be facilitated by verbal representations, but few studies have been conducted using visual materials that are not easy to verbalize. Therefore, we attempted to construct non-verbalizable stimuli to investigate the impact of working memory capacity. Method and results We manipulated verbalizability in visual span tasks and tested whether minimizing verbalizability could help reduce visual recall performance differences across children with and without developmental language disorder. Visuals that could be easily verbalized or not were selected based on a pretest with non-developmental language disorder young adults. We tested groups of children with developmental language disorder (N = 23) and their typically developing peers (N = 65) using these high and low verbalizable classes of visual stimuli. The memory span of the children with developmental language disorder varied across the different stimulus conditions, but critically, although their storage capacity for visual information was virtually unimpaired, the children with developmental language disorder still had difficulty in recalling verbalizable images with simple drawings. Also, recalling complex (galaxy) images with low verbalizability proved difficult in both groups of children. An item-based analysis on correctly recalled items showed that higher levels of verbalizability enhanced visual recall in the typically developing children to a greater extent than the children with developmental language disorder. Conclusions and clinical implication: We suggest that visual short-term memory in typically developing children might be mediated with verbal encoding to a larger extent than in children with developmental language disorder, thus leading to poorer performance on visual capacity tasks. Our findings cast doubts on the idea that short-term storage impairments are limited to the verbal domain, but they also challenge the idea that visual tasks are essentially visual. Therefore, our findings suggest to clinicians working with children experiencing developmental language difficulties that visual memory deficits may not necessarily be due to reduced non-verbal skills but may be due to the high amount of verbal cues in visual stimuli, from which they do not benefit in comparison to their peers.

scholarly journals The Efficacy of an Explicit Intervention Approach to Improve Past Tense Marking for Early School-Age Children With Developmental Language Disorder

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Samuel D. Calder ◽  
Mary Claessen ◽  
Susan Ebbels ◽  
Suze Leitão
Keyword(s):  
Language Disorder ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
School Age ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Standardized Measures ◽  
Early School ◽  
Early School Age

Purpose The aim of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of a theoretically motivated explicit intervention approach to improve regular past tense marking for early school-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Method Twenty-one children with DLD (ages 5;9–6;9 [years;months]) were included in a crossover randomized controlled trial (intervention, n = 10; waiting control, n = 11). Intervention included once-weekly sessions over 10 weeks using the SHAPE CODING system, in combination with a systematic cueing hierarchy to teach past tense marking. Once the first group completed intervention, the waiting control group crossed over to the intervention condition. The primary outcome was criterion-referenced measures of past tense marking with standardized measures of expressive and receptive grammar as the secondary outcome. Ancillary analyses on extension and behavioral control measures of morphosyntax were also conducted. Results There was a significant Time × Group interaction ( p < .001) with a significant difference in pre–post intervention improvement in favor of the intervention group ( p < .001, d = 3.03). Further analysis once both groups had received the intervention revealed no improvement for either group on past tense production during the 5-week pre-intervention period, significant improvement pre–post intervention ( p < . 001, d = 1.22), with gains maintained for 5 weeks postintervention. No significant differences were found on pre- to postintervention standardized measures of grammar, or on extension or control measures. Conclusions The efficacy of the theoretically motivated explicit grammar intervention was demonstrated. Results contribute to the evidence base supporting this intervention to improve past tense production in early school-age children with DLD, suggesting it is a viable option for clinicians to select when treating morphosyntactic difficulties for this population. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13345202

scholarly journals Comprehension of Welcher -Questions in German-Speaking Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Anne Dorothée Roesch ◽  
Vasiliki Chondrogianni
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Question Type ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Phonological Working Memory ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
German Speaking

Purpose This study examined whether monolingual German-speaking preschool children with developmental language disorder (DLD) were facilitated by the presence of case-marking cues in their interpretation of German subject and object welcher (“which”)-questions, as reported for their typically developing peers. We also examined whether knowledge of case-marking and/or phonological working memory modulated children's ability to revise early assigned interpretations of ambiguous questions. Method Sixty-three monolingual German-speaking children with and without DLD aged between 4;0 and 5;11 (years;months) participated in an offline picture selection task targeting the comprehension of welcher -questions in German. We manipulated question type (subject, object), case-marking transparency, and case-marking position within the question (sentence-initial/-final). Results The typically developing children outperformed the children with DLD across conditions, and all children performed better on subject than on object wh -questions. Transparent and early cues elicited higher accuracy than late-arriving cues. For the DLD children, their working memory capacity explained their inability to revise early assigned interpretations to ambiguous questions, whereas their knowledge of case did not. Conclusions The results suggest that disambiguating morphosyntactic cues can only partly facilitate comprehension of German welcher -questions in children with DLD, whose poor phonological working memory rather than their knowledge of case-marking mediates performance on these structures.

scholarly journals Sensorimotor performance in school-age children with autism, developmental language disorder, or low IQ

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (01) ◽  
pp. 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E Mandelbaum ◽  
Michael Stevens ◽  
Eric Rosenberg ◽  
Max Wiznitzer ◽  
Mitchell Steinschneider ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Disorder ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
School Age ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Low Iq ◽  
Sensorimotor Performance

scholarly journals Sustained Attention in Developmental Language Disorder and Its Relation to Working Memory and Language

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (12) ◽  
pp. 4096-4108
Author(s):  
Erin Smolak ◽  
Karla K. McGregor ◽  
Tim Arbisi-Kelm ◽  
Nichole Eden
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Language Ability ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Language Abilities ◽  
Visual Spatial ◽  
Visual Spatial Working Memory

Purpose Based on evidence of deficits in domain-general cognitive abilities associated with developmental language disorder (DLD), the current study examined sustained attention performance in children with DLD compared to children with typical language development (TLD) and the interrelations between visual–spatial sustained attention, visual–spatial working memory, and language abilities across groups. Method Participants included 67 children at 7 years of age: 25 children with DLD (13 girls and 12 boys) and 42 children with TLD (23 girls and 19 boys). We assessed children's visual–spatial sustained attention, visual–spatial working memory, and language ability on a test of narrative language. Result Children with DLD scored significantly below their peers on a measure of visual–spatial sustained attention. Significant intercorrelations were observed between sustained attention, working memory, and language ability within the DLD group, but no correlations were observed between these measures in the TLD group. Conclusion Children with DLD have domain-general deficits in sustained attention, and correlational results have implications for whether and how language abilities are supported by domain-general cognition in both typical and disordered development.

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