Abstract
In two studies, 10‐year‐olds from 2 German special schools as well as typically developing children of the same chronological age (CA controls) or the same mental age (MA controls) were compared on several aspects of working memory functions (i.e., size and input quality of the phonological store, speed and automatic activation of the subvocal rehearsal process). Results reveal that the children from the special schools reached the MA control but not the CA control children's level of non‐word repetition and also showed a statistically significant phonological similarity effect on memory span. These results were interpreted as evidence for a developmental lag in the functioning of the phonological store in these children. With regard to the subvocal rehearsal process, the results were mixed. While the children in the special schools outperformed the MA controls in speech rate, it was found that, in contrast to both control groups, they did not show any word‐length effect on memory span. This finding might be interpreted as evidence for a structural deficit impeding the automatic activation of the subvocal rehearsal process.
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