Nonverbal Cognition Research Articles

Early Language Patterns of Toddlers on the Autism Spectrum Compared to Toddlers with Developmental Delay

This study characterized early language abilities in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders (n = 257) using multiple measures of language development, compared to toddlers with non-spectrum developmental delay (DD, n = 69). Findings indicated moderate to high degrees of agreement among three assessment measures (one parent report and two direct assessment measures). Performance on two of the three measures revealed a significant difference in the profile of receptive-expressive language abilities for toddlers with autism compared to the DD group, such that toddlers with autism had relatively more severe receptive than expressive language delays. Regression analyses examining concurrent predictors of language abilities revealed both similarities in significant predictors (nonverbal cognition) and differences (frequency of vocalization, imitation) across the diagnostic groups.

Relationships amongst age, language and related skills in adults with Down syndrome

Studies into the effects of ageing on language in adults with Down syndrome (DS) have tended to rely on measures that lack sensitivity to change because they fail to explore across linguistic domains or rely on proxy reports. The study aim was to use measures of receptive and expressive language from studies of younger individuals with DS in exploring relationships across linguistic and associated skills, and age in young to older adults. Fifty-five adults (aged 19–58 years), 10 with a diagnosis of or signs of early stage Alzheimer's Disease (AD), provided data on measures of functioning associated with AD, non-verbal cognition, receptive language (which provided a measure of mental age), receptive and expressive language, and short term auditory and visual memory. The first order correlation between the measure of AD and CA was significant; but not when the 10 participants with AD were removed from the analysis. Significant negative correlations were obtained between CA and all other measures; small to large significant positive correlations were found amongst the other measures. Partial correlations were conducted to remove the potential effects of AD and IQ (the latter measured by a test of non-verbal cognition). Remaining significant correlations were between auditory short term memory and all other included measures, expressive language and all other included measures, and CA and auditory short term memory and expressive language. The results indicate that deterioration with age in this cross-sectional study was accounted for largely by the presence of AD. The exceptions were for auditory short term memory and expressive language. The findings may reflect an underlying deficit in auditory short term memory for adults with DS, as has been found in previous research of children and adolescents. The implications are discussed in terms of the importance of including comprehensive measures of receptive and expressive language and the need to account for the presence of AD in studies of cognitive decline associated with ageing in DS.

Reading and spelling in children with severe speech and physical impairments: a comparative study

Effective literacy skills are crucial in supporting communication for children with severe speech and physical impairments (SSPI). Reading and spelling difficulties are reported to be over-represented in this group, even where language and cognitive skills are age appropriate. To compare the performance of children with SSPI on a range of language, reading and spelling tasks with that of their typically developing peers matched for receptive vocabulary and mental age. A wide range of tasks was developed as part of a larger study exploring phonological awareness, reading and spelling skills. All tasks were accessible to children with severe physical impairments. Two groups of primary school-aged children were recruited, children with SSPI of average intelligence, and naturally speaking peers, matched for receptive vocabulary. Children were assessed individually on language, non-verbal cognition, phonological awareness, reading and spelling tasks. Sixteen children with SSPI were recruited. Their performance was compared with that of 15 naturally speaking peers, matched for receptive vocabulary scores. The children with SSPI achieved significantly lower scores on reading and spelling measures relative to their naturally speaking peers. However, at least one participant with SSPI scored at ceiling on each task, indicating that SSPI do not preclude the development of reading and spelling, at least in the early stages of literacy development. This study indicates that some children with severe speech impairments can develop phonological awareness, reading and spelling skills. However, the data suggest that phonological awareness may not be as good a predictor of reading and spelling abilities in this group of children as in typically developing children. Further research is needed to track development of reading and spelling, as well as the instructional support needed to scaffold more effective skills in these areas.

Extracommunicative functions of language: Verbal interference causes selective categorization impairments

In addition to its communicative functions, language has been argued to have a variety of extracommunicative functions, as assessed by its causal involvement in putatively nonlinguistic tasks. In the present work, I argue that language may be critically involved in the ability of human adults to categorize objects on a specific dimension (e.g., color) while abstracting over other dimensions (e.g., size). This ability is frequently impaired in aphasic patients. The present work demonstrates that normal participants placed under conditions of verbal interference show a pattern of deficits strikingly similar to that of aphasic patients: impaired taxonomic categorization along perceptual dimensions, and preserved thematic categorization. A control experiment using a visuospatial-interference task failed to find this selective pattern of deficits. The present work has implications for understanding the online role of language in normal cognition and supports the claim that language is causally involved in nonverbal cognition.

Outcomes of Child Sleep Problems Over the School-Transition Period: Australian Population Longitudinal Study

Adequate sleep optimizes children's learning and behavior. However, the natural history and impact of sleep problems during school transition is unknown. To determine (1) the natural history of sleep problems over the 2-year period spanning school entry and (2) associations of children's health-related quality of life, language, behavior, learning, and cognition at ages 6.5 to 7.5 years with (a) timing and (b) severity of sleep problems. Data were drawn from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Children were aged 4 to 5 years at wave 1 and 6 to 7 years at wave 2. Parent-reported predictors included (1) timing (none, persistent, resolved, incident) of moderate/severe sleep problems over the 2 waves and (2) severity (none, mild, moderate/severe) of sleep problems at wave 2. Outcomes included parent-reported health-related quality of life and language, parent- and teacher-reported behavior, teacher-reported learning, and directly assessed nonverbal (matrix reasoning) and verbal (receptive vocabulary) cognition. Linear regression, adjusted for child age, gender, and social demographic variables, was used to quantify associations of outcomes with sleep-problem timing and severity. Sleep data were available at both waves for 4460 (89.5%) children, of whom 22.6% (17.0% mild, 5.7% moderate/severe) had sleep problems at wave 2. From wave 1, 2.9% persisted and 2.8% developed a moderate/severe problem, whereas 10.1% resolved. Compared with no sleep problems, persistent and incident sleep problems predicted poorest health-related quality of life, behavior, language, and learning scores, whereas resolving problems showed intermediate outcomes. These outcomes also showed a dose-response relationship with severity at wave 2, with effect sizes for moderate/severe sleep problems ranging from -0.25 to -1.04 SDs. Cognitive outcomes were unaffected. Sleep problems during school transition are common and associated with poorer child outcomes. Randomized, controlled trials could determine if population-based sleep interventions can reduce the prevalence and impact of sleep problems.

Cognitive ability at age 11 and 70 years, information processing speed, and APOE variation: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 study.

The e4 allele of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene confers risk of Alzheimer's disease and, in some studies, relates to cognitive ability and decline in older people without Alzheimer's disease. Its relationship with processing speed, a contributor to cognitive decline with age, is largely unknown. This study tests the association of APOE with cognition and speed, with and without covarying childhood mental ability. The 1,013 participants were tested on cognitive ability at age 11 as part of the Scottish Mental Survey of 1947 and, at age 70, were tested on reasoning, working memory, information processing speed, and executive function. The results showed that APOE was associated with the general cognitive factor, 2 nonverbal tests, and choice reaction time (RT) variability; as expected, the e4 allele was the risk allele. RT measures and a general speed factor were nonlinearly related to APOE when factoring childhood ability (p < .05): The correlation between childhood ability and speed was lower in e4 allele carriers. APOE has an influence on nonverbal cognition in old age and interacts with childhood IQ to influence processing speed.

Non-verbal auditory cognition in patients with temporal epilepsy before and after anterior temporal lobectomy

For patients with pharmaco-resistant temporal epilepsy, unilateral anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) – i.e. the surgical resection of the hippocampus, the amygdala, the temporal pole and the most anterior part of the temporal gyri – is an efficient treatment. There is growing evidence that anterior regions of the temporal lobe are involved in the integration and short-term memorization of object-related sound properties. However, non-verbal auditory processing in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) has raised little attention. To assess non-verbal auditory cognition in patients with temporal epilepsy both before and after unilateral ATL, we developed a set of non-verbal auditory tests, including environmental sounds. We could evaluate auditory semantic identification, acoustic and object-related short-term memory, and sound extraction from a sound mixture. The performances of 26 TLE patients before and/or after ATL were compared to those of 18 healthy subjects. Patients before and after ATL were found to present with similar deficits in pitch retention, and in identification and short-term memorisation of environmental sounds, whereas not being impaired in basic acoustic processing compared to healthy subjects. It is most likely that the deficits observed before and after ATL are related to epileptic neuropathological processes. Therefore, in patients with drug-resistant TLE, ATL seems to significantly improve seizure control without producing additional auditory deficits.

A Nonverbal Language for Imagining and Learning: Dance Education in K–12 Curriculum

Curriculum theorists have provided a knowledge base concerning aesthetics, agency, creativity, lived experience, transcendence, learning through the body, and the power of the arts to engender visions of alternative possibilities in culture, politics, and the environment. However, these theoretical threads do not reveal the potential of K–12 dance education. Research on nonverbal communication and cognition, coupled with illustrative programs, provides key insights into dance as a distinct performing art discipline and as a liberal applied art that fosters creative problem solving and the acquisition, reinforcement, and assessment of nondance knowledge. Synthesizing and interpreting theory and research from different disciplines that is relevant to dance education, this article addresses cognition, emotion, language, learning styles, assessment, and new research directions in the field of education.

Brief Report: Pragmatic Language in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Relationships to Measures of Ability and Disability

Pragmatic language skill is regarded as an area of universal deficit in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but little is known about factors related to its development and how it in turn might contribute to skills needed to function in everyday contexts or to the expression of ASD-related symptoms. This study investigated these relationships in 37 high-functioning children with ASD. Multiple regression analyses revealed that structural language skills significantly predicted pragmatic language performance, but also that a significant portion of variance in pragmatic scores could not be accounted for by structural language or nonverbal cognition. Pragmatic language scores, in turn, accounted for significant variance in ADOS Communication and Socialization performance, but did not uniquely predict level of communicative or social adaptive functioning on the Vineland. These findings support the notion of pragmatic language impairment as integral to ASD but also highlight the need to measure pragmatic skills in everyday situations, to target adaptive skills in intervention and to intervene in functional, community-based contexts.

Developing spatial localization abilities and children's interpretation ofwhere

Two-year-old children often start asking questions with where. In this study we test whether children understand where to mean route or absolute location and whether the size of the space or elevation made a difference. Previous research has documented developmental changes over the preschool years in children's non-verbal spatial reasoning. Forty-eight children between two and five years of age were interviewed. We asked them to point in response to where questions about an object, rooms on the same floor and on a different floor. All children pointed to the location of the hidden objects. The youngest children pointed to the route to rooms while the oldest children were more likely to point to the location of rooms. With age, the children gradually used more spatial location terms than deictic terms in response to where. These results suggest that children's meaning of where initially differs for different sized spaces and developmental changes reflect non-verbal cognition.

Theory of Mind “emotion”, developmental characteristics and social understanding in children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities

Patterns of development of ToM-emotion abilities in intellectually disabled (ID) children and typically developing (TD) children matched on their developmental age were investigated. The links between cognition, language, social understanding and ToM-emotion abilities were examined. EDEI-R (Perron-Borelli, M. (1996). Echelles Différentielles d’Efficiences Intellectuelles. Forme Révisée (EDEI-R). Paris: Editions et Applications Psychologiques) was used to match participants and to assess social understanding. ECOSSE (Lecocq, P. (1996). L’E.CO.S.SE. Une épreuve de compréhension syntaxico-sémantique. Paris: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion) assessed the level of syntactic and semantic comprehension of French speaking, to ensure a good comprehension of the questions in ToM-emotion tasks. Adapted tasks of the understanding of causes and consequences of emotions (Quintal, G. (2001). La compréhension des émotions chez les enfants d’âge préscolaire dans le cadre d’une théorie de l’esprit. Un-published master's thesis, University of Montreal, Québec) assessed ToM-emotion abilities (Nader-Grosbois, N., Thirion-Marissiaux, A.-F., & Grosbois, M. (2003). Adapted tests for assessment of the Theory of Mind of causes and consequences of emotions (unpublished documents). Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium). Similarities in the development of ToM-emotion abilities and social understanding were found, respectively, in both groups (delay hypothesis in ID participants). Some differences between groups were observed in the links between social understanding and ToM-emotion abilities. Significant correlations between developmental characteristics (verbal and non-verbal cognition) and ToM-emotion abilities were obtained for both groups. Verbal cognition explained an important part of the variance of ToM results (understanding of causes and consequences of emotions). The impact of chronological age on ToM-emotion abilities was also examined and is discussed.

Longitudinal Relationships Between Lexical and Grammatical Development in Typical and Late-Talking Children

This study examined the longitudinal relationships between lexical and grammatical development in typically developing (TD) and late-talking children for the purposes of testing the single-mechanism account of language acquisition and comparing the developmental trajectories of lexical and grammatical development in late-talking and TD children. Participants included 30 children identified as late talkers (LTs) at 2;0 (years;months), and 30 TD children matched on age, nonverbal cognition, socioeconomic status, and gender. Data were collected at 5 points between 2;0 and 5;6. Cross-lagged correlational analyses indicated that TD children showed evidence of bidirectional bootstrapping between lexical and grammatical development between 2;0 and 3;6. Compared with the TD group, LTs exhibited less evidence of syntactic bootstrapping. Linear mixed-effects modeling of language sample data suggested that the relationship between lexical and grammatical growth was similar for the 2 groups. Lexical and grammatical development were strongly related in both groups, consistent with the single-mechanism account of language acquisition. The results were mixed in terms of finding longitudinal differences in lexical-grammatical relationships between the TD and late-talking children; however, several analyses suggested that for late-talking children, syntactic growth may be less facilitative of lexical development.

Event processing through naming: Investigating event focus in two people with aphasia

Some people with aphasia may have trouble with verbs because of fundamental difficulties in processing situations in a way that maps readily onto language. This paper describes a novel assessment, the Order of Naming Test, that explores the conceptual processing of events through the order in which people name the entities involved. The performance of non-brain damaged control participants is described. The responses of two people with non-fluent aphasia are then discussed. Both ‘Helen’ and ‘Ron’ showed significant difficulty with verbs and sentences. Ron also had trouble on a range of tasks tapping aspects of event processing, despite intact non-verbal cognition. While Helen's performance on the Order of Naming Test was very similar to the controls, Ron's differed in a number of respects, suggesting that he was less focused on the main participant entities. However, certain aspects of his response pointed at covert event processing abilities that might be fruitfully exploited in therapy.

Language abilities in Williams syndrome: A critical review

Williams syndrome is a rare genetic disorder in which, it is claimed, language abilities are relatively strong despite mild to moderate mental retardation. Such claims have, in turn, been interpreted as evidence either for modular preservation of language or for atypical constraints on cognitive development. However, this review demonstrates that there is, in fact, little evidence that syntax, morphology, phonology, or pragmatics are any better than predicted by nonverbal ability, although performance on receptive vocabulary tests is relatively good. Similarly, claims of an imbalance between good phonology and impaired or atypical lexical semantics are without strong support. There is, nevertheless, consistent evidence for specific deficits in spatial language that mirror difficulties in nonverbal spatial cognition, as well as some tentative evidence that early language acquisition proceeds atypically. Implications for modular and neuroconstructivist accounts of language development are discussed.

Elimination Diets in Autism Spectrum Disorders

The use of complementary or alternative treatment approaches in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) is increasing, and the most popular of such approaches are diets that eliminate either gluten or casein, or both. The popularity of these diets indicates a need for more rigorous research into their efficacy. Owing to significant methodological flaws, the currently available data are inadequate to guide treatment recommendations. The purpose of this review is to examine the available trials of gluten/casein diets in children with ASDs regarding the strength of their findings and also concerning points that may be useful in the design of future studies. Seven trials of these diets in ASD are critically reviewed; 6 of these were uncontrolled trials and 1 used a single-blind design. All reported efficacy in reducing some autism symptoms, and 2 groups of investigators also reported improvement in nonverbal cognition. Design flaws in all of the studies weaken the confidence that can be placed in their findings. Careful double-blind, placebo-controlled studies are needed to evaluate whether actual benefit undergirds the diets' popularity and to provide better guidance to clinicians and caregivers. The literature currently available suggests that diets eliminating both gluten and casein (rather than either alone) should be studied first and that outcome measures should include assessments of nonverbal cognition.

Symbolic functioning and language development in children with Down syndrome

Understanding the relationship between preverbal skills and language development has important implications for identifying communication delay/disorders and for early childhood intervention. In the case of children with Down syndrome, it is well established that symbolic play is associated with the emergence of language. However, the exact nature of this relationship remains unclear, as many previous studies have addressed functional play and not actual symbolic play, which is felt to have stronger links to language development. The design of studies has also meant that adults may have inadvertently modelled the targeted behaviours, in which case it is unclear whether the children truly comprehend the symbolic acts that they produce. This study set out to investigate further symbolic functioning and language in children with Down syndrome by exploring truly symbolic play as opposed to functional play, as well as the understanding of a graded set of novel symbols. The aim was to find out whether the symbolic behaviours would be associated with each other and with language development or non-verbal cognition. It was hypothesized that symbolic functioning on a test of symbolic play and symbolic comprehension would be significantly correlated with each other and with language abilities as they all measure underlying skills in symbolic representation. It was hypothesized that symbolic skills and language would be less closely correlated with non-verbal abilities. Another goal was to study understanding of three types of symbols: gestures, miniatures and abstract symbols. It was hypothesized that gestures would be significantly easier to understand than miniatures or abstract symbols. Twenty-one children with Down syndrome aged between 32 and 95 months were assessed on the Test of Pretend Play and a novel symbolic comprehension task as well as on standardized language and non-verbal tests. Correlational analysis was carried out to determine the relationship between the various tests, and the children were divided into three age categories to examine how the relationship changed with development. Analysis was also carried out on the children's performance across the gesture, miniature and symbolic subtests of the symbolic comprehension task. When effects of chronological age were partialled out, symbolic play and symbolic comprehension were significantly correlated with each other and with expressive and receptive language, but not with non-verbal ability. The association between language and symbolic functioning was significantly stronger in the younger children, but these measures started to dissociate with increasing age and language development. The data support the proposition that language becomes more domain specific as a result of experience and development. The results from the symbolic comprehension experiment revealed that the children found gestures significantly easier to understand than miniatures or substitute objects used as abstract symbols to represent other objects. The findings indicate that tests of symbolic functioning offer valuable contributions to assessment with implications for intervention in children with Down syndrome and to the understanding of disorders of language and communication.

Is selective mutism associated with deficits in memory span and visual memory?: an exploratory case–control study

Our main aim in this study was to explore the association between selective mutism (SM) and aspects of nonverbal cognition such as visual memory span and visual memory. Auditory-verbal memory span was also examined. The etiology of SM is unclear, and it probably represents a heterogeneous condition. SM is associated with language impairment, but nonspecific neurodevelopmental factors, including motor problems, are also reported in SM without language impairment. Furthermore, SM is described in Asperger's syndrome. Studies on nonverbal cognition in SM thus merit further investigation. Neuropsychological tests were administered to a clinical sample of 32 children and adolescents with SM (ages 6-17 years, 14 boys and 18 girls) and 62 nonreferred controls matched for age, gender, and socioeconomic status. We used independent t-tests to compare groups with regard to auditory-verbal memory span, visual memory span, and visual memory (Benton Visual Retention Test), and employed linear regression analysis to study the impact of SM on visual memory, controlling for IQ and measures of language and motor function. The SM group differed from controls on auditory-verbal memory span but not on visual memory span. Controlled for IQ, language, and motor function, the SM group did not differ from controls on visual memory. Motor function was the strongest predictor of visual memory performance. SM does not appear to be associated with deficits in visual memory span or visual memory. The reduced auditory-verbal memory span supports the association between SM and language impairment. More comprehensive neuropsychological studies are needed.

Neuropsychological profile of Italians with Williams syndrome: An example of a dissociation between language and cognition?

Important claims have been made regarding the contrasting profiles of linguistic and cognitive performance observed in two genetically based syndromes, Williams syndrome (WS) and Down syndrome (DS). Earlier studies suggested a double dissociation, with language better preserved than nonverbal cognition in children and adults with WS, and an opposite profile in children and adults with DS. More recent studies show that this initial characterization was too simple, and that qualitatively different patterns of deficit observed within both language and visual-spatial cognition, in both groups. In the present study, large samples of children and adolescents with WS and age-matched DS are compared with typically developing (TD) controls matched to WS in mental age, on receptive and expressive lexical and grammatical abilities, semantic and phonological fluency, digit span and nonverbal visual-spatial span, and on 2 visual-spatial construction tasks. Study 1 confirmed distinct profiles of sparing and impairment for the 2 groups, within as well as between language and nonlinguistic domains, even after IQ variations were controlled. In Study 2 we compared performance of the children, adolescents and young adults with DS and WS included in the first study, divided on the basis of the chronological age of the participants (under 8 years; over 12 years). Although it is important to stress that these are cross-sectional rather than longitudinal data, the results demonstrated that the profile of younger children is different in respect to those of the older children; initial states of the system cannot be inferred by the final state. Possible neural substrates for these profiles and trajectories are discussed.

Non-verbal development of children with deafness with and without cochlear implants.

Deprivation of sensory input affects neurological development. Our objective was to explore clinically the role of hearing in development of sensorimotor integration and non-verbal cognition. The study involved 54 children (15 males, 839 females; 5 to 9 years old) with severe or profound bilateral prelocutive deafness but without neurological or cognitive impairment. Of these, 25 had received an early cochlear implant (CIm). Patients were compared with 40 children with normal hearing. All were given a battery of non-verbal neuropsychological tests and a balance test, and were timed for simple and complex movement of limbs. Deafness, whether treated by CIm or not, resulted in a delay in development of complex motor sequences and balance. Lack of auditory input was also associated with lower, but non-pathological, scores in visual gnoso-praxic tasks and sustained attention. Such differences were not observed in children with CIm. Hearing contributes to clinical development of spatial integration, motor control, and attention. An early CIm enables good verbal development and might also improve non-verbal capacities.

Predictors of parent-child language during novel task play: a comparison between typically developing children and individuals with Down syndrome.

Three questions were asked that explored the linguistic fine-tuning hypothesis and how parents might model language: (i) do parents significantly tune to their children's productive language or non-verbal cognition during play? (ii) is the level of the linguistic tuning different in the Down syndrome (DS) population compared to a typically developing (TD)-match group population? and (iii) do the two populations differ in requests for labels and the scaffolding responses to the requests? In an exploratory play condition, parents of children with DS used a mean length of utterance (MLU) significantly higher than the MLU used by the parents of younger TD children who were matched for MLU. Thus, the DS parents have a higher baseline MLU, but the non-significant correlations in the DS group do not support parental MLU tuning. There was evidence, however, for parental tuning to the children's lexicon using a number of different words when the DS children were at lower and average levels of receptive syntax and non-verbal cognition. In addition, DS and TD parents requested labels for novel toys with the same frequency, perhaps indicating that all groups of parents are still probing and building their children's lexicons. This is an important finding because it may help to explain why adolescents and young adults with DS have vocabulary comprehension skills greater than one would predict from measures of their production and non-verbal cognition.