Measures Of Short-term Memory Research Articles

Verbal and visual short-term memory predict performance in a multiplication production task: Evidence from a Malaysian sample.

Arithmetic requires the use of multiple cognitive processes, such as short-term memory (STM). However, findings on the association between STM and simple multiplication solving are mixed, potentially due to large interindividual differences in multiplication proficiency within and between samples. The present study aims to explore further the relationship between visual and verbal STM and simple multiplication solving with a large Malaysian sample (N = 230). Adults (age = 17-42) completed an online production-based multiplication-solving task, STM measures (verbal and visuospatial STM tasks), and a demographic survey. A mixed-model analysis found that verbal STM and visual STM predict multiplication performance, with lower span participants having longer reaction times during multiplication solving. Interestingly, we also observed the relationship between verbal STM and multiplication was moderated by interference, the impact of verbal STM was stronger in high-interference problems, while the visual STM-multiplication relation was moderated by problem size, high visual span participants took more advantage of their visual STM when presented with large size problems. Thus, our findings show that both verbal and visual STM in interaction with problem properties predict simple multiplication solving in adults. Hypotheses on the concrete mechanisms involved in these relationships are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A transdiagnostic examination of cognitive heterogeneity in children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders

ABSTRACT Children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders demonstrate extensive cognitive heterogeneity that is not adequately captured by traditional diagnostic systems, emphasizing the need for alternative assessment and classification techniques. Using a transdiagnostic approach, a retrospective cohort study of cognitive functioning was conducted using a large heterogenous sample (n = 1529) of children and adolescents 7 to 18 years of age with neurodevelopmental disorders. Measures of short-term memory, verbal ability, and reasoning were administered to participants with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), comorbid ADHD/ASD, and participants without neurodevelopmental disorders (non-NDD) using a 12-task, web-based neurocognitive testing battery. Unsupervised machine learning techniques were used to create a self-organizing map, an artificial neural network, in conjunction with k-means clustering to identify data-driven subgroups. The study aims were to: 1) identify cognitive profiles in the sample using a data-driven approach, and 2) determine their correspondence with traditional diagnostic statuses. Six clusters representing different cognitive profiles were identified, including participants with varying forms of cognitive impairment. Diagnostic status did not correspond with cluster-membership, providing evidence for the application of transdiagnostic approaches to understanding cognitive heterogeneity in children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders. Additionally, the findings suggest that many typically developing participants may have undiagnosed learning difficulties, emphasizing the need for accessible cognitive assessment tools in school-based settings.

The Relationship Between Executive Functions, Self-Reflection, and Insight Across Adulthood

ABSTRACT Objective Research suggests that executive functions and metacognitive abilities, including self-reflection and insight, may share underlying mechanisms since both rely on top-down cognitive processes and require self-regulation. However, these relationships have not been thoroughly examined by empirical research. The current study investigated the relationship between insight, self-reflection, and executive functions cross-sectionally across different stages of aging. Methods Participants were 1284 (655 men and 629 women) cognitively healthy community dwellers with an age range of 18–89 years (M = 47.91, SD = 19.83). The sample was divided into three groups based on age, e.g., the young adults (18–34 years-old), the middle-aged adults (35–59 years-old), and older adults (60 years and older). Participants completed multiple executive function tasks (including trail making, verbal fluency, Stroop, digit span) and a self-report insight and self-reflection measure individually in face-to-face sessions. Results The results show that education, age, digit span forward, which is a measure of short-term memory and phonemic fluency were significant predictors of self-reported insight. Furthermore, insight, but not self-reflection, had significant positive correlations with short-term memory and phonemic fluency across three age groups. Conclusions Overall, the results indicate that performance on executive function measures and self-reported self-reflection and insight are relatively independent cognitive abilities.

Metabolic rate does not explain performance on a short-term memory task or personality traits in juvenile chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus).

Metabolic rate determines life processes and the physiological requirements of an individual, and has recently been implicated as a driver of inter-individual variation in behaviour, with positive correlations associated with boldness, exploration and aggressive behaviours being recorded. While the link between metabolism and personality has been explored, little is known about the influence of metabolism on cognitive abilities. Here we used juvenile female chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) to investigate the relationships between metabolic rate at rest, short-term memory, personality, and dominance. Resting metabolic rates of the chicks were measured over a three-week period, concurrently with measures of short-term memory using an analogue of the radial arm maze. We also measured latency to leave the shelter (boldness), neophobia (fear of novel objects) and dominance within a group, both before and after short-term memory trials. We found that metabolic rate did not explain inter-individual differences in short-term memory, personality traits or dominance, suggesting that energy allocated to these traits is independent of individual metabolic rate, and providing evidence for the independent energy-management hypothesis. Differences in short-term memory were also not explained by boldness or neophobia. Variation in behaviour in chicks, therefore, appears to be driven by separate, currently unknown variables.

Neurocognitive Profile in Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Dyslexia

Objective: The current study aimed to examine the neurocognitive deficits of children with ADHD and/or Developmental Dyslexia (DD) using neurocognitive tests. Material and Methods: The participants of the study consisted of children diagnosed with Dyslexia (N=33), ADHD (N=32), and DD+ADHD (N=37) who applied to the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Ankara University. The control group consists of 30 primary school children aged 7-11 with similar sociodemographic data. K-SADS-PL is used for the DSM-5 diagnoses of the patients and the control group. Stroop Test, Trail Making Test, Verbal Cancellation Test, and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) were used to evaluate the cognitive functions of the groups in detail. Results: Children with ADHD and/or Dyslexia were evaluated to have significant deficits in all neurocognitive measures such as reaction inhibition, selective attention, sustained attention, shifting attention, and visuospatial short-term memory compared to the healthy control group (p<0.001). Children with ADHD-only revealed the most significant weaknesses in reaction inhibition, and visuospatial short-term memory measures (p<0.001). The comorbid group exhibited significant weakness on almost all neurocognitive measures compared with the control group, but did not perform significantly lower than the ADHD-only and Dislexia-only groups. Conclusion: It has been shown that children with ADHD and/or Dyslexia have multiple neurocognitive deficits, and our study supports the multiple cognitive deficit hypothesis.

Hearing loss and impaired short-term memory in an Alzheimer's disease mouse model of amyloid-beta pathology

Current evidence supports the link between hearing loss and Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, few studies report the hearing status of AD mice compared to wild-type mice. This study aimed to compare hearing thresholds and short-term memory (STM) performance of an AD (APPNL-G-F) mouse model of amyloid-beta (Aꞵ) pathology with C57BL/6 J and CBA/CaJ mice across age. The auditory brainstem response (ABR) test, using click and five tone-burst (TB) stimuli, was recorded at 2, 4, 6, 9, and 12 months. The novel object recognition (NOR) test, a measure of STM, was conducted at 6 and 12 months. While hearing thresholds were almost preserved in CBA/CaJ mice, they were not recorded at high frequencies with age in C57BL/6 J and AD mice, leading to island hearing (severe to profound hearing loss) at 9 and 12 months. AD mice showed increased hearing thresholds in TB8 and TB16 kHz at 6 and 9 months compared to C57BL/6 J mice. NOR findings were evidence of impaired STM in both C57BL/6 J and AD mice relative to CBA/CaJ mice, and a relationship was found between hearing thresholds and NOR measures in three groups. The findings were in support of the link between the degree of hearing loss and impaired STM.

Hierarchical Two-Stage Cost-Sensitive Clinical Decision Support System for Screening Prodromal Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias.

The detection of subtle cognitive impairment in a clinical setting is difficult. Because time is a key factor in small clinics and research sites, the brief cognitive assessments that are relied upon often misclassify patients with very mild impairment as normal. In this study, we seek to identify a parsimonious screening tool in one stage, followed by additional assessments in an optional second stage if additional specificity is desired, tested using a machine learning algorithm capable of being integrated into a clinical decision support system. The best primary stage incorporated measures of short-term memory, executive and visuospatial functioning, and self-reported memory and daily living questions, with a total time of 5 minutes. The best secondary stage incorporated a measure of neurobiology as well as additional cognitive assessment and brief informant report questionnaires, totaling 30 minutes including delayed recall. Combined performance was evaluated using 25 sets of models, trained on 1,181 ADNI participants and tested on 127 patients from a memory clinic. The 5-minute primary stage was highly sensitive (96.5%) but lacked specificity (34.1%), with an AUC of 87.5% and diagnostic odds ratio of 14.3. The optional secondary stage increased specificity to 58.6%, resulting in an overall AUC of 89.7% using the best model combination of logistic regression and gradient-boosted machine. The primary stage is brief and effective at screening, with the optional two-stage technique further increasing specificity. The hierarchical two-stage technique exhibited similar accuracy but with reduced costs compared to the more common single-stage paradigm.

Integrating Verbal Short-Term Memory Into the Assessment and Treatment of Aphasia

Purpose:Verbal short-term memory (STM) impairment is ubiquitous in people with aphasia, and its severity generally parallels the severity of word processing impairment. In language-based models of STM, verbal STM arises from the activation and maintenance of linguistic representations. Measures of verbal STM can provide insight into the nature of language processing deficits in aphasia and should be a component of comprehensive assessment and treatment plans. Although verbal STM impairment in aphasia is widely studied in the research community, inclusion of verbal STM assessment and treatment in clinical practice remains limited.Method:This tutorial presents a description of language-based models of verbal STM and factors that contribute to performance in verbal STM tasks. We outline a model of verbal STM assessment and intervention that considers two levels of linguistic processing deficits (i.e., semantic vs. phonological), temporal variability in performance and access to representations (activation transmission vs. maintenance), and the effects of memory load. This tutorial presents a practical framework for the integration of measures of verbal STM in both assessment and treatment. Case studies are included to facilitate learning.Conclusions:This tutorial provides clinicians with the theoretical background and practical framework for integration of verbal STM in both treatment and assessment. While the assessment and treatment of verbal STM deficits in aphasia is in the beginning stages of implementation in the clinical setting, it offers a promising avenue for aphasia rehabilitation.

Phonological processing skills in children with speech sound disorder: A multiple case study approach.

Children with speech sound disorder (SSD) are at increased risk of reading difficulties due to poor phonological processing skills. However, the extent to which children with SSD demonstrate weaknesses on specific or all phonological processing tasks is not well understood. To examine the phonological processing abilities of a clinically identified sample of children with SSD, with and without reading difficulties. To determine the extent to which the proportion of children with concomitant SSD and reading difficulties exhibited weaknesses in specific areas of phonological processing, or a more general phonological deficit. Data were obtained from 157 school-aged children (Mage = 77 months, SD = 7.01) in receipt of school-based speech therapy. Approximately 25% of the sample was identified as poor readers, based on a standardized measure of word decoding. We compared the proportion of children who scored at or below 1 SD below the mean, or the bottom 16th percentile, on measures of phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming and verbal short-term memory among those identified as poor readers and good readers. Children with SSD demonstrated a range of phonological processing difficulties, particularly on the measure of verbal short-term memory. No specific skill differentiated groups of children with SSD with and without reading difficulties; however, those classified as poor readers on the word-decoding measure exhibited more widespread difficulties, even after controlling for language ability. Results support a cumulative risk model such that children with SSD and reading difficulties are likely to demonstrate generally poor phonological processing abilities. What is already known on the subject Children with SSD are at heightened risk of reading difficulties, particularly if their SSD persists into school age. However, not all children with SSD experience reading problems. Research aimed at determining which children are at the highest risk is mixed as to how best to identify which children with SSD are most likely to experience reading difficulties. What this paper adds to existing knowledge The study used a multiple case study approach to determine if performance on phonological processing skills might differentiate children with SSD who were poor readers from those who were good readers. As a group, children with SSD exhibited poor verbal short-term memory but relatively intact rapid automatized naming skills. No one phonological processing skill differentiated children who were poor readers from good readers. However, children with reading difficulties appeared to experience more general difficulties across phonological processing tasks, even after controlling for language abilities. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? A single deficit (i.e., speech sound production) is not sufficient data to make a complete diagnosis or treatment decisions. Multiple sources of data, including several aspects of phonological processing, should be obtained to understand reading risk in children with SSD.

Defining Expressive Language Benchmarks for Children with Down Syndrome.

Establishing expressive language benchmarks (ELBs) for children with Down syndrome (DS), as developed by Tager-Flusberg et al. for children with autism, is critically needed to inform the development of novel treatments, identify individualized treatment targets, and promote accurate monitoring of progress. In the present study, we assessed ELB assignments in three language domains (phonology, vocabulary, and grammar) for 53 young children with DS (CA range: 2.50–7.99 years) using standardized assessments. The participants were classified into one of four ELB levels (preverbal, first words, word combinations, and sentences) in each language domain. Associations with additional measures of language, chronological age, nonverbal cognition, and verbal short-term memory were considered. Analyses of individual ELB profiles indicated substantial variability across the three language domains, with six different patterns of variation across domains emerging. At the same time, the ELB categories were significantly associated with independent language measures and broader developmental domains. Moreover, ELB changes were observed in a small sample of children with DS reassessed 18–24 months after the initial visit. Results from the present study suggest the procedures outlined by Tager-Flusberg et al. for defining ELBs are a potentially useful tool for describing the language abilities of children with DS.

Working Memory Training Coupled With Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Older Adults: A Randomized Controlled Experiment.

BackgroundTranscranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been employed to boost working memory training (WMT) effects. Nevertheless, there is limited evidence on the efficacy of this combination in older adults. The present study is aimed to assess the delayed transfer effects of tDCS coupled with WMT in older adults in a 15-day follow-up. We explored if general cognitive ability, age, and educational level predicted the effects.MethodsIn this single-center, double-blind randomized sham-controlled experiment, 54 older adults were randomized into three groups: anodal-tDCS (atDCS)+WMT, sham-tDCS (stDCS)+WMT, and double-sham. Five sessions of tDCS (2 mA) were applied over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Far transfer was measured by Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM), while the near transfer effects were assessed through Digit Span. A frequentist linear mixed model (LMM) was complemented by a Bayesian approach in data analysis.ResultsWorking memory training improved dual n-back performance in both groups submitted to this intervention but only the group that received atDCS+WMT displayed a significant improvement from pretest to follow-up in transfer measures of reasoning (RAPM) and short-term memory (forward Digit Span). Near transfer improvements predicted gains in far transfer, demonstrating that the far transfer is due to an improvement in the trained construct of working memory. Age, formal education, and vocabulary score seem to predict the gains in reasoning. However, Bayesian results do not provide substantial evidence to support this claim.ConclusionThis study will help to consolidate the incipient but auspicious field of cognitive training coupled with tDCS in healthy older adults. Our findings demonstrated that atDCS may potentialize WMT by promoting transfer effects in short-term memory and reasoning in older adults, which are observed especially at follow-up.

Integrity of input verbal short-term memory ability predicts naming accuracy in aphasia

ABSTRACT Background Contemporary models of aphasia predominantly attribute lexical retrieval deficits to impaired access and/or maintenance of semantic, lexical, and phonological representations of words. A central hypothesis of language-emergent models of verbal short-term memory (STM) is that temporary storage and maintenance of verbal information arises from activation of linguistic representations in long-term memory. This close relationship between short-term retention and linguistic representations has prompted accounts of aphasia that include impairments to both these components. Aims We investigated associations between measures of input semantic and phonological verbal STM and corresponding output processing measures. We hypothesised that both input and output functions of verbal STM rely on a common substrate (i.e., temporary activation and maintenance of long-term linguistic representations). Methods & Procedure Twenty adults with aphasia completed a series of semantic and phonological probe spans. Results were compared with naming performance in immediate and delayed conditions. The data were analysed using correlations, principal components analysis and linear regressions. Results & Discussion Input semantic and phonological verbal STM abilities were predictive of naming accuracy. Greater input semantic and phonological STM spans were associated with fewer semantic and phonological naming errors. Latent factors identified by principal components analysis of probe span data were consistent with a two-step interactive model of word retrieval. Probe spans measuring access to semantic and initial consonant-vowel representations aligned with lexical-semantic abilities (lexical-semantic factor). Probe spans assessing access to the rhyme component of a word measured lexical-phonological abilities (lexical-phonological factor). The principal components analysis indicated that stronger lexical-semantic abilities were associated with fewer semantic and nonword errors, and stronger lexical phonological abilities were associated with fewer formal and unrelated errors. In addition, our results were consistent with models that postulate serial access to phonology, proceeding from initial to final phonemes. The span measuring access to initial consonant-vowel was associated with lexical selection, while the span measuring access to rhyme information was associated with phonological selection. Conclusion Performance on input semantic and phonological tasks predicts accuracy of picture naming performance and types of errors made by people with aphasia. These results indicate overlap in input and output semantic and phonological processing, which must be accounted for in models of lexical processing. These findings also have implications for approaches to diagnosis and treatments for lexical comprehension and production that capitalise on the overlap of input and output processing.

Short-term memory outcome measures: Psychometric evaluation and performance in youth with Down syndrome

BackgroundImproving short-term memory (STM) performance for individuals with Down syndrome (DS) has been a target of recent clinical trials. Validation of STM outcome measures is essential for research rigor in trials among children and adolescents with DS. AimsThe current study investigated the psychometric properties of four direct STM assessments and one everyday memory parent form. Methods and proceduresMeasures were administered to a sample of 74 youth with DS at two visits, two weeks apart. Overall cognitive abilities were also assessed. Outcomes and resultsThe OMQ-PF had good feasibility and distribution of scores, but floor effects were prominent for direct measures. Test-retest reliability was poor to moderate for all measures and practice effects were problematic for the NEPSY-II List Memory and DAS-II Recall of Objects subtests. Commonalities in responses were observed, including primacy/recency effects, and some STM scores were correlated with overall cognitive abilities. Conclusions and implicationsThe OMQ-PF met most study criteria, but no direct measure met sufficient criteria to be strongly recommended for future clinical trials. Because higher cognitive abilities were related to assessment completion, STM measures may require adaptation for use in broader samples of youth with DS across all levels of cognitive ability.

Association between fatigue and sleep disturbances during treatment for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia and posttreatment neurocognitive performance.

Survivors of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are at increased risk of neurocognitive weakness in the areas of attention, executive function, and processing speed. Although fatigue and sleep disturbances are frequent complications of ALL therapy and associated with cognitive functions, the impact of fatigue and sleep profiles during active ALL treatment on posttreatment neurocognitive performance has received limited attention. Pediatric patients (n=120) with ALL (diagnosed 2011-2016) who completed fatigue and sleep questionnaires at four time points during active treatment were enrolled in a study of neurocognitive performance. Latent class growth analysis identified subgroups of patients with similar sleep and fatigue profiles during treatment. Neurocognitive performance collected >6months post treatment on 40 participants was compared between latent classes using multivariable linear regression models. Participants (57.5% male and 79.1% Hispanic or non-Hispanic White) were classified into one of two fatigue and sleep profiles: Class 1 characterized by mild fatigue and sleep disturbances during treatment (50.8%), and Class 2 characterized by higher levels of fatigue and sleep disturbances (49.2%). Posttreatment cognitive performance was in the normal range for most measures, but significantly below normative means for executive function, verbal short-term memory, attention, and distractability measures. Compared to Class 1, Class 2 demonstrated significantly (p<.05) poorer posttreatment neurocognitive performance, particularly in measures of attention. Our findings indicate that fatigue and sleep disturbances during the first year of pediatric ALL therapy may impact long-term neurocognitive performance. Sleep and fatigue may be targets for intervention to preserve cognitive functioning in survivors.

Comprehension of Morse Code Predicted by Item Recall From Short-Term Memory.

Purpose Morse code as a form of communication became widely used for telegraphy, radio and maritime communication, and military operations, and remains popular with ham radio operators. Some skilled users of Morse code are able to comprehend a full sentence as they listen to it, while others must first transcribe the sentence into its written letter sequence. Morse thus provides an interesting opportunity to examine comprehension differences in the context of skilled acoustic perception. Measures of comprehension and short-term memory show a strong correlation across multiple forms of communication. This study tests whether this relationship holds for Morse and investigates its underlying basis. Our analyses examine Morse and speech immediate serial recall, focusing on established markers of echoic storage, phonological-articulatory coding, and lexical-semantic support. We show a relationship between Morse short-term memory and Morse comprehension that is not explained by Morse perceptual fluency. In addition, we find that poorer serial recall for Morse compared to speech is primarily due to poorer item memory for Morse, indicating differences in lexical-semantic support. Interestingly, individual differences in speech item memory are also predictive of individual differences in Morse comprehension. Conclusions We point to a psycholinguistic framework to account for these results, concluding that Morse functions like "reading for the ears" (Maier et al., 2004) and that underlying differences in the integration of phonological and lexical-semantic knowledge impact both short-term memory and comprehension. The results provide insight into individual differences in the comprehension of degraded speech and strategies that build comprehension through listening experience. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16451868.

The Role of Working Memory in Attentional Allocation and Grammatical Development under Textually-enhanced, Unenhanced and No Captioning Conditions

This study investigated the extent to which individual differences in working memory (WM) mediate the effects of captions with or without textual enhancement on attentional allocation and L2 grammatical development, and whether L2 development is influenced by WM memory in the absence of captions. We employed a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design, with 72 Korean learners of English randomly assigned to three groups. The groups differed as to whether they were exposed to news clips without captions, with textually-enhanced captions, or with unenhanced captions during the treatment. We measured attentional allocation with eye-tracking methodology, and assessed development with an oral production, a written production and a fill-in-the-blank test. To assess various aspects of WM, we employed measures of phonological and visual short-term memory (PSTM, VSTM) and the executive functions of updating, task-switching, and inhibitory control. We found that, in both captions groups, higher PSTM was associated with higher oral production gains. For the enhanced captions group, PSTM was also positively related to gains on the written production test. Participants in the no-captions group, however, showed a positive link between VSTM and oral production gains. Attentional location only correlated positively with updating ability and PSTM under the enhanced captions condition. These results, overall, indicate that WM can moderate the effects of captions on attention and L2 development, and various WM components may play a differential role under various captioning conditions.

Neurocognitive aspects of ketamine and esketamine on subjects with treatment-resistant depression: A comparative, randomized and double-blind study

The objective of this study is to evaluate cognition in patients using either ketamine or esketamine to treat TRD. We also evaluate if both ketamine and esketamine as one group influence cognition in patients with TRD. Fifty-four patients with TRD were infused with either ketamine or esketamine and were assessed at three time points: baseline, 24 h, and 7 days after infusion. We applied neuropsychological tests to evaluate executive functions, processing speed, short term memory, and auditory-verbal episodic memory. There is no cognitive difference between ketamine and esketamine, with the exception of one variable. When considered as one group, ketamine and esketamine do not impair cognition; on the contrary, they improve some neuropsychological functions such as visuospatial short-term memory, executive functions, processing speed, and several measures related to episodic verbal memory. Ketamine and esketamine do not present differing cognitive effects when used in antidepressant doses to treat TRD. Furthermore, they rapidly improve many cognitive aspects of patients with TRD at 24 h after the infusion and maintain these effects for at least 7 days.

Working memory and fluid intelligence predict reading comprehension in school‐age children: A one‐year longitudinal study

SummaryThe present study analyzed the joint predictive role of verbal working memory (WM), verbal short‐term memory (STM), fluid intelligence, and intelligence mindset in reading comprehension, controlling for prior reading comprehension performance, in typically developing Spanish‐speaking school‐aged children. A sample of 83 children aged 9–10 years old were evaluated at fourth grade of primary school, with measures of verbal WM, verbal STM, fluid intelligence, intelligence mindset and reading comprehension; then with the measure of reading comprehension after 1 year, during fifth grade. Results showed that controlling for prior performance, verbal WM and fluid intelligence significantly predicted reading comprehension after 1 year, whereas verbal STM and intelligence mindset did not make a significant contribution. These results indicate that when jointly considered, a higher level of verbal WM and fluid intelligence in fourth grade is related to a better performance in reading comprehension in fifth grade. Possible explanations and implications of these results are discussed.

Short-Term Memory for Serial Order Moderates Aspects of Language Acquisition in Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Findings From the HelSLI Study.

Previous studies of verbal short-term memory (STM) indicate that STM for serial order may be linked to language development and developmental language disorder (DLD). To clarify whether a domain-general mechanism is impaired in DLD, we studied the relations between age, non-verbal serial STM, and language competence (expressive language, receptive language, and language reasoning). We hypothesized that non-verbal serial STM differences between groups of children with DLD and typically developing (TD) children are linked to their language acquisition differences. Fifty-one children with DLD and sixty-six TD children participated as part of the HelSLI project in this cross-sectional study. The children were 4–6-year-old monolingual native Finnish speakers. They completed several tests of language and cognitive functioning, as well as new game-like tests of visual and auditory non-verbal serial STM. We used regression analyses to examine how serial STM moderates the effect of age on language. A non-verbal composite measure of serial visual and auditory STM moderated cross-sectional development of receptive language in the children with DLD. This moderation was not observed in the TD children. However, we found more rapid cross-sectional development of non-verbal serial STM in the TD children than in the children with DLD. The results suggest that children with DLD may be more likely to have compromised general serial STM processing and that superior non-verbal serial STM may be associated with better language acquisition in children with DLD.

The Role of Animacy in Children's Interpretation of Relative Clauses in English: Evidence From Sentence-Picture Matching and Eye Movements.

Subject relative clauses (SRCs) are typically processed more easily than object relative clauses (ORCs), but this difference is diminished by an inanimate head-noun in semantically non-reversible ORCs ("The book that the boy is reading"). In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigated the influence of animacy on online processing of semantically reversible SRCs and ORCs using lexically inanimate items that were perceptually animate due to motion (e.g., "Where is the tractor that the cow is chasing"). In Experiment 1, 48 children (aged 4;5-6;4) and 32 adults listened to sentences that varied in the lexical animacy of the NP1 head-noun (Animate/Inanimate) and relative clause (RC) type (SRC/ORC) with an animate NP2 while viewing two images depicting opposite actions. As expected, inanimate head-nouns facilitated the correct interpretation of ORCs in children; however, online data revealed children were more likely to anticipate an SRC as the RC unfolded when an inanimate head-noun was used, suggesting processing was sensitive to perceptual animacy. In Experiment 2, we repeated our design with inanimate (rather than animate) NP2s (e.g., "where is the tractor that the car is following") to investigate whether our online findings were due to increased visual surprisal at an inanimate as agent, or to similarity-based interference. We again found greater anticipation for an SRC in the inanimate condition, supporting our surprisal hypothesis. Across the experiments, offline measures show that lexical animacy influenced children's interpretation of ORCs, whereas online measures reveal that as RCs unfolded, children were sensitive to the perceptual animacy of lexically inanimate NPs, which was not reflected in the offline data. Overall measures of syntactic comprehension, inhibitory control, and verbal short-term memory and working memory were not predictive of children's accuracy in RC interpretation, with the exception of a positive correlation with a standardized measure of syntactic comprehension in Experiment 1.