Procedural learning and school-age language outcomes in children with and without a history of late talking

Background 'Late talkers' (LTs) are toddlers with late language emergence that cannot be explained by other impairments. It is difficult to predict which of these children continue to present long-term restrictions in language abilities and will later be identified as having a developmental language disorder. Procedural memory weaknesses have been suggested to underlie developmental language disorders, but have not been investigated in LTs. Aims We investigated the relationships between aspects of procedural memory and school-age language abilities in children with and without a history of LT. We hypothesized that children with a history of LT exhibit (1) restrictions in procedural memory when compared with children with typical early development (TED); and (2) a positive association between procedural memory and school-age language abilities. Methods & Procedures We recruited 79 children (7;5-10;5), 43 of whom had a history of LT. Aspects of procedural memory, procedural learning and motor planning were assessed using the serial reaction time and the end-state comfort tasks. School-age language abilities were measured using standardized tests. Outcomes & Results Counter to expectations, motor planning was not associated with a history of LT or school-age language abilities, and the children with TED did not show stronger procedural learning as compared with peers with a history of LT. However, weaker school-age language abilities were associated with weak procedural learning in TED group. Conclusions & Implications Factors other than deficits in procedural memory are likely to underlie LT. Procedural learning shows promise as a potential predictor of language development in children that are not identified as LTs. What this paper adds What is already known on the subject Poor procedural learning has been associated with developmental language disorders and suggested to underlie language difficulties. However, to our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate procedural learning and its associations with language outcomes in LTs. What this paper adds to existing knowledge Consistent with prior research, we found an association between language abilities and procedural learning in school-aged children, but found no evidence for poor procedural learning in children with a history of LT. Furthermore, the school-age language outcomes were only associated with procedural learning in children with no history of LT. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Our findings suggest that factors other than limitations in procedural learning underlie LT. However, procedural learning could be a useful predictor for school-aged language outcomes in children not identified as LTs.</p

Characterizing the Motor Skills in Children with Specific Language Impairment

Background/Aims: Specific language impairment (SLI) is characterized by deficits in language ability. However, studies have also reported motor impairments in SLI. It has been proposed that the language and motor impairments in SLI share common origins. This exploratory study compared the gross, fine, oral, and speech motor skills of children with SLI and children with typical development (TD) to determine whether children with SLI would exhibit difficulties on particular motor tasks and to inform us about the underlying cognitive deficits in SLI. Methods: A total of 13 children with SLI (aged 8–12 years) and 14 age-matched children with TD were administered the Movement Assessment Battery for Children – Second Edition and the Verbal Motor Production Assessment for Children to examine gross and fine motor skills and oral and speech motor skills, respectively.Results: Children with SLI scored significantly lower on gross, fine, and speech motor tasks relative to children with TD. In particular, children with SLI found movements organized into sequences and movement modifications challenging. On oral motor tasks, however, children with SLI were comparable to children with TD. Conclusion: Impairment of the motor sequencing and adaptation processes may explain the performance of children with SLI on these tasks, which may be suggestive of a procedural memory deficit in SLI

Generalized Slowing Rather Than Inhibition Is Associated With Language Outcomes in Both Late Talkers and Children With Typical Early Development

Purpose: While most of the children who are identified as late talkers at the age of 2 years catch up with their peers before school age, some continue to have language difficulties and will later be identified as having developmental language disorder. Our understanding of which children catch up and which do not is limited. The aim of the current study was to find out if inhibition is associated with late talker outcomes at school age.Method: We recruited 73 school-aged children (ages 7– 10 years) with a history of late talking (n = 38) or typical development (n = 35). Children completed measures of language skills and a flanker task to measure inhibition. School-age language outcome was measured as a continuous variable.Results: Our analyses did not reveal associations between inhibition and school-age language index or history of late talking. However, stronger school-age language skills were associated with shorter overall response times on the flanker task, in both congruent and incongruent trials. This effect was not modulated by history of late talking, suggesting that a relationship between general response times and language development is similar in both children with typical early language development and late talkers.Conclusions: Inhibition is not related to late talker language outcomes. However, children with better language outcomes had shorter general response times. We interpret this to reflect differences in general processing speed, suggesting that processing speed holds promise for predicting school-age language outcomes in both late talkers and children with typical early development.</div

CATALISE: A multinational and multidisciplinary Delphi consensus study. Identifying language impairments in children

Delayed or impaired language development is a common developmental concern, yet thereis little agreement about the criteria used to identify and classify language impairments inchildren. Children's language difficulties are at the interface between education, medicineand the allied professions, who may all adopt different approaches to conceptualising them.Our goal in this study was to use an online Delphi technique to see whether it was possibleto achieve consensus among professionals on appropriate criteria for identifying childrenwho might benefit from specialist services. We recruited a panel of 59 experts representingten disciplines (including education, psychology, speech-language therapy/pathology, paediatricsand child psychiatry) from English-speaking countries (Australia, Canada, Ireland,New Zealand, United Kingdom and USA). The starting point for round 1 was a set of 46statements based on articles and commentaries in a special issue of a journal focusing onthis topic. Panel members rated each statement for both relevance and validity on a sevenpointscale, and added free text comments. These responses were synthesised by the firsttwo authors, who then removed, combined or modified items with a view to improving consensus.The resulting set of statements was returned to the panel for a second evaluation(round 2). Consensus (percentage reporting 'agree' or 'strongly agree') was at least 80 percentfor 24 of 27 round 2 statements, though many respondents qualified their responsewith written comments. These were again synthesised by the first two authors. The resultingconsensus statement is reported here, with additional summary of relevant evidence, and aconcluding commentary on residual disagreements and gaps in the evidence base.</p

Phase 2 of CATALISE: a multinational and multidisciplinary Delphi consensus study of problems with language development: Terminology.

Background: Lack of agreement about criteria and terminology for children’s language problems affects access to services as well as hindering research and practice. We report the second phase of a study using an online Delphi method to address these issues. In the first phase, we focused on criteria for language disorder. Here we consider terminology.Methods: The Delphi method is an iterative process in which an initial set of statements is rated by a panel of experts, who then have the opportunity to view anonymised ratings from other panel members. On this basis they can either revise their views or make a case for their position. The statements are then revised based on panel feedback, and again rated by and commented on by the panel. In this study, feedback from a second round was used to prepare a final set of statements in narrative form. The panel included 57 individuals representing a range of professions and nationalities. Results: We achieved at least 78% agreement for 19 of 21 statements within two rounds of ratings. These were collapsed into 12 statements for the final consensus reported here. The term ‘Language Disorder’ is recommended to refer to a profile of difficulties that causes functional impairment in everyday life and is associated with poor prognosis. The term, ‘Developmental Language Disorder’ (DLD) was endorsed for use when the language disorder was not associated with a known biomedical aetiology. It was also agreed that (a) presence of risk factors (neurobiological or environmental) does not preclude a diagnosis of DLD, (b) DLD can co-occur with other neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. ADHD) and (c) DLD does not require a mismatch between verbal and nonverbal ability. Conclusions: This Delphi exercise highlights reasons for disagreements about terminology for language disorders and proposes standard definitions and nomenclature. </p

Introducing the intra-individual variability hypothesis in explaining individual differences in language development

Purpose: Response times (RTs) are commonly used in studying language acquisition. However, previous research utilizing RT in the context of language has largely overlooked the intra-individual variability of RTs, which could hold significant information about the processes underlying language acquisition. Method: We explored the association between language abilities and RT variability in visuomotor tasks using two datasets from previously published studies. The participants were 7–10-year-old children (n=77). Results: Our results suggest that increased variability in RTs is associated with weaker language abilities. Specifically, this within-participant variability in visuomotor RTs, especially the proportion of unusually slow responses, predicted language abilities better than mean RTs, a factor often linked to language skills in past research. Conclusions: Based on our findings, we introduce the intra-individual variability hypothesis in explaining individual differences in language development. According to our hypothesis, inconsistency in the timing of cognitive processes, reflected by increased IIV in RTs, degrades learning different aspects of language, and results in individual differences in language abilities. Future studies should further examine the relationship between IIV and language abilities, and test the extent to which the possible relationship is causal

Low-level auditory processing correlates with language abilities: An ERP study investigating sequence learning and auditory processing in school-aged children

Auditory processing and procedural learning deficits have been associated with language learning difficulties. We investigated the relationship of these skills and school-age language abilities in children with and without a history of late talking using auditory event related potentials (ERPs). Late talking (i.e., slow early language development) increases the risk of persistent language difficulties, but its causes remain unknown. Participants in this study were children with varying language abilities (n = 60). Half of the participants (n = 30) had a history of late talking. We measured procedural learning by manipulating the predictability of sine tone stimuli in a passive auditory ERP paradigm. Auditory processing was tested by examining how the presence of noise (increasing perceptual demands) affected the ERPs. Contrary to our hypotheses on auditory processing and language development, the effect of noise on ERPs did not correlate with school-age language abilities in children with or without a history of late talking. Our paradigm failed to reveal interpretable effects of predictability leaving us unable to assess the effects of procedural learning. However, better language abilities were related to weaker responses in a 75–175 ms time window, and stronger responses in a 150–250 ms time window. We suggest that the weak early responses in children with better language ability reflect efficient processing of low-level auditory information, allowing deeper processing of later, high-level auditory information. We assume that these differences reflect variation in brain maturation between individuals with varying language abilities

JSL49604 1267..1279

Purpose: The authors investigated mental representations of Piagetian conservation tasks in children with specific language impairment (SL I) and typically developing peers. Children with SL I have normal nonverbal intelligence; however, they exhibit difficulties in Piagetian conservation tasks. The authors tested the hypothesis that conservation difficulties may be due to the degree to which children with SLI rely on external perceptual features of the task as opposed to internal cognitive knowledge about transformation. Method: Twenty-nine children participated, 12 children with SLI (ages 7;0 -10;5) and 17 typically developing peers (ages 5;4 -10;9) who were matched either on chronological age (CA) task or on judgments on the conservation task (conservation matched [CM]). Children solved conservation tasks and then explained their reasoning. Explanations produced in speech and gesture were analyzed. Results: In speech, children in the SLI group expressed proportionately fewer internal explanations than the CA group, but a similar proportion of internal explanations as compared with the younger CM group. In gesture, children with SLI did not differ from either CA or CM children. Conclusions: Children with SLI have weak internal representations of the concept of conservation, similar to those of younger children. Conservation representations appear to be closely related to language skills and verbal working memory