Grammatical sensitivity and working memory in children with language impairment

Children with primary language impairment (LI) show a deficit in processing various grammatical structures, verb inflections, and syntactically complex sentences among other things (Clahsen-Hansen 1997; Leonard et al. 1997). Cross-linguistic research has shown that the pattern of performance is language-specific. We examined grammatical sensitivity to word order and agreement violations in 50 Hungarian-speaking children with and without LI. The findings suggest a strong association between sensitivity to grammatical violations and working memory capacity. Variations in working memory performance predicted grammatical sensitivity. Hungarian participants with LI exhibited a weakness in detecting both agreement and word order violations

The Modulatory Effect of Expectations on Memory Retrieval During Sentence Comprehension

Memory retrieval and probabilistic expectations are recognized factors in sentence comprehension that capture two different critical aspects of processing difficulty: the cost of retrieving and integrating previously processed elements with the new input words and the cost of incorrect predictions about upcoming words or structures in a sentence. Although these two factors have independently received substantial support from the extant literature, how they interact remains poorly understood. The present study investigated memory retrieval and expectation in a single experiment, pitting these factors against each other. Results showed a significant interference effect in both response time to the comprehension questions and reading time at the last (spillover) sentence region. We also found that the interference effect on reading time (but not on comprehension question response time) was canceled when the word at the retrieval site was highly predictable. Overall, our findings are consistent with the hypothesis of a modulatory effect of expectations on memory retrieval and with the idea that expectation-based facilitation results from pre-activation of the target word ahead of time

Working Memory and Interference Control in Children with Specific Language Impairment

Language and communication disorders are often associated with deficits in working memory (WM) and interference control. WM studies involving children with specific language impairment (SLI) have traditionally been framed using either resource theories or decay accounts, particularly Baddeley\u27s model. Although significant interference problems in children with SLI are apparent in error analysis data from WM and language tasks, interference theories and paradigms have not been widely used in the SLI literature. A primary goal of the present paper is to provide an overview of interference deficits in children with SLI. Review of the extant literature on interference control shows deficits in this population; however, the source and the nature of the deficit remain unclear. Thus, a second key aim in our review is to demonstrate the need for theoretically driven experimental paradigms in order to better understand individual variations associated with interference weaknesses in children with SLI

Executive Control Mechanisms in Bilingualism: Beyond Speed of Processing

The question of interest in this study was whether bilingual individuals show superior executive control compared to monolingual participants. Findings are mixed, with studies showing advantage, disadvantage, or no difference between bilingual and monolingual speakers. In this study, we used different experimental conditions to examine implicit learning, resistance to interference, monitoring, and switching, independently. In addition, we matched our monolingual and bilingual participants on baseline response time. Bilingual participants demonstrated faster implicit learning, greater resistance to interference, more efficient switching compared to monolingual participants. The groups did not differ in monitoring. In conclusion, depending on task complexity and on the target executive control component, there are different patterns of bilingual advantage, beyond the global faster processing speed documented in previous studies. Bilingual young adults showed more efficient adjustments of the cognitive system in response to changes in task demands

Regular chromogranin A monitoring facilitated the early detection of a gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumour in a patient with type 1 diabetes

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When Less Can Be More: Dual Task Effects on Speech Fluency

Minimizing cognitive resources while executing wellpracticed motor tasks has been shown to increase automaticity and enhance performance (e.g., Beilock, Carr, Macmahon, & Starkes, 2002). Based on this principle, we examined whether more fluent speech production could be induced through a dual task paradigm that engaged working memory (WM) while speech was produced. We also considered whether effects varied for speakers who differed in their habitual degree of attentional control during speech production. Twenty fluent adults and 19 adults who stutter performed (1) a baseline speaking task, (2) a baseline WM task with manipulations of domain, load, and inter-stimulus interval (ISI), and (3) a series of dual tasks in which the speaking task was combined with each unique set of WM conditions. Results indicated a fluency benefit under dual task conditions, which was specific to atypical forms of disfluency but comparable across speaker types and manipulations of the WM task. Findings suggest that WM is associated with atypical forms of disfluency and that suppressing these resources enhances speech fluency, although further research is needed to specify the cognitive mechanism involved in this effect and clarify the nature of this association

Interaction between working memory and long-term memory: A study in children with and without language impairment

Individual differences in working memory have been related to interactions between working memory and long-term memory (LTM). The present study examined this interaction in children with and without language impairment. We used two listening span tasks and two nonword repetition tasks. The results suggest a strong interaction among age, language status, and task complexity. Children with specific language impairment showed consistently poor performance across tasks and indicated a weakness in using long-term knowledge to support working memory performance. The findings show that these children do not benefit from various manipulations designed to enhance working memory performance via LTM support due to a combination of inefficiencies in maintaining and updating items in working memory and retrieving information from LTM, in part because of their poor resistance to interference. © 2014 Hogrefe Publishing