Narrative comprehension and production in children with SLI: An eye movement study

This study investigates narrative comprehension and production in children with specific language impairment (SLI). Twelve children with SLI (mean age 5; 8 years) and 12 typically developing children (mean age 5; 6 years) participated in an eye-tracking experiment designed to investigate online narrative comprehension and production in Catalan- and Spanish-speaking children with SLI. The comprehension task involved the recording of eye movements during the visual exploration of successive scenes in a story, while listening to the associated narrative. With regard to production, the children were asked to retell the story, while once again looking at the scenes, as their eye movements were monitored. During narrative production, children with SLI look at the most semantically relevant areas of the scenes fewer times than their age-matched controls, but no differences were found in narrative comprehension. Moreover, the analyses of speech productions revealed that children with SLI retained less information and made more semantic and syntactic errors during retelling. Implications for theories that characterize SLI are discussed

Effect of verb argument structure on picture naming in children with and without specific language impairment (SLI)

Background: This study investigated verb argument structure effects in children with specific language impairment (SLI). Aims: A picture-naming paradigm was used to compare the response times and naming accuracy for nouns and verbs with differing argument structure between Spanish-speaking children with and without language impairment. Methods & Procedures: Twenty-four children with SLI (ages 5;3-8;2 [years;months]), 24 age-matched controls (ages 5;3-8;2), 24 MLU-w controls (ages 3;3-7;1 years), and 31 adults participated in a picture-naming study. Outcomes & Results: The results show all groups produced more correct responses and were faster for nouns than all verbs together. As regards verb type accuracy, there were no differences between groups in naming one-argument verbs. However, for both two- and three-argument verbs, children with SLI were less accurate than adults and age-matched controls, but similar to the MLU-matched controls. For verb type latency, children with SLI were slower than both the agematched controls and adults for one- and two-argument verbs, while no differences were found in three-argument verbs. No differences were found between children with SLI and MLU-matched controls for any verb type. Conclusions & Implications: It has been shown that the naming of verbs is delayed in Spanish children with SLI. It is suggested that children with SLI may have problems encoding semantic representations

The formulation of argument structure in SLI: an eye-movement study

This study investigated the formulation of verb argument structure in Catalan- and Spanishspeaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing age-matched controls. We compared how language production can be guided by conceptual factors, such as the organization of the entities participating in an event and knowledge regarding argument structure. Eleven children with SLI (aged 3;8 to 6;6) and eleven control children participated in an eyetracking experiment in which participants had to describe events with different argument structure in the presence of visual scenes. Picture descriptions, latency time and eye movements were recorded and analyzed. The picture description results showed that the percentage of responses in which children with SLI substituted a non-target verb for the target verb was significantly different from that for the control group. Children with SLI made more omissions of obligatory arguments, especially of themes, as the verb argument complexity increased. Moreover, when the number of arguments of the verb increased, the children took more time to begin their descriptions, but no differences between groups were found. For verb type latency, all children were significantly faster to start describing one-argument events than two- and three-argument events. No differences in latency time were found between two- and three-argument events. There were no significant differences between the groups. Eye-movement showed that children with SLI looked less at the event zone than the age-matched controls during the first two seconds. These differences between the groups were significant for three-argument verbs, and only marginally significant for one- and two-argument verbs. Children with SLI also spent significantly less time looking at the theme zones than their age-matched controls. We suggest that both processing limitations and deficits in the semantic representation of verbs may play a role in these difficulties

Children with SLI can exhibit reduced attention to a talker's mouth

It has been demonstrated that children with specific language impairment (SLI) show difficulties not only with auditory but also with audiovisual speech perception. The goal of this study was to assess whether children with SLI might show reduced attention to the talker's mouth compared to their typically developing (TD) peers. An additional aim was to determine whether the pattern of attention to a talking face would be related to a specific subtype of SLI. We used an eye-tracker methodology and presented a video of a talker speaking the children's native language. Results revealed that children with SLI paid significantly less attention to the mouth than the TD children. More specifically, it was also observed that children with a phonological-syntactic deficit looked less to the mouth as compared to the children with a lexical-syntactic deficit

Argument structure and the representation of abstract semantics

According to the dual coding theory, differences in the ease of retrieval between concrete and abstract words are related to the exclusive dependence of abstract semantics on linguistic information. Argument structure can be considered a measure of the complexity of the linguistic contexts that accompany a verb. If the retrieval of abstract verbs relies more on the linguistic codes they are associated to, we could expect a larger effect of argument structure for the processing of abstract verbs. In this study, sets of length-and frequency-matched verbs including 40 intransitive verbs, 40 transitive verbs taking simple complements, and 40 transitive verbs taking sentential complements were presented in separate lexical and grammatical decision tasks. Half of the verbs were concrete and half were abstract. Similar results were obtained in the two tasks, with significant effects of imageability and transitivity. However, the interaction between these two variables was not significant. These results conflict with hypotheses assuming a stronger reliance of abstract semantics on linguistic codes. In contrast, our data are in line with theories that link the ease of retrieval with availability and robustness of semantic information

Do children with SLI use verbs to predict arguments and adjuncts: evidence from eye movements during listening

Different psycholinguistic theories have suggested the importance of verb semantics in rapidly anticipating upcoming information during real-time sentence comprehension. To date, no study has examined if children use verbs to predict arguments and adjuncts in sentence comprehension using children with specific language impairment (SLI).Twenty-five children with SLI (aged 5 years and 3 months to 8 years and 2 months), twenty-five age-matched controls (aged 5 years and 3 months to 8 years and 2 months), twenty-five MLU-w controls (aged 3 years and 3 months to 7 years and 1 month), and 31 adults took part in the study. The eye movements of participants were monitored while they heard twenty-four sentences, such as El hombre lee con atención un cuento en la cama (translation: The man carefully reads a storybook in bed), in the presence of four depicted objects, one of which was the target (storybook), another, the competitor (bed), and another two, distracters (wardrobe and grape). The proportion of looks revealed that, when the meaning of the verb was retrieved, the upcoming argument and adjunct referents were rapidly anticipated. However, the proportion of looks at the theme, source/goal and instrument referents were significantly higher than the looks at the locatives. This pattern was found in adults as well as children with and without language impairment. The present results suggest that, in terms of sentence comprehension, the ability to understand verb information is not severely impaired in children with SLI

El rol de la memoria implícita en el trastorno del desarrollo del lenguaje

El trastorn del desenvolupament del llenguatge o TDL és un trastorn caracteritzat per una dificultat severa i persistent en l’expressió i la comprensió del llenguatge que afecta aproximadament un 7% de la població infantil. Tot i ser un trastorn molt prevalent, encara no en sabem la causa. Al llarg dels anys i amb les investigacions fetes per intentar-ne conèixer les possibles causes, s’han posat sobre la taula diferents teories explicatives sobre el trastorn passant des d’algunes de caire innatista fins d’altres de relacionades amb el cognitivisme. L’objectiu d’aquest article és exposar els avenços que s’han dut a terme a partir d’estudis amb infants amb TDL durant els darrers vint anys amb relació als possibles dèficits relacionats amb la memòria implícita en aquesta població. Aquests estudis es van començar a dur a terme després del sorgiment de l’anomenada hipòtesi del dèficit procedimental o PDH (Ullman i Pierpont 2005) en la qual se suggereix que els infants amb TDL presenten dificultats per portar a terme tasques que requereixen la memòria implícita. És a dir, en el procés d’extreure coneixements abstractes de patrons estadístics, càlculs probabilístics o procedimentals de manera inconscient que es relacionarien amb els dèficits lingüístics característics del trastorn.Developmental language disorder, or DLD, is a disorder characterized by severe and persistent difficulty in the expression and comprehension of language, which affects approximately 7% of the child population. Although it is a very prevalent disorder, we still do not know its cause. During many years of research attempting to identify the possible causes of DLD, various explanatory theories about the disorder have been raised, ranging from innate to cognitive explanations. The aim of the present paper is to present the advances that have been made in studies of children with DLD over the last twenty years regarding potential deficits related to implicit memory in this population. These studies began after the publication of the so-called procedural deficit hypothesis, or PDH, by Ullman and Pierpont (2005), in which the authors suggested that children with DLD have difficulties performing tasks that require implicit memory. This is the process of extracting abstract knowledge from statistical patterns or subconscious probabilistic or procedural computations, which could be related to the language deficits that characterize this disorder.El trastorno del desarrollo del lenguaje o TDL es un trastorno caracterizado por una dificultad severa y persistente en la expresión y la comprensión del lenguaje que afecta aproximadamente a un 7% de la población infantil. A pesar de ser un trastorno muy prevalente aún no sabemos la causa. A lo largo de los años y con las investigaciones realizadas para intentar conocer las posibles causas, se han puesto sobre la mesa diferentes teorías explicativas sobre el trastorno, pasando por algunas de tipo innatista hasta otras relacionadas con el cognitivismo. El objetico de este artículo es exponer los avances que se han llevado a cabo a partir de estudios con niños y niñas con TDL durante los últimos veinte años en relación a los posibles déficits relacionados con la memoria implícita en esta población. Estos estudios se empezaron a realizar después del surgimiento de la llamada hipótesis del déficit procedimental o PDH (Ullman y Pierpont, 2005) en la que se sugiere que los niños y niñas con TDL presentan dificultades para realizar tareas que requieren de la memoria implícita. Es decir, en el proceso de extraer conocimientos abstractos de patrones estadísticos, cálculos probabilísticos o procedimentales de manera inconsciente que se relacionarían con los déficits lingüísticos característicos del trastorno

The status of Specific Language Impairment in Spanish-speaking countries

El trastorno específico del lenguaje (TEL) es un trastorno del desarrollo del lenguaje oral que afecta a la expresión y/o la comprensión. En el ámbito angloparlante, fruto de dos estudios con la metodología Delphi (Bishop et al., 2016; 2017) se ha generalizado, tanto en el ámbito clínico y educativo como en las publicaciones científicas, el uso de la nueva terminología (Developmental Language Disorder o DLD), así como los principales acuerdos alcanzados respecto a su concepción, detección, evaluación, diagnóstico e intervención. En el ámbito hispanohablante es necesario un proceso de reflexión por parte de profesionales con experiencia y especialistas en el ámbito que analice si la adopción de los principales acuerdos a nivel anglosajón es factible y ajustada para el contexto hispano. En este sentido, el objetivo de este estudio es analizar la situación del TEL con relación al uso actual de la/s etiqueta/s diagnóstica/s, la conceptualización, los criterios y herramientas diagnósticas, así como aspectos relativos a su contexto socioeconómico, político y de atención profesional en el contexto hispanohablante. El estudio se ha basado en la metodología de recogida de datos mediante una encuesta estructurada con preguntas de respuestas abiertas y cerradas (múltiple opción y escala likert) realizadas a investigadoras e investigadores y profesionales de atención directa del TEL de diferentes disciplinas (logopedia, psicología, pedagogía, entre otras). Los resultados muestran la opinión de las y los participantes sobre las principales características sobre el trastorno que son compartidas mayoritariamente en todo el ámbito lingüístico español, así como las que presentan más discrepancias. Destaca el predominio de la terminología TEL aunque crece el uso de la expresión trastorno del desarrollo del lenguaje (TDL). Los resultados también muestran una gran diversidad en los criterios diagnósticos y en algunos aspectos de la concepción del trastorno. Estas informaciones permiten mostrar una primera aproximación a la situación del trastorno y pueden servir como base para un proceso de reflexión y acuerdo que fije unas recomendaciones y criterios globales para todo el ámbito hispanohablanteSpecific Language Disorder (SLI) is a developmental disorder that affects language expression and/or comprehension. As a result of two studies with the Delphi methodology in English-speaking countries (Bishop et al., 2016; 2017), the use of the new terminology (i.e., Developmental Language Disorder or DLD) has become widespread, both in the clinical and educational field and in scientific publications, as well as the main agreements reached regarding its conception, identification, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. A process of reflection by specialized experts in the field is necessary to analyze whether the adoption of the main agreements in the Anglo-Saxon context is feasible and adjusted for the Spanish-speaking contexts. The objective of this study is to analyze the status of developmental oral language in different Spanish-speaking countries regarding diagnostic labels, conception, diagnosis criteria and tools, as well as socioeconomic context, politics, and professional care. Data collection was done through a structured survey with questions in the format of open and closed answers (multiple choice and Likert scale) made to researchers and direct care professionals of the SLI from different disciplines (speech therapy, psychology, pedagogy, among others). The results show that the opinion of the participants on the main characteristics of the disorder, such as, the diagnostic label, conception, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of this population in Spanish-speaking countries, as well as the discrepancies among them. The predominance of the SLI terminology stands out, although the use of the term DLD is increasing in use as a second label. The results also show great diversity in the diagnostic criteria and in some aspects of conception of the disorder. The current results provide relevant information about the particularities of the status of the disorder in Spanish-speaking countries which can serve for a potential future consensu

Descripción del cambio del TEL al TDL en contexto angloparlante

El Trastorno Específico del Lenguaje (TEL) es un trastorno del neurodesarrollo que afecta aproximadamente a un 7% de la población y que compromete a la expresión y/o comprensión del lenguaje oral. Sin embargo, es un trastorno muy desconocido para la población general. Uno de los factores que lo explican es la gran dispersión terminológica que diferentes profesionales y manuales de diagnóstico han utilizado para designarlo. Ante el gran desconocimiento del trastorno y la confusión generada a nivel profesional respecto a la nomenclatura y los criterios diagnósticos Bishop et al. (2016, 2017) llevaron a cabo dos estudios a través del método Delphi en el que participaron diferentes investigadores, profesionales especializados en el TEL así como personas de asociaciones de familiares del ámbito angloparlante (consorcio CATALISE). Las principales conclusiones fueron la apuesta por el cambio terminológico hacia el Trastorno del Desarrollo del Lenguaje (TDL) así como unos criterios de diagnósticos que enfatizan en las dificultades funcionales que genera el trastorno y en su pronóstico. En el presente artículo se hace una revisión exhaustiva de todas las implicaciones que los resultados de estos estudios tienen en la conceptualización, la evaluación y la intervención del trastorno. En el ámbito hispanohablante es necesario que se lleve a cabo un trabajo de reflexión y consenso que acuerde la terminología y los criterios de diagnósticos para adaptarlos/ajustarlos al contexto sociocultural y lingüístico de todos los países de habla hispanaSpecific Language Impairment (SLI) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects around 7% of the population and that compromises the expression and/or understanding of oral language. However, it is a very unknown disorder for the general population. One of the factors that explain it is the great terminological dispersion that different professionals and diagnostic manuals have used to designate it. Given the great ignorance of the disorder and to reach an agreement regarding the nomenclature and diagnostic criteria Bishop et al. (2016, 2017) carried out two studies using the Delphi method in which different researchers, professionals that works with children with SLI as well as people from associations of relatives in the English-speaking countries (CATALISE consortium) participated. The main conclusions were the commitment to the terminological change towards the Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) as well as some diagnostic criteria that emphasize the functional difficulties that the disorder generates and its prognosis. This article makes an exhaustive review of all the implications that the results of these studies have on the conceptualization, evaluation, and intervention of the disorder. In the Spanish-speaking community, it is necessary to carry out a work of reflection and consensus that agrees on the nomenclature and diagnostic criteria to adapt/adjust them to the sociocultural and linguistic context of all the Spanish-speaking countrie

¿Dónde miran los niños/as con trastorno del desarrollo del lenguaje (TDL) cuando se les habla?

El trastorn del desenvolupament del llenguatge (TDL) es defineix com una afectació en l’adquisició i en el desenvolupament del llenguatge oral. Per poder adquirir adequadament el llenguatge oral, els infants han d’integrar la informació multimodal de la parla (auditiva i visual). Diferents estudis indiquen que aquests infants podrien presentar un dèficit per processar, gestionar i combinar la informació auditiva i visual, que podria generar dificultats fonològiques i d’adquisició del lèxic. Altres investigacions han mostrat que els infants amb TDL presenten un patró d’atenció focalitzada cap als ulls i la boca de l’interlocutor diferent al dels infants amb desenvolupament típic del llenguatge. El patró de mirada dels infants amb TDL sol ser més dispers, ja que es beneficien menys de les pistes audiovisuals i dediquen menys atenció als ulls i a la boca en comparació amb els infants amb desenvolupament típic.Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is defined as an impairment in oral language acquisition and development. Multimodal integration of speech (auditory and visual) during childhood is necessary to properly acquire oral language. Research has shown that children with DLD may have difficulties in the processing, managing and combination of auditory and visual information, which can lead to phonological and lexical difficulties. In addition, children with DLD can exhibit a different attentional pattern towards the eyes or the mouth of a speaker in comparison with children with typical language development. The gaze pattern in children with DLD is usually more scattered, and they are less likely to benefit from audiovisual cues, paying less attention to the eyes and mouth.El trastorno del desarrollo del lenguaje (TDL) se define como una afectación en la adquisición y en el desarrollo del lenguaje oral. Para poder adquirir adecuadamente el lenguaje oral los niños/as deben integrar la información multimodal del habla (auditiva y visual). Diferentes estudios indican que estos niños/as podrían presentar un déficit para procesar, gestionar y combinar la información auditiva y visual, que les podría generar dificultades fonológicas y de adquisición del léxico. Otras investigaciones han mostrado que los niños/as con TDL muestran un patrón de atención focalizada hacia los ojos y la boca del interlocutor diferente a los niños/as con desarrollo típico del lenguaje. El patrón de mirada de los niños con TDL suele ser más disperso, beneficiándose menos de las pistas audiovisuales y dedicando menos atención a los ojos y a la boca en comparación con los niños/as con desarrollo típico