Cognitive Predictors of Spoken Word Recognition in Children with and without Developmental Language Disorders

• Published in: Journal of speech, language, and hearing research Vol. 61; no. 6; pp. 1409 - 1425
• Main Authors: Evans, Julia L, Gillam, Ronald B, Montgomery, James W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 01.06.2018
• Subjects: Adolescents; Analysis; Attention; Attention Control; Case-Control Studies; Child; Child development; Childhood language disorders; Children; Cognition; Cognitive Processes; Control Groups; Demographic aspects; Female; Forecasts and trends; Humans; Influence; Inhibition; Interference (Language); Language; Language Development Disorders - psychology; Language disorders; Language Impairments; Learning transfer; Listening comprehension; Male; Matched Groups; Memory, Short-Term; Naming; Native language acquisition; Phonological Awareness; Phonological memory; Predictor Variables; Receptive language; Short Term Memory; Socioeconomic Factors; Socioeconomic status; Speech disorders; Speech Perception; Speech-language pathology; Vocabulary; Word Recognition
• ISSN: 1092-4388; 1558-9102
• DOI: 10.1044/2018_JSLHR-L-17-0150

Purpose: This study examined the influence of cognitive factors on spoken word recognition in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and typically developing (TD) children. Method: Participants included 234 children (aged 7;0-11;11 years;months), 117 with DLD and 117 TD children, propensity matched for age, gender, socioeconomic status, and maternal education. Children completed a series of standardized assessment measures, a forward gating task, a rapid automatic naming task, and a series of tasks designed to examine cognitive factors hypothesized to influence spoken word recognition including phonological working memory, updating, attention shifting, and interference inhibition. Results: Spoken word recognition for both initial and final accept gate points did not differ for children with DLD and TD controls after controlling target word knowledge in both groups. The 2 groups also did not differ on measures of updating, attention switching, and interference inhibition. Despite the lack of difference on these measures, for children with DLD, attention shifting and interference inhibition were significant predictors of spoken word recognition, whereas updating and receptive vocabulary were significant predictors of speed of spoken word recognition for the children in the TD group. Conclusion: Contrary to expectations, after controlling for target word knowledge, spoken word recognition did not differ for children with DLD and TD controls; however, the cognitive processing factors that influenced children's ability to recognize the target word in a stream of speech differed qualitatively for children with and without DLDs.