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While children with developmental language disorder or Williams syndrome appear to use hand gestures to compensate for specific cognitive and communicative difficulties, they have different cognitive strength-weakness profiles. Their semantic and visuospatial skills potentially affect gesture quality such as iconicity. The present study focuses on untangling the unique contribution of these skills in the quality of gestures. An explicit gesture elicitation task was presented to 25 participants with developmental language disorder between 7 and 10 years of age, 25 age-matched peers with typical development, and 14 participants with Williams Syndrome (8-23 years). They gestured pictures of objects without using speech (pantomime). The iconicity, semantic richness, and representation technique of the pantomimes were coded. Participants' semantic association and visuospatial skills were formally assessed. Iconicity was slightly lower in individuals with Williams syndrome, which seems related to their visuospatial deficit. While semantic saliency was similar across participant groups, small differences in representation technique were found. Partial correlations showed that visuospatial skills and semantic skills were instrumental in producing clear pantomimes. These findings indicate that clinicians aiming to enhance individuals' natural iconic gestures should consider achieved iconicity, particularly in individuals with low visuospatial skills.

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In this meta-analysis, we examined whether children classified with specific language impairment (SLI) experience difficulties with writing. We included studies comparing children with SLI to (a) typically developing peers matched on age (k = 39 studies) and (b) typically developing younger peers with similar language capabilities (k = six studies). Children classified with SLI scored lower on writing measures than their typically developing peers matched on age (g = -0.97) when all writing scores in a study were included in the analysis. This same pattern occurred for specific measures of writing: quality (g = -0.92), output (g = -1.00), grammar (g = -0.68), vocabulary (g = -0.68), and spelling (g = -1.17). A moderator analysis revealed that differences in the writing scores of children classified with SLI and typically developing peers matched on age were not as large, but were still statistically significant, when assessment involved a contrived response format (vs. measured based on students' writing), researcher-created measures (vs. norm-referenced tests), or SLI included just children with a speech disorder (vs. children with a language disorder). Children classified with SLI further scored lower on writing than typically developing peers with similar language capabilities (g = -0.47). We concluded that children with SLI experience difficulties with writing.

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BACKGROUND: A number of contrasting hypotheses have been put forward concerning mathematical performance deficits in children with specific language impairment (SLI). However, debate as to the nature of this deficit continues. The present study analyzed whether the trajectories of SLI-children may be attributed to the use of symbolic vs. linguistic assessment tasks, or to a deficit in the magnitude system. METHOD: SLI-children (N=20) and typically achieving children (N=20) were monitored between kindergarten and first grade. Four tasks were designed, each with varying demands on language, symbolic, and domain-specific skills. RESULTS: The groups only differed in the trajectories of those numerical tasks involving high language demand. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that SLI children present an early deficit in the development of numerical skills that require retrieval from long term memory and articulation of a phonological representation. Number skills involving greater language demand should be included as part of SLI early detection and intervention protocols.

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BACKGROUND: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD)-previously called Specific Language Impairment (SLI)-often perform poorly in verbal working memory (WM) tasks, but the picture is less clear regarding their visuospatial WM capacity. Recent research has been inconclusive regarding whether visuospatial working memory is impaired in DLD. Additionally, it is still unclear whether the putative disparity of WM performance persists in adolescence. AIMS: The aim of the current study was to unveil potential impairments in verbal and visuospatial working memory in DLD by exploring two developmental age groups of French-speaking children and adolescents. METHODS: This study examined verbal and nonverbal short-term and working memory capacity using digit span and Corsi block tasks in twelve children (7-11-year-olds) and twelve adolescents (12-18-year-olds) with developmental language disorder (DLD) in comparison to that in their typically developing peers. RESULTS: Our findings showed that both children and adolescents with DLD have deficits in storage and processing ability for the verbal domain. However, both the short-term and working memory estimates of immediate capacity for visuospatial information in adolescents with DLD were virtually intact. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that both verbal and nonverbal storage and processing capacity are largely modulated by age, suggesting that the children with DLD show virtually intact nonverbal working memory capacity as they reach adolescence.

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This study examines the lexical-grammatical relation within and across in preschool Latino dual language learners (DLLs) with and without specific language impairment (SLI) using language-specific vocabulary and conceptual lexical-semantic skills. The participants were sixty-one typically developing (TD) Spanish-English speaking DLLs and seventy-four DLLs with SLI from low-income households. Standardized and researcher developed assessment tools were used to measure vocabulary, semantics, and grammar in both Spanish and English. Cross-sectional data were analyzed using hierarchical linear regressions to determine the nature of the lexical-grammatical association within and across languages. The study found significant within-language relations between measures of vocabulary and grammar for both groups. Conceptual vocabulary was a significant predictor for English grammar in both groups. For the SLI group only, both English and Spanish vocabulary scores significantly predicted English grammar and bilingual semantics scores predicted Spanish grammar. These findings underscore the role of language-specific vocabulary on grammatical development and suggest the presence of bilingual bootstrapping in DLLs. However, the degree and nature of cross-linguistic associations vary by language ability and language proficiency. The role of age and nonverbal cognition and clinical implications are also discussed.

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Visual narratives, such as wordless picture books and picture sequences like comics, have a long history in clinical testing, research, and intervention settings. The widespread "Visual Ease Assumption" rests on the premise that visual narratives, given their non-linguistic nature, may alleviate processing difficulties in populations that struggle with language. In this paper, I review the evidence for and against this Visual Ease Assumption in three clinical populations in which language deficits are common or diagnostic: autism spectrum disorder (ASD), specific language impairment (SLI; now known as Developmental Language Disorder, DLD), and aphasia. I first redefine the Visual Ease Assumption as two testable predictions: (a) that visual narrative processing should be unimpaired for clinical populations compared to neurotypical (NT) populations; and (b) that in clinical populations, visual narrative processing should be less impaired than linguistic narrative processing. Through a review of the limited evidence available to test these predictions in ASD, SLI, and aphasia, I show that the Visual Ease Assumption is largely unsupported in empirical studies. Furthermore, I outline three additional limitations of the Visual Ease Assumption regarding the complexity of narrative processing, visual narrative tasks, and cognitive deficits in different clinical populations. Therefore, visual narratives should not be assumed to be "easier" for clinical populations that struggle with language; instead, a more thorough consideration of the cognitive processes involved in visual narrative processing is needed.

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Purpose The purpose of this study was to characterize the lexical-morphological networks of children with specific language impairment (SLI) compared to children with typical language by analyzing responses on a morphological derived form production task. Method School-age children with SLI (n = 32) and peers with typical language (n = 40) completed an oral cloze derived form production task (Carlisle, 2000). On this task, children were expected to complete verbally presented sentences with a derived form of a provided morphological stem. Responses were coded as correct or incorrect following Carlisle's (2000) stated correct responses. Incorrect responses were coded as scorable or unscorable, and then scorable responses were coded as pseudowords or real words. Real words were further coded according to whether they were repetitions of the given stem. Results There was a statistically significant between-group difference for mean correct responses (d = 1.43). The scorable incorrect responses of children with SLI included a lower mean proportion of pseudowords than did the incorrect responses of children with typical language (d = 0.76). Conclusion Because children with SLI produced a lower proportion of pseudowords as scorable incorrect responses than peers with typical language, we conclude that they have less developed lexical-morphological networks and, thus, less derivational morphology knowledge than peers with typical language.

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La presente investigación tiene por objetivo estudiar la correlación entre las habilidades de memoria secuencial auditiva (MSA), integración auditiva (IA) y el desempeño fonológico en 24 niños con trastorno específico del lenguaje (TEL) expresivo de un rango etario de 3 años a 3 años 11 meses que asisten a una escuela especial de lenguaje. Los participantes fueron evaluados mediante la aplicación de dos subtest del Test Illinois de Aptitudes Psicolingüísticas (subtest de MSA y subtest de IA), y el Test para Evaluar los Procesos de Simplificación Fonológica Revisado (TEPROSIF-R). Los resultados muestran una correlación estadísticamente significativa entre memoria secuencial auditiva, integración auditiva y desempeño fonológico. Al analizar los datos dividiendo la muestra en dos grupos etarios se observa que, para el grupo etario de 3 años a 3 años 5 meses existe una correlación estadísticamente significativa entre MSA, IA y desempeño fonológico. En cambio, para el grupo etario de 3 años 6 meses a 3 años 11 meses se observa la misma tendencia sinalcanzar valores estadísticamente significativos. Esto sugiere que la relación entre estas variables disminuye a medida que los niños se acercan a su cuarto año de vida.

The present research aims to study the correlation between auditory sequential memory capacity (ASM), auditory integration (AI) abilities, and phonological performance in 24 children with expressive specific language impairment, with an age range between 3 and 3 years and 11 months, who attend a special language school. Participants were evaluated through two subtests of the Illinois Psycholinguistic Aptitudes Test (an ASM subtest and an AIsubtest), and the Test to Evaluate the Phonological Simplification Processes Revised (TEPROSIF-R). The results indicate a statistically significant correlation between sequential auditory memory, auditory integration and phonological performance. When analyzing the data by dividing the sample into two age groups. When analyzing the data dividing the sample into two age groups, we observed that, for the age group between 3 and 3 years and 5 months there is a statistically significant correlation between auditory sequential memory, auditory integration and phonological performance. For the age group from 3 years 6 months to 3 years 11 months the same trend is observed without reaching statistically significant values. This suggests that the relationship between these variables decreases as children approach their fourth year of life.

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The purpose of the current study was to examine the efficacy of e-book reading to promoting word learning among kindergarteners with specific language impairment (SLI) compared to those with typical language development (TLD). We also tested the contribution of three types of dictionary support provided in the e-book. All dictionary words were given a pictorial and auditory support while a third of them were given a short definition, a third were defined using the story content, and a third were given a combined definition. Twenty kindergarteners with SLI and 20 with TLD were read the e-book with dictionary support 5 times. Each child was exposed to the three types of dictionary support in each e-book reading. Receptive knowledge, word definitions and use of target words were measured pre and post intervention. A significant improvement in new word learning following the e-book reading was found in the children's receptive knowledge, word definitions and use of target words. Nonetheless, children with TLD progressed in words use more than children with SLI. The two groups progressed to a greater extent in explaining new words following the provision of a dictionary definition and following story context definition. Children with SLI progressed in words' use following the definition of a dictionary. The combined definition was especially efficient for children in the two groups with had a low initial level of using new words. Combined definition was also efficient for explaining new words for TLD children with initially high language level. We conclude that children with SLI like children with TLD can benefit from ebook reading and can learn new words at different levels when the e-book is well designed in assisting children with definitions of difficult words. .

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Purpose The study aims to test whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) show weaknesses in word retrieval and cognitive control and to find out whether impairments in the 2 domains are associated. Method Thirty-one children with SLI (age: M = 8;11 years;months, SD = 1;1) and 31 age- and IQ-matched typically developing children completed 2 word retrieval tasks and 3 cognitive control tasks. Word retrieval was assessed with a fluency task and a rapid automatized naming (RAN) task, whereas cognitive control was measured with a backward digit span, an n-back task, and a Stroop task. Results We found weaker performance in the SLI group than in the typically developing group in all the fluency conditions and in the size-color-shape RAN as well as on the backward digit span and n-back tasks. Performance on the letter fluency task was associated with backward digit span, whereas size-color-shape RAN performance was associated with backward digit span and n-back scores. Testing the relative contribution of the 3 cognitive control tasks together with verbal short-term memory span and vocabulary size showed that performance on both word retrieval tasks was best explained by nonword repetition and backward digit span measures. Conclusions These results suggest that both word retrieval and cognitive control are impaired in SLI and weaker cognitive control may contribute to word retrieval problems, although weaker short-term memory also has a crucial contribution to word retrieval difficulties during these tasks. If further research confirms this association with cognitive control, training of this ability should be included in the therapy of at least some children with SLI.

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Specific language impairment (SLI) and reading disability (RD) are familial, moderately heritable comorbid developmental disorders. The key deficit of SLI is oral language, whereas children with RD exhibit impairment in learning to read. The present study examines the possible co-occurrence of RD and SLI and the nature of this co-occurrence at a linguistic and a cognitive level in an orthographically consistent language. Four groups of children participated in the study: an RD group ( n = 10), an SLI group ( n = 13), a possible comorbid group ( n = 9), and a control-no deficit group ( n = 20). Analysis showed that all three clinical groups in our sample performed similarly in phonological awareness and naming-speed tasks. However, significant group differences were observed in orthographic processing, reading, semantics, and phonological memory measures, thus supporting the view that SLI and RD are distinct disorders. Results are in line with previous findings indicating that SLI and RD share common characteristics, although the two conditions are manifested with different symptoms.

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A battery of standardized language tests and control measures was administered to three groups of at-risk language learners - internationally adopted children, deaf children with cochlear implants, and children with specific language impairment - and to groups of second-language learners and typically developing monolingual children. All children were acquiring French, were matched on age, gender, and socioeconomic status, and were between age 5;0 and 7;3 at the time of testing. Differences between the at-risk and not-at-risk groups were evident in all domains of language testing. The children with SLI or CIs scored significantly lower than the IA children and all three at-risk groups scored lower than the monolingual group; the L2 and IA groups scored similarly. The results suggest that children with limited access to, or ability to process, early language input are at greater risk than children with delayed input to an additional language but otherwise typical or relatively typical early input.

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