Relations between vocabulary development and verbal short-term memory: The relative importance of short-term memory for serial order and item information

Heritage language learners of English: Linguistic gaps and cognitive strengths

PURPOSE

This study examined whether Heritage Language Learners (HLLs) of English display profile effects in their performance on knowledge- and processing-dependent measures relative to the standardised mean scores of monolingual speakers. The study also investigated the influence of several experiential factors on HLL performance.

METHOD

Participants were 59 Arabic-speaking HLLs from six to nine years old. The children completed a battery of linguistic tests in their L1 and L2, as well as cognitive measures of short-term and working memory and non-verbal intelligence.

RESULT

Significantly lower standardised scores were observed for HLLs as compared to the standardised mean scores on all Arabic/English language tasks except L2 word reading. HLLs scored at or above age-level expectations on cognitive measures except the Arabic nonword repetition task. Stepwise regression analyses examining variance in HLLs' performance, age and richness of environment consistently explained HLLs' performance in L1 Arabic, but different factors accounted for HLLs' performance in English depending on the task. Age was the only variable that consistently explained variance in performance on the cognitive measures.

CONCLUSION

The results suggest that processing-dependent measures may be less sensitive to difference in language experience than traditional knowledge-based measures such as standardised measures of language and vocabulary.

The 10-Word Auditory Verbal Learning Test and Vocabulary Performance in 4- and 5-Year-Old Children

BACKGROUND

Understanding the different factors that determine vocabulary development in young children is essential for the diagnosis and rehabilitation of language disorders in children. Language development is closely related to other cognitive processes such as auditory verbal learning and memory. This research focuses on the development of a novel auditory verbal learning test (AVLT) for 4- and 5-year-old children within the Dutch population. This new test is an adaptation of the common AVLT for both older children and adults, usually including a list of 15 words. Considering the lower attention span and limited executive functioning in young children, the word list of this new instrument is reduced to 10 words. Besides, a second recognition form has been developed to improve the ability to distinguish between possible underlying learning and memory deficits.

METHOD

Ninety-five preschool children (ages 4;0-5;12 [years;months]) were tested with this new AVLT 10-word test for kids (10WT-K), yielding different measures of verbal auditory memory. Forty-eight of 95 children received a recognition task with semantically unrelated items, and 47 of 95 received a recognition task with semantically related items. Three additional language skills were assessed to establish test validation: receptive and expressive vocabulary performance and nonword repetition. Outcome of the 10WT-K was related to scores on the language measures.

RESULTS

Positive correlations were found between the total score of the 10WT-K and all three aforementioned language skills. We found no correlations between frequency of error types (intrusions and repetitions) and language measures. Furthermore, children who were administered the recognition list with semantically related items showed fewer correct answers and more false-positive and false-negative responses than children who received a recognition list with semantically unrelated items.

CONCLUSIONS

The 10WT-K for young children can be used to (a) measure different aspects of auditory verbal learning and memory, (b) clarify the nature of possible verbal learning difficulties, and (c) identify a possible nature of language disorders. The word recognition task tested with semantically related items provides a more accurate measurement of individual differences, namely, in distinguishing retrieval and storage abilities. The significant relation found between auditory verbal short-term memory capacity and vocabulary performance in preschool children is a first step toward establishing test validity.

Basic Symbolic Number Skills, but Not Formal Mathematics Performance, Longitudinally Predict Mathematics Anxiety in the First Years of Primary School

Mathematical anxiety (MA) and mathematics performance typically correlate negatively in studies of adolescents and adults, but not always amongst young children, with some theorists questioning the relevance of MA to mathematics performance in this age group. Evidence is also limited in relation to the developmental origins of MA and whether MA in young children can be linked to their earlier mathematics performance. To address these questions, the current study investigated whether basic and formal mathematics skills around 4 and 5 years of age were predictive of MA around the age of 7-8. Additionally, we also examined the cross-sectional relationships between MA and mathematics performance in 7-8-year-old children. Specifically, children in our study were assessed in their first (T1; aged 4-5), second (T2; aged 5-6), and fourth years of school (T3; aged 7-8). At T1 and T2, children completed measures of basic numerical skills, IQ, and working memory, as well as curriculum-based mathematics tests. At T3, children completed two self-reported MA questionnaires, together with a curriculum-based mathematics test. The results showed that MA could be reliably measured in a sample of 7-8-year-olds and demonstrated the typical negative correlation between MA and mathematical performance (although the strength of this relationship was dependent on the specific content domain). Importantly, although early formal mathematical skills were unrelated to later MA, there was evidence of a longitudinal relationship between basic early symbolic number skills and later MA, supporting the idea that poorer basic numerical skills relate to the development of MA.

Heterogeneity of short-term memory deficits in children with dyslexia

Many studies have highlighted short-term memory (STM) impairment in dyslexic individuals. Several studies showed deficits for both item and serial order aspects of verbal STM in dyslexic individuals. These group-based studies, however, do not inform us about the prevalence of these deficits and, importantly, their potential heterogeneity at the individual level. The present study examined both group-level and individual STM profiles in dyslexic and age-matched non-dyslexic children. While confirming previous group-based results of both item and serial order STM deficits, individual analyses indicated two distinct profiles: one profile was associated with verbal item STM and phonological impairment while another profile showed selective serial STM deficits in both verbal and visual domains. Our results highlight the need for practitioners to consider the heterogeneous nature of STM impairment in dyslexia and to adapt STM and reading treatment strategies accordingly.

Predicting the Structure of a Lexical Environment from Properties of Verbal Working Memory

We analyzed a Japanese lexical database to investigate the structure of the lexical environment based on the hypothesis that the lexical environment is optimized for the functioning of verbal working memory. Our prediction was that, as a consequence of the cultural transmission of language, low-imageable meanings tend to be represented by frequent phonological patterns in the current vocabulary rather than infrequent phonological patterns. This prediction was based on two findings of previous laboratory studies on verbal working memory. (1) The quality of phonological (phonemic and accent) representations in verbal working memory depends on phonological regularity knowledge; therefore, short-term phonological representations are less robust for words with infrequent phonological patterns. (2) Phonological representations are underpinned by contributions from semantic knowledge; therefore, phonological representations of highly imageable words are more robust than those for low-imageable words. Our database analyses show that nouns with less imageable meanings tend to be associated with more frequent phonological patterns in Japanese vocabulary. This lexical structure can maintain the quality of phonological representations in verbal working memory through contributions of semantic and phonological regularity knowledge. Larger semantic contributions compensate for the less robust phonological representations of infrequent phonological forms. The quality of phonological representations is preserved by phonological regularity knowledge when larger semantic contributions are not expected.

An easy way to improve scoring of memory span tasks: The edit distance, beyond "correct recall in the correct serial position"

For researchers and psychologists interested in estimating a subject's memory capacity, the current standard for scoring memory span tasks is the partial-credit method: subjects are credited with the number of stimuli that they manage to recall correctly in the correct serial position. A critical issue with this method, however, is that intrusions and omissions can radically change the scores depending on where they occur. For example, when recalling the sequence ABCDE, "ABCD" is worth 4 points but "BCDE" is worth 0 points. This paper presents an improved scoring method based on the edit distance, meaning the number of changes required to edit the recalled sequence into the target. Edit-distance scoring gives results close to partial-credit scoring, but without the corresponding vulnerability to positional shifts. A reanalysis of memory performance in two large datasets (N = 1093 and N = 758) confirms that in addition to being more logically consistent, edit-distance scoring demonstrates similar or better psychometric properties than partial-credit, with comparable validity, a small increase in reliability, and a substantial increase of test information (measurement precision in the context of item response theory). Test information was especially improved for harder items and for subjects with ability in the lower range, whose scores tend to be severely underestimated by partial-credit scoring. Code to compute edit-distance scores with various software is made available at https://osf.io/wdb83/ .

Development of auditory cognition in 5- to 10-year-old children: Focus on musical and verbal short-term memory

Developmental aspects of auditory cognition were investigated in 5-to-10-year-old children (n = 100). Musical and verbal short-term memory (STM) were assessed by means of delayed matching-to-sample tasks (DMST) (comparison of two four-item sequences separated by a silent retention delay), with two levels of difficulty. For musical and verbal materials, children's performance increased from 5 years to about 7 years of age, then remained stable up to 10 years of age, with performance remaining inferior to performance of young adults. Children and adults performed better with verbal material than with musical material. To investigate auditory cognition beyond STM, we assessed speech-in-noise perception with a four-alternative forced-choice task with two conditions of phonological difficulty and two levels of cocktail-party noise intensity. Partial correlations, factoring out the effect of age, showed a significant link between musical STM and speech-in-noise perception in the condition with increased noise intensity. Our findings reveal that auditory STM improves over development with a critical phase around 6-7 years of age, yet these abilities appear to be still immature at 10 years. Musical and verbal STM might in particular share procedural and serial order processes. Furthermore, musical STM and the ability to perceive relevant speech signals in cocktail-party noise might rely on shared cognitive resources, possibly related to pitch encoding. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that auditory STM is assessed with the same paradigm for musical and verbal material during childhood, providing perspectives regarding diagnosis and remediation in developmental learning disorders.

A Preliminary Examination of the Impact of Working Memory Training on Syntax and Processing Speed in Children with ASD

In addition to deficits in pragmatics, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have weaknesses in complex syntax and working memory (WM). These two deficits may be closely related. Previous work investigated the effects of WM training in developmental language disorders and showed significant improvement in both WM and syntax. The current study tests the impact of 12 h of WM training across 8 weeks in 30 children with ASD, aged 5 to 11. Results showed direct improvements on untrained WM tasks, as well as transfer effects to syntax and processing speed. Stronger WM led to better syntactic abilities. While they must be replicated, these exciting results provide impetus for further studies of WM interventions.

Language acquisition of early sequentially bilingual children is moderated by short-term memory for order in developmental language disorder: Findings from the HelSLI study

BACKGROUND

The role of domain-general short-term memory (STM) in language development remains controversial. A previous finding from the HelSLI study on children with developmental language disorder (DLD) suggested that not only verbal but also non-verbal STM for temporal order is related to language acquisition in monolingual children with DLD.

AIMS

To investigate if a similar relationship could be replicated in a sample of sequentially bilingual children with DLD. In addition to the effect of age, the effect of cumulative second language (L2) exposure was studied.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

Sixty-one 4-6-year-old bilingual children with DLD and 63 typically developing (TD) bilingual children participated in a cross-sectional study conducted in their L2. Children completed novel game-like tests of visual and auditory non-verbal serial STM, as well as tests of cognitive functioning and language. Interactions of STM for order with age and exposure to L2 (Finnish) were explored as explanatory variables.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

First, the improvement of non-verbal serial STM with age was faster in sequentially bilingual TD children than in bilingual children with DLD. A similar effect was observed for L2 exposure. However, when both age and exposure were considered simultaneously, only age was related to the differential growth of non-verbal STM for order in the groups. Second, only in children with DLD was better non-verbal serial STM capacity related to an improvement in language scores with age and exposure.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

The results suggest that, as previously found in Finnish monolingual children, domain-general serial STM processing is also compromised in bilingual children with DLD. Further, similar to the monolingual findings, better non-verbal serial STM was associated with greater language improvement with age and exposure, but only in children with DLD, in the age range studied here. Thus, in clinical settings, assessing non-verbal serial STM of bilingual children could improve the detection of DLD and understanding of its non-linguistic symptoms.

WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS

What is already known on the subject Both phonological and non-verbal STM have been associated with DLD in monolingual and sequentially bilingual children. Monolingual children with DLD have also shown slower non-verbal serial STM development than TD children. What this study adds to existing knowledge Sequentially bilingual TD children's non-verbal serial STM improves more between ages 4 and 7 years than that of their peers with DLD, replicating a finding for monolingual children with DLD. Better non-verbal serial STM was especially associated with early receptive language development in sequentially bilingual children with DLD. L2 exposure showed largely comparable effects with age. These results support the hypothesis that a domain-general serial STM deficit is linked to DLD. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Non-verbal assessment of STM for serial order in sequentially bilingual children with DLD could benefit the development of better tailored therapeutic interventions.

The Melody of Speech: What the Melodic Perception of Speech Reveals about Language Performance and Musical Abilities

Research has shown that melody not only plays a crucial role in music but also in language acquisition processes. Evidence has been provided that melody helps in retrieving, remembering, and memorizing new language material, while relatively little is known about whether individuals who perceive speech as more melodic than others also benefit in the acquisition of oral languages. In this investigation, we wanted to show which impact the subjective melodic perception of speech has on the pronunciation of unfamiliar foreign languages. We tested 86 participants for how melodic they perceived five unfamiliar languages, for their ability to repeat and pronounce the respective five languages, for their musical abilities, and for their short-term memory (STM). The results revealed that 59 percent of the variance in the language pronunciation tasks could be explained by five predictors: the number of foreign languages spoken, short-term memory capacity, tonal aptitude, melodic singing ability, and how melodic the languages appeared to the participants. Group comparisons showed that individuals who perceived languages as more melodic performed significantly better in all language tasks than those who did not. However, even though we expected musical measures to be related to the melodic perception of foreign languages, we could only detect some correlations to rhythmical and tonal musical aptitude. Overall, the findings of this investigation add a new dimension to language research, which shows that individuals who perceive natural languages to be more melodic than others also retrieve and pronounce utterances more accurately.

Do goal cue and motor activity impact preschoolers' working memory?

Preschoolers are well known for their poor working memory (WM) performance. This could result from goal neglect, which would hamper the setting of maintenance strategies. Previous studies have shown that preschoolers' WM performance can be improved in game-like tasks, because they provide cues to support goal maintenance. However, in these studies, it was unclear what features of the task (either the main toy or the motor activity required by the game) provide efficient cues. The aim of the present study was to disentangle the two features to examine cue effects in 5- to 7-year-old children. No improvement of WM performance was observed when the toy was a potential goal cue, whereas the motor activity had a detrimental effect in all age groups. The latter effect could result from a distraction of attention from attention-based maintenance activities. Hence, preschoolers' poor WM performance would not be fundamentally due to goal neglect.

Auditory and visual short-term memory: influence of material type, contour, and musical expertise

Short-term memory has mostly been investigated with verbal or visuospatial stimuli and less so with other categories of stimuli. Moreover, the influence of sensory modality has been explored almost solely in the verbal domain. The present study compared visual and auditory short-term memory for different types of materials, aiming to understand whether sensory modality and material type can influence short-term memory performance. Furthermore, we aimed to assess if music expertise can modulate memory performance, as previous research has reported better auditory memory (and to some extent, visual memory), and better auditory contour recognition for musicians than non-musicians. To do so, we adapted the same recognition paradigm (delayed-matching to sample) across different types of stimuli. In each trial, participants (musicians and non-musicians) were presented with two sequences of events, separated by a silent delay, and had to indicate whether the two sequences were identical or different. The performance was compared for auditory and visual materials belonging to three different categories: (1) verbal (i.e., syllables); (2) nonverbal (i.e., that could not be easily denominated) with contour (based on loudness or luminance variations); and (3) nonverbal without contour (pink noise sequences or kanji letters sequences). Contour and no-contour conditions referred to whether the sequence can entail (or not) a contour (i.e., a pattern of up and down changes) based on non-pitch features. Results revealed a selective advantage of musicians for auditory no-contour stimuli and for contour stimuli (both visual and auditory), suggesting that musical expertise is associated with specific short-term memory advantages in domains close to the trained domain, also extending cross-modally when stimuli have contour information. Moreover, our results suggest a role of encoding strategies (i.e., how the material is represented mentally during the task) for short-term-memory performance.

Short-Term Memory for Serial Order Moderates Aspects of Language Acquisition in Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Findings From the HelSLI Study

Previous studies of verbal short-term memory (STM) indicate that STM for serial order may be linked to language development and developmental language disorder (DLD). To clarify whether a domain-general mechanism is impaired in DLD, we studied the relations between age, non-verbal serial STM, and language competence (expressive language, receptive language, and language reasoning). We hypothesized that non-verbal serial STM differences between groups of children with DLD and typically developing (TD) children are linked to their language acquisition differences. Fifty-one children with DLD and sixty-six TD children participated as part of the HelSLI project in this cross-sectional study. The children were 4-6-year-old monolingual native Finnish speakers. They completed several tests of language and cognitive functioning, as well as new game-like tests of visual and auditory non-verbal serial STM. We used regression analyses to examine how serial STM moderates the effect of age on language. A non-verbal composite measure of serial visual and auditory STM moderated cross-sectional development of receptive language in the children with DLD. This moderation was not observed in the TD children. However, we found more rapid cross-sectional development of non-verbal serial STM in the TD children than in the children with DLD. The results suggest that children with DLD may be more likely to have compromised general serial STM processing and that superior non-verbal serial STM may be associated with better language acquisition in children with DLD.

Do serial order short-term memory and long-term learning abilities predict spelling skills in school-age children?

Compared to most human language abilities, the cognitive mechanisms underlying spelling have not been as intensively investigated as reading and therefore remain to this day less well understood. The current study aims to address this shortcoming by investigating the contribution of serial order short-term memory (STM) and long-term learning (LTL) abilities to emerging spelling skills. Indeed, although there are several reasons to assume associations between serial order memory and spelling abilities, this relationship has hardly been investigated empirically. In this study, we hypothesized that serial order STM plays an important role in spelling novel words, for which children are supposed to rely on a sequential nonlexical spelling procedure. Serial order LTL was hypothesized to be involved in the creation of more stable orthographic representations allowing children to spell (regular and irregular) words by using a lexical spelling strategy based on the direct access to orthographic representations stored in long-term memory. To assess these hypotheses, we conducted a longitudinal study in which we tested a sample of 116 French-speaking children at first grade and two years later at third grade of primary school. At first grade, we administered tasks that were specifically designed to maximize STM and LTL abilities for serial order information. At third grade, we assessed spelling abilities using irregular word, regular word, and pseudoword writing-to-dictation tasks. Bayesian regression analyses showed that pseudoword, but also irregular word spelling was best predicted by serial order STM, while regular word spelling was similarly predicted by both serial order STM and LTL.

Verbal Working Memory but Not Attention Is Related to Language Proficiency: Evidence from Multilingual Speakers

Numerous studies have shown a consistent relationship between verbal working memory (WM) and native-language as well as non-native language learning abilities. However, the role of attentional abilities has been rarely explored, although these abilities have been shown to be associated both with verbal working memory and oral language proficiency. This study investigated the association between WM, attention and language proficiency in young adults raised with three different languages (Luxembourgish, German and French). Auditory-verbal WM abilities were assessed via an immediate serial recall task. Attentional abilities were assessed via auditory-verbal and visuo-spatial attentional tasks. Using a Bayesian correlational approach, we observed robust evidence for an association between auditory-verbal WM abilities and non-native language proficiency. At the same time, we observed no reliable evidence in favor of an association between language proficiency and auditory-verbal/visuo-spatial attentional measures. These results suggest that auditory-verbal WM and non-native language proficiency are strongly linked in young multilingual adults, irrespective of auditory-verbal or visuo-spatial attentional abilities.

The development of working memory spatialization revealed by using the cave paradigm in a two-alternative spatial choice

When Western participants are asked to keep in mind a sequence of verbal items, they tend to associate the first items to the left and the last items to the right. This phenomenon, known as the spatial-positional association response codes effect, has been interpreted as showing that individuals spatialize the memoranda by creating a left-to-right mental line with them. One important gap in our knowledge concerns the development of this phenomenon: when do Western individuals start organizing their thought from left to right? To answer this question, 274 participants in seven age groups were tested (kindergarten, Grades 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and adults). We used a new protocol meant to be child-friendly, which involves associating two caves with two animals using a two-alternative spatial forced choice. Participants had to guess in which cave a specific animal could be hidden. Results showed that it is from Grade 3 on that participants spatialize information in working memory in a left-to-right fashion like adults.

Training Complements for Belief Reasoning in Developmental Language Disorder

Purpose Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) experience difficulties with an important Theory of Mind milestone, namely, false belief (FB) reasoning. Their FB success relates to mastery of a linguistic structure that is also challenging for them, namely, sentential complements (e.g., Claire says/thinks [that Santa Claus exists]). Training typically developing (TD) children on complements has been shown to boost complements and, in turn, enhance FB, but such training has never been explored with children with DLD, which is the aim of the current study. Method Fifty French-speaking children followed a novel training program: 30 with DLD (M _age = 7;3) and 20 TD (M _age = 4;3). They engaged in iPad applications targeting complementation with verbs of communication (e.g., say, shout, answer) during eight to 12 sessions lasting 30 min. Training commenced within 1-2 weeks of pretests and ceased 1-2 weeks before immediate posttests. After immediate posttests, the majority of children were available to be tested with follow-up tests after 4-6 weeks of no training. Results Findings revealed that both TD and DLD groups benefited from the training to significantly improve their complementation and FB scores. The gains achieved during immediate posttests were moreover maintained 6-8 weeks after training ceased, as revealed by preserved levels of performance during follow-up posttests. Conclusion This research thus suggests new avenues for therapeutic interventions for children with DLD, namely, the incorporation of a program directly training complements, which holds the promise of a double benefit, both for these structures and for Theory of Mind.

Relationship between working memory and complex syntax in children with Developmental Language Disorder

Some theories of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) explain the linguistic deficits observed in terms of limitations in non-linguistic cognitive systems such as working memory. The goal of this research is to clarify the relationship between working memory and the processing of complex sentences by exploring the performance of 28 French-speaking children with DLD aged five to fourteen years and 48 typically developing children of the same age in memory and linguistic tasks. We identified predictive relationships between working memory and the comprehension and repetition of complex sentences in both groups. As for syntactic measures in spontaneous language, it is the complex spans that explain the major part of the variance in the control children. In children with DLD, however, simple spans are predictive of these syntactic measures. Our results thus reveal a robust relationship between working memory and syntactic complexity, with clinical implications for the treatment of children with DLD.

The relationship of domain-general serial order memory and reading ability in school children with and without dyslexia

Recent evidence suggests that reading development when learning alphabetic languages is related to the underlying cognitive ability to maintain the serial order of information in short-term memory (STM). However, it remains unclear at which time point in reading development serial order STM is most important. Here, we established a crucial link between the reading development of primary school children and their serial order STM performance for both verbal and nonverbal materials. In a large cohort study of 113 Italian-speaking elementary school children in Grades 1-4, we investigated this relationship by implementing a novel double-probe design. In Experiment 1, we found that serial order STM performance was related to children's reading abilities, especially in Grades 2 and 3, corresponding to the training phase of grapheme-phoneme decoding skills. In Experiment 2, we assessed children with developmental dyslexia (DD) and found that their serial order STM performance was significantly lower than that of chronological age-matched controls (CA). It also differed from that of reading age-matched controls when accounting for individual reading performance. Furthermore, the CA group displayed an implicit serial order facilitation for item memory, whereas this implicit recruitment of serial order abilities was completely absent in children with DD. Our results suggest that the domain-general cognitive ability to maintain the serial order of information interacts with the development of reading competency, especially during a middle training phase of word reading, and this particular relationship is markedly impaired in children with DD.

The Effect of Working Memory Training on a Clinical Marker of French-Speaking Children With Developmental Language Disorder

Purpose Our work investigates the production of 3rd-person accusative clitic pronouns in French-speaking typically developing (TD) children and children with developmental language disorder (DLD) following a novel working memory (WM) training program (12 hrs of effective training) that specifically targets the components of WM that have been shown to be impaired in children with DLD and to be directly related to the mastery of clitics (Delage & Frauenfelder, submitted for publication; Durrleman & Delage, 2016). Method Sixteen TD children aged 5-12 years and 26 age-matched children with DLD completed our 8-week WM training program. Furthermore, an age-matched control group of 16 TD children and 17 children with DLD followed a scholastic training regime matched for intensity and frequency. Syntax and WM were assessed prior to and following the WM/scholastic training. Results Significant posttraining WM gains were found in TD children and children with DLD who took part in the WM training, and the production rate of 3rd-person accusative clitics significantly increased in children with DLD following the WM training. No significant WM or syntax gains were observed in the control group. Conclusion These findings are noteworthy as Melby-Lervåg and Hulme's (2013) meta-analysis concluded that existing WM training programs show short-lived generalized effects to other comparable measures of WM, but that there is no evidence that such training generalizes to less directly related tasks. That our study led to gains in skills that were not trained (i.e., syntax) suggests that a WM training regime that is firmly grounded in theory and that targets the specific mechanisms shown to underpin the acquisition of syntax may indeed provide effective remediation for children with DLD.

Syntax and working memory in typically-developing children

A growing trend in developmental psycholinguistics is to relate linguistic development to the development of other cognitive systems. Jakubowicz (2005, 2011) in particular argued that the processing of a complex sentence requires considerable working memory (WM) resources and that these resources are limited in young children, which would explain their non-adult grammar. The present research aims to clarify the relationship between WM and complex syntax, in comprehension, repetition, and spontaneous production, in 48 typically-developing children aged 5 to 12. Our results demonstrate a strong age effect for all measures of WM and syntax. They also reveal strong correlations between scores on simple and complex spans and syntactic performance. Finally, we show the highly predictive value of WM capacities on the acquisition of syntactic skills in both comprehension and production. In particular, the complex-span task, measuring counting span, explains the largest part of the variance in the spontaneous production of embedded clauses.

Verbal and Musical Short-Term Memory: Evidence for Shared Serial Order Processes?

This study explored the validity of an integrative framework for verbal and musical short-term memory (STM). Following this framework, access to domain-specific long-term knowledge bases supports the processing of musical and verbal item information in STM, while domain-general ordering processes support the representation of serial order information in the two domains. We exposed participants to verbal and musical STM tasks assessing either item information, order information, or both item and order information. Using an interindividual differences approach, we observed that performance in item-based STM tasks was not strongly associated between musical and verbal domains. In contrast, strong between-domain associations were observed for STM tasks assessing processing of verbal order and musical rhythm information. These preliminary results are overall in agreement with an integrative approach of verbal and musical STM. At the same time, the results highlight the difficulty of measuring serial order processing in the musical STM domain in a direct and specific manner.

The developmental neural substrates of item and serial order components of verbal working memory

Behavioral and developmental studies have made a critical distinction between item and serial order processing components of verbal working memory (WM). This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study determined the extent to which item and serial order WM components are characterized by specialized neural networks already in young children or whether this specialization emerges at a later developmental stage. Total of 59 children aged 7-12 years performed item and serial order short-term probe recognition tasks in an fMRI experiment. While a left frontoparietal network was recruited in both item and serial order WM conditions, the right intraparietal sulcus was selectively involved in the serial order WM condition. This neural segregation was modulated by age, with both networks becoming increasingly separated in older children. Our results indicate a progressive specialization of networks involved in item and order WM processes during cognitive development.

Atypical language characteristics and trajectories in children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

BACKGROUND

22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) is a genetic condition associated with a highly variable phenotypic expression. During childhood speech and language deficits are commonly observed. Findings of cross-sectional studies suggest syndrome-specific and changing language profiles, but a longitudinal approach to identify developmental changes is still lacking to date.

AIMS

The present study aimed to delineate language characteristics and trajectories by comparing the performance of Dutch-speaking school-aged children with 22q11.2DS (n = 18) to those of peers with idiopathic intellectual disability (IID, n  = 19) and to those of children with IID and comorbid autism spectrum disorder (IID + ASD, n = 23). The literature shows contradictory findings regarding language comprehension difficulties in children with 22q11.2DS, we focused on the receptive-expressive language discrepancy. Given their relative strength for verbal short-term memory (VSTM) tasks, a fine-grained error categorization was included to elucidate a possible influence of VSTM on the expressive language outcomes. Finally, we suggested that the inability of children with 22q11.2DS to use contextual information could interfere with morphosyntactic measures.

METHODS

All groups (22q11.2DS, IID, and IID + ASD) were matched for nonverbal fluid reasoning (Gf) using the Analogies and Categories subtests of the Snijders-Oomen Nonverbal Intelligence Test or the Matrix Reasoning and Picture Concepts subtests of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence. Several structural language skills were measured using the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. The same instruments were re-administered after 18 to 24 months. A fine-grained error analysis of the Formulating and Recalling Sentences subtests, both measuring expressive syntax, explored factors contributing to expressive language deficits.

RESULTS

In children with 22q11.2DS the relative advantage of receptive over expressive language had decreased compared to children with IID. For children with 22q11.2DS, complex sentence comprehension remained very challenging over time. Expressive language skills seemed less limited compared to children with IID, and were accompanied by less VSTM difficulties. In children with 22q11.2DS and children with IID + ASD, variable patterns of strengths and weaknesses were demonstrated, resulting in subtle differences between these groups. Error analyses indicated disregard of content-contextual cues and use of vague and elliptic language as being typical for children with 22q11.2DS.

CONCLUSIONS

We recommend that in children with 22q11.2DS the impact of the receptive language impairment should be comprehensively examined and followed-up since it can have a negative effect on their social communication skills, adaptive functioning and academic achievement. Error analysis underscores that multiple measures should be used to evaluate the child's expressive language ability. Further research should focus on developmental trajectories of social communication skills and on the use of intervention strategies to improve language comprehension and pragmatics in school-aged children with 22q11.2DS.

Short-Term Memory, Inhibition, and Attention in Developmental Stuttering: A Meta-Analysis

PURPOSE

This study presents a meta-analytic review of differences in verbal short-term memory, inhibition, and attention between children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS).

METHOD

Electronic databases and reference sections of articles were searched for candidate studies that examined verbal short-term memory, inhibition, and attention using behavioral and/or parent report measures. Twenty-nine studies met the eligibility criteria, which included, among other things, children between the ages of 3 and 18 years and the availability of quantitative data for effect size calculations. Data were extracted, coded, and analyzed, with the magnitude of the difference between the 2 groups of children being estimated using Hedge's g (Hedges & Olkin, 1985).

RESULTS

Based on the random-effects model (Hunter & Schmidt, 2004), findings revealed that CWS scored lower than CWNS on measures of nonword repetition (Hedges' g = -0.62), particularly at lengths of 2 and 3 syllables (Hedges' g = -0.62 and - 0.50, respectively), and forward span (Hedges' g = -0.40). Analyses further revealed that the parents of CWS rated their children as having weaker inhibition (Hedges' g = -0.44) and attentional focus/persistence (Hedges' g = -0.36) skills than the parents of CWNS, but there were no significant differences between CWS and CWNS in behavioral measures of inhibition and attention.

CONCLUSION

The present findings were taken to suggest that cognitive processes are important variables associated with developmental stuttering.

Verbal short-term memory shows a specific association with receptive but not productive vocabulary measures in Down syndrome

BACKGROUND

Verbal short-term memory (STM) capacity has been considered to support vocabulary learning in typical children and adults, but evidence for this link is inconsistent for studies in individuals with Down syndrome (DS). The aim of this study was explore the role of processing demands on the association between verbal STM and vocabulary measures in DS, by comparing receptive vocabulary measures with high STM processing demands to productive vocabulary measures with low STM processing demands.

METHOD

Forty-seven adults with Down syndrome were administered receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary tasks, as well as measures of verbal STM abilities and intellectual efficiency.

RESULTS

Bayesian regression analyses showed that verbal STM abilities were strongly and specifically associated with receptive vocabulary measures but not productive lexical abilities after controlling for intellectual efficiency, and this is despite the fact that vocabulary abilities as measured by receptive and productive vocabulary tasks were closely associated.

CONCLUSIONS

In Down syndrome, verbal STM abilities may be predictive of specific task demands associated with receptive vocabulary tasks rather than of vocabulary development per se.

From Lexical Tone to Lexical Stress: A Cross-Language Mediation Model for Cantonese Children Learning English as a Second Language

This study investigated how Cantonese lexical tone sensitivity contributed to English lexical stress sensitivity among Cantonese children who learned English as a second language (ESL). Five-hundred-and-sixteen second-to-third grade Cantonese ESL children were tested on their Cantonese lexical tone sensitivity, English lexical stress sensitivity, general auditory sensitivity, and working memory. Structural equation modeling revealed that Cantonese lexical tone sensitivity contributed to English lexical stress sensitivity both directly, and indirectly through the mediation of general auditory sensitivity, in which the direct pathway had a larger relative contribution to English lexical stress sensitivity than the indirect pathway. These results suggest that the tone-stress association might be accounted for by joint phonological and acoustic processes that underlie lexical tone and lexical stress perception.

Cognitive advantages of immersion education after 1year: Effects of amount of exposure

Previous studies with bilingual children have shown that the nature of their second-language instruction has an effect on the development of their cognitive abilities. The aim of this study was to determine whether children who acquire a second language in two different immersion programs for a period of 1year show advantages in executive functions and to examine how the amount of daily exposure affects executive functions. A group of Serbian-speaking second-grade children exposed to the second language for about 5h each day (high exposure group, HEG) and a low-exposure group (LEG) exposed to the second language for about 1.5h each day were compared with an age-matched control group (CG) of monolingual peers on working memory, inhibition, and shifting. Significant group differences were found for working memory, with the HEG performing better than the CG and LEG even after controlling for individual differences in terms of age and intelligence. The three groups did not differ in terms of inhibition and overall shifting abilities, although the control group had a marginally significant advantage on one of the two shifting tasks. Our findings extend previous research by demonstrating that the amount of daily exposure is a significant factor affecting executive functions in early immersion programs for second-language acquisition. In addition, they show that early intensive second-language acquisition can be advantageous for performance on tasks that require a higher level of executive control.

Does learning to read shape verbal working memory?

Many experimental studies have investigated the relationship between the acquisition of reading and working memory in a unidirectional way, attempting to determine to what extent individual differences in working memory can predict reading achievement. In contrast, very little attention has been dedicated to the converse possibility that learning to read shapes the development of verbal memory processes. In this paper, we present available evidence that advocates a more prominent role for reading acquisition on verbal working memory and then discuss the potential mechanisms of such literacy effects. First, the early decoding activities might bolster the development of subvocal rehearsal, which, in turn, would enhance serial order performance in immediate memory tasks. In addition, learning to read and write in an alphabetical system allows the emergence of phonemic awareness and finely tuned phonological representations, as well as of orthographic representations. This could improve the quality, strength, and precision of lexical representations, and hence offer better support for the temporary encoding of memory items and/or for their retrieval.

The Nature of Verbal Short-Term Impairment in Dyslexia: The Importance of Serial Order

Verbal short-term memory (STM) impairment is one of the most consistent associated deficits observed in developmental reading disorders such as dyslexia. Few studies have addressed the nature of this STM impairment, especially as regards the ability to temporarily store serial order information. This question is important as studies in typically developing children have shown that serial order STM abilities are predictors of oral and written language development. Associated serial order STM deficits in dyslexia may therefore further increase the learning difficulties in these populations. In this mini review, we show that specific serial order STM impairment is frequently reported in both dyslexic children and adults with a history of dyslexia. Serial order STM impairment appears to occur for the retention of both verbal and visuo-spatial sequence information. Serial order STM impairment is, however, not a characteristic of every individual dyslexic subject and is not specific to dyslexia. Future studies need to determine whether serial order STM impairment is a risk factor which, in association with phonological processing deficits, can lead to dyslexia or whether serial order STM impairment reflects associated deficits causally unrelated to dyslexia.

What can errors tell us about differences between monolingual and bilingual vocabulary learning?

Error patterns in vocabulary learning data were used as a window into the mechanisms that underlie vocabulary learning performance in bilinguals vs. monolinguals. English-Spanish bilinguals (n = 18) and English-speaking monolinguals (n = 18) were taught novel vocabulary items in association with English translations. At testing, participants produced English translations for the newly-learned words. Findings revealed broad learning advantages in the bilingual data. Moreover, bilinguals made proportionately more deep (within-category) semantic errors than monolinguals when tested immediately after learning. We interpret these data to suggest that bilingual learners may encode the information associated with the novel words to a deeper semantic level than monolinguals.

Using a Process Dissociation Approach to Assess Verbal Short-Term Memory for Item and Order Information in a Sample of Individuals with a Self-Reported Diagnosis of Dyslexia

Previous studies have examined whether difficulties in short-term memory for verbal information, that might be associated with dyslexia, are driven by problems in retaining either information about to-be-remembered items or the order in which these items were presented. However, such studies have not used process-pure measures of short-term memory for item or order information. In this work we adapt a process dissociation procedure to properly distinguish the contributions of item and order processes to verbal short-term memory in a group of 28 adults with a self-reported diagnosis of dyslexia and a comparison sample of 29 adults without a dyslexia diagnosis. In contrast to previous work that has suggested that individuals with dyslexia experience item deficits resulting from inefficient phonological representation and language-independent order memory deficits, the results showed no evidence of specific problems in short-term retention of either item or order information among the individuals with a self-reported diagnosis of dyslexia, despite this group showing expected difficulties on separate measures of word and non-word reading. However, there was some suggestive evidence of a link between order memory for verbal material and individual differences in non-word reading, consistent with other claims for a role of order memory in phonologically mediated reading. The data from the current study therefore provide empirical evidence to question the extent to which item and order short-term memory are necessarily impaired in dyslexia.

The Effects of Aging on the Components of Auditory - Verbal Short-Term Memory

This study aimed at exploring the effects of aging on the multiple components of the auditory-verbal short-term memory (STM). Participants of 45-54, 55-64, 65-74 and 75-84 years of age were presented STM tasks assessing short-term retention of order and item information, and of phonological and lexical-semantic information separately. Because older participants often present reduced hearing levels, we sought to control for an effect of hearing status on performance on STM tasks. Participants' hearing thresholds were measured with a pure-tone audiometer. The results showed age-related effects on all STM components. However, after hearing status was controlled for in analyses of covariance, the age-related differences became non-significant for all STM processes. The fact that age-related hearing loss may in large part explain decreases in performance on STM tasks with aging is discussed.

The development of the abilities to acquire novel detailed orthographic representations and maintain them in long-term memory

Previous studies have clearly demonstrated that the development of orthographic representations relies on phonological recoding. However, substantial questions persist about the remaining unexplained variance in the acquisition of word-specific orthographic knowledge that is still underspecified. The main aim of this study was to explore whether two cognitive factors-sensitivity to orthographic regularities and short-term memory (STM) for serial order-make independent contributions to the acquisition of novel orthographic representations beyond that of the phonological core component and the level of preexisting word-specific orthographic knowledge. To this end, we had children from second to sixth grades learn novel written word forms using a repeated spelling practice paradigm. The speed at which children learned the word forms and their long-term retention (1week and 1month later) were assessed. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that phonological recoding, preexisting word-specific orthographic knowledge, and order STM explained a portion of the variance in orthographic learning speed, whereas phonological recoding, preexisting word-specific orthographic knowledge, and orthographic sensitivity each explained a portion of variance in the long-term retention of the newly created orthographic representations. A secondary aim of the study was to determine the developmental trajectory of the abilities to acquire novel orthographic word forms over the course of primary schooling. As expected, results showed an effect of age on both learning speed and long-term retention. The specific roles of orthographic sensitivity and order STM as independent factors involved in different steps of orthographic learning are discussed.

Linking memory and language: Evidence for a serial-order learning impairment in dyslexia

The present study investigated long-term serial-order learning impairments, operationalized as reduced Hebb repetition learning (HRL), in people with dyslexia. In a first multi-session experiment, we investigated both the persistence of a serial-order learning impairment as well as the long-term retention of serial-order representations, both in a group of Dutch-speaking adults with developmental dyslexia and in a matched control group. In a second experiment, we relied on the assumption that HRL mimics naturalistic word-form acquisition and we investigated the lexicalization of novel word-forms acquired through HRL. First, our results demonstrate that adults with dyslexia are fundamentally impaired in the long-term acquisition of serial-order information. Second, dyslexic and control participants show comparable retention of the long-term serial-order representations in memory over a period of 1 month. Third, the data suggest weaker lexicalization of newly acquired word-forms in the dyslexic group. We discuss the integration of these findings into current theoretical views of dyslexia.

Non-word repetition in 2-year-olds: Replication of an adapted paradigm and a useful methodological extension

Accurate non-word repetition (NWR) has been largely attributed to phonological memory, although the task involves other processes including speech production, which may confound results in toddlers with developing speech production abilities. This study is based on Hoff, Core and Bridges' adapted NWR task, which includes a real-word repetition (RWR) condition. We tested 86 typically developing 2-year-olds and found relationships between NWR and both receptive and expressive vocabulary using a novel measure that controls for speech production by comparing contextually matched targets in RWR. Post hoc analyses demonstrated the influence of lexical and sublexical factors in repetition tasks. Overall, results illustrate the importance of controlling for speech production differences in young children and support a useful methodological approach for testing NWR.

Identifying learning patterns of children at risk for Specific Reading Disability

Differences in learning patterns of vocabulary acquisition in children at risk (+SRD) and not at risk (-SRD) for Specific Reading Disability (SRD) were examined using a microdevelopmental paradigm applied to the multi-trial Foreign Language Learning Task (FLLT; Baddeley et al., 1995). The FLLT was administered to 905 children from rural Chitonga-speaking Zambia. A multi-group Latent Growth Curve Model (LGCM) was implemented to study interindividual differences in intraindividual change across trials. Results showed that the +SRD group recalled fewer words correctly in the first trial, learned at a slower rate during the subsequent trials, and demonstrated a more linear learning pattern compared to the -SRD group. This study illustrates the promise of LGCM applied to multi-trial learning tasks, by isolating three components of the learning process (initial recall, rate of learning, and functional pattern of learning). Implications of this microdevelopmental approach to SRD research in low-to-middle income countries are discussed.