Syntactic comprehension and working memory in children with specific language impairment, autism or Down syndrome

Acquisition of Mandarin long passives by children with developmental language disorder

This study investigated the comprehension and production of long passives (i.e. bei-constructions with an overt agent) in Mandarin-speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Seventeen preschool children with DLD (1 female; mean age: 61 months old) and 23 typically developing (TD) children (6 females; mean age: 62 months old) participated in a sentence-picture matching task (for comprehension) and an elicited production task. Their nonverbal working memory (NVWM) was measured with the fourth edition of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence. Results showed that children with DLD were less accurate and more likely to choose the picture with reversed thematic roles than their TD peers on passives in the sentence-picture matching task; in the elicited production task, they produced fewer target responses than TD children in passives. For NVWM, although that of the DLD group was lower than that of TD children, most children in the DLD group were within the average range. Furthermore, their performance on passives in the comprehension and production tasks was significantly correlated with their NVWM, which adds to the body of work suggesting links between complex syntax and working memory. However, the fact that NVWM could be preserved in the face of difficulties with passives suggests that this link may be due to NVWM enhancing performance during tasks with a high visual component, while it may not be underlyingly responsible for syntactic impairments in children with DLD.

Comprehension of complex syntax by non-English-speaking children with developmental language disorder: A scoping review

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) are characterised by impaired language abilities both in comprehension and production. Complex syntax is a specific domain which is often considered challenging for children with DLD. Research regarding complex syntax is mostly concerned with the production patterns of speakers and usually employs English-speaking populations. This scoping review aims to systematically map the abilities of non-English-speaking children with DLD to comprehend complex syntactic structures, comparing these results with the broader literature on English-speaking children with DLD. It also aims to consider the account (i.e. grammatical vs processing) by which these abilities can be explained. Four online databases were used to extract original research articles published between 2011 and 2021. Of the 264 studies initially identified, 20 studies were included in the review. The results demonstrated that children with DLD present with difficulties in comprehending object relative clauses, wh-questions, sentences with non-canonical word order, passives, and other types of complex syntax. All of these challenges are also evident in English-speaking children with DLD and can be mainly attributed either to the inability of children to assign thematic roles, their restricted working memory capacities, or a combination thereof. It is concluded that the comprehension of complex syntax might be a universal marker of DLD, which can be explained on the basis of either a grammatical or a processing account, or both. Common challenges in certain structures across languages can be used to design a comprehension assessment tool that can be applied in several languages.

Comprehension of clitic pronouns by children with cochlear implants: the role of sentence stress

OBJECTIVES

This study investigates the role of sentence stress on the comprehension of sentences with clitic pronouns (unstressed morphemes and a typical feature of Romance languages) by children with cochlear implants (CIs).

METHODS

Thirteen children (seven girls) with CIs and 15 children (seven girls) with NH between eight and 12 years who are monolingual speakers of Brazilian Portuguese participated on a computerized sentence comprehension task that involved manipulation of stress placement of possible antecedent words to clitic pronouns.

RESULTS

Children with CIs were significantly less accurate than children with NH in comprehending sentences with clitics, regardless of sentence stress. For children with NH, stress on the correct antecedent significantly increased sentence comprehension accuracy. For children with CI, there was no significant effect of sentence stress on selecting the correct antecedent for clitic pronouns.

DISCUSSION

Comprehension of sentences with clitic pronouns is challenging for children with CIs and this challenge holds cross-linguistically. Furthermore, children with CIs do not use prosodic information to support comprehension of sentences with clitics similarly to NH children.

CONCLUSION

Language-specific syntactic, morphosyntactic, and prosodic contrasts affecting sentence comprehension need to be assessed in children with CIs to plan an effective intervention.

Nonverbal Executive Functioning in Relation to Vocabulary and Morphosyntax in Preschool Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder

PURPOSE

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is characterized by persistent and unexplained difficulties in language development. Accumulating evidence shows that children with DLD also present with deficits in other cognitive domains, such as executive functioning (EF). There is an ongoing debate on whether exclusively verbal EF abilities are impaired in children with DLD or whether nonverbal EF is also impaired, and whether these EF impairments are related to their language difficulties. The aims of this study were to (a) compare nonverbal performance of preschoolers with DLD and typically developing (TD) peers, (b) examine how nonverbal EF and language abilities are related, and (c) investigate whether a diagnosis of DLD moderates the relationship between EF and language abilities.

METHOD

A total of 143 children (nDLD = 65, nTD = 78) participated. All children were between 3 and 6.5 years old and were monolingual Dutch. We assessed nonverbal EF with a visual selective attention task, a visuospatial short-term and working memory task, and a task gauging broad EF abilities. Vocabulary and morphosyntax were each measured with two standardized language tests. We created latent variables for EF, vocabulary, and morphosyntax.

RESULTS

Analyses showed that children with DLD were outperformed by their TD peers on all nonverbal EF tasks. Nonverbal EF abilities were related to morphosyntactic abilities in both groups, whereas a relationship between vocabulary and EF skills was found in the TD group only. These relationships were not significantly moderated by a diagnosis of DLD.

CONCLUSIONS

We found evidence for nonverbal EF impairments in preschool children with DLD. Moreover, nonverbal EF and morphosyntactic abilities were significantly related in these children. These findings may have implications for intervention and support the improvement of prognostic accuracy.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24121287.

How do parents refer to their children while playing? A cross-linguistic comparison of parental input to Bulgarian- and English-speaking children with ASD

Instances of person-reference, in the form of personal pronouns, names, or terms of endearment, are frequently used in child-directed speech. Examining this aspect of parental input is especially relevant to children with autism, who experience difficulties with person-reference. In this study, we compared the person-reference during parent-child interactions of Bulgarian (N=37) and English-speaking (N=37) parents of children with autism, who were matched on the language ability of their child. English-speaking parents used significantly more personal pronouns to refer to their children, while Bulgarian-speaking parents used the child's name more along with kinship terms. Furthermore, Bulgarian-speaking parents used significantly more different ways to refer to their child. These group differences were interpreted in the context of structural differences in the pronominal systems of Bulgarian and English, and in terms of culturally different discourse practices.

Are prosodic effects on sentence comprehension dependent on age?

PURPOSE

to investigate prosodic boundary effects on the comprehension of attachment ambiguities in Brazilian Portuguese and to test two hypotheses relying on the notion of boundary strength: the absolute boundary hypothesis (ABH) and the relative boundary hypothesis (RBH). Manipulations of prosodic structure influence how listeners interpret syntactically ambiguous sentences. However, the role of prosody in spoken language comprehension of sentences has received limited attention in languages other than English, particularly from a developmental perspective.

METHODS

Twenty-three adults and 15 children participated in a computerized sentence comprehension task involving syntactically ambiguous sentences. Each sentence was recorded in eight different prosodic forms with acoustic manipulations of F0, duration and pause varying the boundary size to reflect predictions of the ABH and RBH.

RESULTS

Children and adults differed in how prosody influenced their syntactic processing and children were significantly slower than adults. Results indicated that interpretation of sentences varied according to their prosodic forms.

CONCLUSION

Neither the ABH or the RBH explained how children and adults who speak Brazilian Portuguese use prosodic boundaries to disambiguate sentences. There is evidence that the way prosodic boundaries influence disambiguation varies cross-linguistically.

Specific Language Impairment, Autism Spectrum Disorders and Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorders: Is There Overlap in Language Deficits? A Review

Analysing language characteristics and understanding their dynamics is the key for a successful intervention by speech and language therapists (SLT). Thus, this review aims to investigate a possible overlap in language development shared by autism spectrum disorders (ASD), specific language impairment (SLI) and social (pragmatic) communication disorder (SPCD). The sources of this work were the PubMed, PsycInfo and SciELO databases, as well as the Scientific Open Access Repositories of Portugal. The final selection included 18 studies, focused on several linguistic areas. Results suggest that when individuals are matched according to some language or cognitive skills, they will also show similar characteristics in other language domains. Future work should be done based on spontaneous speech.

Syntactic development and verbal short-term memory of children with autism spectrum disorders having intellectual disabilities and children with down syndrome

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Previous studies suggest that syntactic development in children with intellectual disabilities (ID) is positively correlated with verbal short-term memory (VSTM). This study investigated the characteristics of syntactic development and their relationships of VSTM in children with ID based on type.

METHODS

The participants were children with ID (N = 34), including 14 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), 20 with Down syndrome (DS), with chronological ages from 8 years 10 months to 18 years 4 months and nonverbal mental ages (MA) of over 4 years, and typically developing (TD) children (N = 21) with chronological ages from 5 years 0 months to 5 years 10 months. They were assessed using VSTM, syntactic comprehension, and expression tasks.

RESULTS

The results showed that both the ASD and DS groups performed significantly lower on the syntactic comprehension task and the syntactic expression task than the TD group with the same nonverbal MA in the complex aspect of grammatical structure. In the VSTM task, the ASD group showed significantly lower performance in sentence and story repetition tasks than the TD group of the same nonverbal MA. The DS group showed significantly lower performance in forward digit span, and word, nonword, sentence, and story repetition tasks than the TD group of the same nonverbal MA.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest that children with ASD have difficulty in understanding and remembering linguistic information with complex semantic structures, and children with DS have a small capacity for VSTM, affecting their syntactic development.

Systematic Review of Recent Pediatric Down Syndrome Neuropsychology Literature: Considerations for Regression Assessment and Monitoring

OBJECTIVES

To conduct a systematic review of recent pediatric Down syndrome (DS) neuropsychology research that may be useful to clinicians and researchers examining regression in this population.

METHODS

We reviewed original peer-reviewed articles published between 2013 and 2018 studying neuropsychological profiles in DS.

RESULTS

Thirty-one articles (of 1231 included in the original search) passed all inclusion criteria, were evaluated for bias, and were included in the analysis.

CONCLUSION

Findings argued against a single "DS profile" and revealed multiple within-group differences as well as expected and unexpected differences relative to typically developing children and children with other intellectual and developmental disabilities. Areas identified as most germane to regression monitoring included working memory, inhibition, letter and word identification, navigational route learning, motor skills (when strong at baseline), single word receptive/expressive vocabulary, and adaptive function.

Comparing Tense and Agreement Productivity in Boys With Fragile X Syndrome, Children With Developmental Language Disorder, and Children With Typical Development

Purpose This study compared and characterized the tense and agreement productivity of boys with fragile X syndrome (FXS), children with developmental language disorder (DLD), and children with typical development (TD) matched on mean length of utterance. Method Twenty-two boys with FXS (M age = 12.22 years), 19 children with DLD (M age = 4.81 years), and 20 children with TD (M age = 3.23 years) produced language samples that were coded for their productive use of five tense markers (i.e., third-person singular, past tense -ed, copula BE, auxiliary BE, and auxiliary DO) using the tense and agreement productivity score. Children also completed norm-referenced cognitive and linguistic assessments. Results Children with DLD generally used tense and agreement markers less productively than children with TD, particularly third-person singular and auxiliary BE. However, boys with FXS demonstrated a more complicated pattern of productivity, where they were similar to children with DLD and TD, depending on the tense marker examined. Results revealed that children with DLD and TD showed a specific developmental sequence of the individual tense markers that aligns with patterns documented by previous studies, whereas boys with FXS demonstrated a more even profile of productivity. Conclusions These findings help to further clarify areas of overlap and discrepancy in tense and agreement productivity among boys with FXS and children with DLD. Additional clinical implications of these results are discussed.

Relations between Everyday Executive Functioning and Language in Youth with Down Syndrome and Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Language and executive functioning are major impairments in many neurodevelopmental disorders, but little is known about the relations between these constructs, particularly using parent-report. Thus, the current research sought to examine relations between executive function and language in two groups - Down syndrome (DS; n=41; Mage = 11.2) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n=91; Mage = 7.7). Results were as follows: in DS, executive function predicted pragmatic, but not structural language after covarying for age, sex, and social functioning; in ASD, executive function predicted both. Findings highlight the interrelatedness of language and executive functioning and may have implications for intervention development.

Language disorders

Developmental language disorders (DLD) are prevalent and persistent among school-age children but are often underrecognized. This chapter discusses the ways in which the various components of communication are impacted by these disorders and outlines the differences in expression seen in different languages. Research on biological and psychologic roots of the syndrome is also reviewed. As yet, no single definitive cause has been identified; the disorders are likely to result from a constellation of genetic, biological, and cognitive weaknesses that are influenced by environmental experiences. Basic methods of assessment and differential diagnosis are presented and the principles guiding the development of intervention programs are discussed.

The understanding of complex syntax in children with Down syndrome

Background: Down syndrome (DS) is associated with poor language skills that seem disproportionate to general nonverbal ability, but the nature and causes of this deficit are unclear. We assessed how individuals with DS understand complex linguistic constructions, and considered how cognitive ability and memory and impact the ability of those with DS to process these sentence types. Methods: There were three groups participating in the study: children with DS (n = 33) and two control groups composed of children with cognitive impairment of unknown aetiology (CI) (n = 32) and children with typical development (n = 33). The three groups did not differ on raw scores on a test of non-verbal cognitive ability. Using a newly devised animation task, we examined how well individuals with DS (n = 33) could understand relative clauses, complement clauses and adverbial clauses compared to children with CI and typically developing controls. Participants also completed the Test for the Reception of Grammar-2, three measures of memory (forward and backward digit recall, visuo-spatial memory) and a hearing screen. Results: Results indicated that (1) with the exception of intransitive subject relative clauses, children with DS performed at floor on all other complex sentences, (2) they performed at a significantly lower level than both control groups, and (3) DS status accounted for a significant proportion of the variance over and above memory skills. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that children with DS have a disproportionate difficulty understanding complex sentences compared to two control groups matched on mental age. Furthermore, their understanding of syntax is not completely explained by poor cognitive or memory skills, rather it appears to be a specific deficit that may distinguish children with DS from other neurodevelopmental disorders.

The understanding of complex syntax in children with Down syndrome

Background: Down syndrome (DS) is associated with poor language skills that seem disproportionate to general nonverbal ability, but the nature and causes of this deficit are unclear. We assessed how individuals with DS understand complex linguistic constructions, and considered how cognitive ability, memory and hearing level impact the ability of those with DS to process these sentence types. Methods: There were three groups participating in the study: children with DS (n = 33) and two control groups composed of children with cognitive impairment of unknown aetiology (CI) (n = 32) and children with typical development (n = 33). Both groups were matched to those with DS on cognitive ability. Using a newly devised animation task, we examined how well individuals with DS (n = 33) could understand relative clauses, complement clauses and adverbial clauses compared to children with CI and typically developing controls. Participants also completed the Test for the Reception of Grammar-2, three measures of memory (forward and backward digit recall, visuo-spatial memory) and a hearing screen. Results: Results indicated that (1) with the exception of intransitive subject relative clauses, children with DS performed at floor on all other complex sentences, (2) they performed at a significantly lower level than both control groups, and (3) DS status accounted for a significant proportion of the variance over and above memory skills. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that children with DS have a disproportionate difficulty understanding complex sentences compared to two control groups matched on mental age. Furthermore, their understanding of syntax is not completely explained by poor cognitive or memory skills, rather it appears to be a specific deficit that may distinguish children with DS from other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Development of the Mental Synthesis Evaluation Checklist (MSEC): A Parent-Report Tool for Mental Synthesis Ability Assessment in Children with Language Delay

Mental synthesis is the conscious purposeful process of synthesizing novel mental images from objects stored in memory. Mental synthesis ability is essential for understanding complex syntax, spatial prepositions, and verb tenses. In typical children, the timeline of mental synthesis acquisition is highly correlated with an increasing vocabulary. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), on the other hand, may learn hundreds of words but never acquire mental synthesis. In these individuals, tests assessing vocabulary comprehension may fail to demonstrate the profound deficit in mental synthesis. We developed a parent-reported Mental Synthesis Evaluation Checklist (MSEC) designed to assess mental synthesis acquisition in ASD children. The psychometric quality of MSEC was tested with 3715 parents of ASD children. Internal reliability of the 20-item MSEC was good (Cronbach's alpha >0.9). MSEC exhibited adequate test⁻retest reliability; good construct validity, supported by a positive correlation with the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC) Communication subscale; and good known group validity reflected by the difference in MSEC scores for children of different ASD severity levels. The MSEC questionnaire is copyright-free and can be used by researchers as a complimentary subscale for the ATEC evaluation. We hope that the addition of MSEC will make the combined assessment more sensitive to small steps in a child's development. As MSEC does not rely on productive language, it may be an especially useful tool for assessing the development of nonverbal and minimally verbal children.

Prosodic Boundary Effects on Syntactic Disambiguation in Children With Cochlear Implants

Purpose

This study investigated prosodic boundary effects on the comprehension of attachment ambiguities in children with cochlear implants (CIs) and normal hearing (NH) and tested the absolute boundary hypothesis and the relative boundary hypothesis. Processing speed was also investigated.

Method

Fifteen children with NH and 13 children with CIs (ages 8-12 years) who are monolingual speakers of Brazilian Portuguese participated in a computerized comprehension task with sentences containing prepositional phrase attachment ambiguity and manipulations of prosodic boundaries.

Results

Children with NH and children with CIs differed in how they used prosodic forms to disambiguate sentences. Children in both groups provided responses consistent with half of the predictions of the relative boundary hypothesis. The absolute boundary hypothesis did not characterize the syntactic disambiguation of children with CIs. Processing speed was similar in both groups.

Conclusions

Children with CIs do not use prosodic information to disambiguate sentences or to facilitate comprehension of unambiguous sentences similarly to children with NH. The results suggest that cross-linguistic differences may interact with syntactic disambiguation. Prosodic contrasts that affect sentence comprehension need to be addressed directly in intervention with children with CIs.

Developmental Associations Between Working Memory and Language in Children With Specific Language Impairment: A Longitudinal Study

PURPOSE

This longitudinal study examined differences in the development of working memory (WM) between children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing (TD) children. Further, it explored to what extent language at ages 7-8 years could be predicted by measures of language and/or WM at ages 4-5 years.

METHOD

Thirty children with SLI and 33 TD children who were previously examined on measures of WM and language at ages 4-5 years (T1) were reexamined at ages 7-8 years (T2).

RESULTS

The developmental course of WM was mostly similar for the two groups; only the development of the verbal storage component differed. At T1, children with SLI performed significantly below their TD peers on all components of WM (verbal storage, verbal central executive [CE], visuospatial storage, and visuospatial CE), whereas at T2, the differences for the visuospatial components were no longer significant when age and intelligence were taken into account. Hierarchical regression showed language and verbal CE at T1 to be significant predictors of language at T2, with no differences in the developmental associations between language and WM for the two groups.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of this study suggest that particularly verbal CE is of importance for the acquisition of linguistic skills.

Syntax and Morphology in Danish-Speaking Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The current study examined delays in syntax and morphology, and vocabulary, in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children ages 4-6 years with ASD (n = 21) and typical development (n = 21), matched on nonverbal mental age, completed five language tasks. The ASD group had significant delays in both syntax and morphology, and vocabulary measures, with significant within-group heterogeneity; furthermore, syntactic and morphological measures were impaired even for subgroups matched on vocabulary. Children in the ASD group without early language delay showed syntactic and morphological impairment, with intact performance on vocabulary and sentence repetition. Findings indicate that syntactic and morphological impairments are a significant concern for high-functioning children with ASD, and may be overlooked if language evaluation focuses exclusively on vocabulary.

Language and Speech in Autism

Autism is a developmental disability characterized by atypical social interaction, interests or body movements, and communication. Our review examines the empirical status of three communication phenomena believed to be unique to autism: pronoun reversal (using the pronoun you when the pronoun I is intended, and vice versa), echolalia (repeating what someone has said), and a reduced or even reversed production-comprehension lag (a reduction or reversal of the well-established finding that speakers produce less sophisticated language than they can comprehend). Each of these three phenomena has been claimed to be unique to autism; therefore, each has been proposed to be diagnostic of autism, and each has been interpreted in autism-centric ways (psychoanalytic interpretations of pronoun reversal, behaviorist interpretations of echolalia, and clinical lore about the production-comprehension lag). However, as our review demonstrates, none of these three phenomena is in fact unique to autism; none can or should serve as diagnostic of autism, and all call into question unwarranted assumptions about autistic persons and their language development and use.

Language and Speech in Autism

Autism is a developmental disability characterized by atypical social interaction, interests or body movements, and communication. Our review examines the empirical status of three communication phenomena believed to be unique to autism: pronoun reversal (using the pronoun you when the pronoun I is intended, and vice versa), echolalia (repeating what someone has said), and a reduced or even reversed production-comprehension lag (a reduction or reversal of the well-established finding that speakers produce less sophisticated language than they can comprehend). Each of these three phenomena has been claimed to be unique to autism; therefore, each has been proposed to be diagnostic of autism, and each has been interpreted in autism-centric ways (psychoanalytic interpretations of pronoun reversal, behaviorist interpretations of echolalia, and clinical lore about the production-comprehension lag). However, as our review demonstrates, none of these three phenomena is in fact unique to autism; none can or should serve as diagnostic of autism, and all call into question unwarranted assumptions about autistic persons and their language development and use.