Relationships between executive funtions and linguistic skills in Spanish-speaking children with and without developmental language disorder
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Date
2024
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Abstract
Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a condition that impacts the development of different language skills, mainly vocabulary and morphosyntax. In addition, DLD has often been associated with difficulties in executive functions (EFs). It has also been suggested that difficulties in EF could be linked to language deficits in these children. Based on this, a broader perspective suggests that the development of language and EFs may be interconnected in children with and without DLD. However, the specific patterns in which each EF is associated with language skills remain unclear. For this reason, three studies were proposed. The first study aims to describe the performance of several EFs in children with DLD compared to an age-matched typical development (TD) group. Then, two central studies explore the EFs-language relationship in children with and without DLD. Study 2 investigates the relationship between several EF measures and vocabulary knowledge (size and depth). Study 3 evaluates the relationship between several EFs and morphosyntactic skills (comprehension and production). For the three studies, 204 children aged 6 to 8 years were examined: 105 with DLD and 99 with typical development (TD). In Study 1, multiple regression models were performed with group (DLD and TD) as the independent variable and each EF, one at a time, as the dependent variable. For studies 2 and 3, multiple regression models were performed including the EFs as predictors and language skills (vocabulary in study 2, and morphosyntax in study 3) as outcome variables. All models were adjusted to the participant's age and nonverbal intelligence. Complementarily, in studies 2 and 3, after identifying the EFs associated with each language skill (vocabulary and morphosyntax), path analyses were conducted to explore models of relationships between variables. The results of Study 1 indicate that DLD children have significantly lower performance in interference control, response inhibition, and verbal working memory compared to TD children. There was no difference in nonverbal working memory and cognitive flexibility. Results from studies 2 and 3 indicate that verbal working memory and cognitive flexibility are significantly associated with vocabulary knowledge and morphosyntactic skills in children with DLD. In children with TD, there is less reliance on EFs for language processing. These studies suggest that EFs play a crucial role in language development in children with DLD, highlighting the importance of including EF activities in intervention programs for this population.
Description
Tesis (Doctor of Psychology)--Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2024
Keywords
Developmental language disorder, Executive functions, Vocabulary knowledge, Morphosyntactic skills