engleski

Verb processing in children with developmental language disorder

Speed, accuracy, and type of errors during word processing in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have often been in the focus of various lexical studies. Results of these studies are uniform: children with DLD show slow and less accurate processing. Less is known about the speed and accuracy of verb processing. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore whether there are differences in the speed and accuracy of verb processing between children with DLD and their typical developing chronological peers (TDC) and younger, language age-matched peers (TDC-y), with special attention to the type of errors produced. The participants in this pilot study were 30 children between the ages of 7 ; 11 and 11 years. Average age of children with DLD was 10 ; 2 ; TDC children 9 ; 9 ; and TDC-y children were 8, 1. Research procedure included stimulus word presented in auditory form, and children’s task was to choose which one of the three presented pictures on computer screen represent the verb they just heard. Results showed no statistically significant differences regarding speed and accuracy between groups of participants. The difference in proportion of errors in picture selection task did not reach statistical significance when it comes to phonological mistakes, nor when it comes to semantic errors. However, the proportion of phonological errors had a tendency of highest scores in group of children with DLD, while proportion of semantic errors was highest in TDC- y. According to findings from this study, it seems important to emphasize the importance of phonological exercises parallel with exercises focused on vocabulary span in work with children with DLD. Number of exposures to the new word in children with DLD can play a significant role in speed of processing but it can also lead to overlearning affecting research outcomes. Children with DLD who participated in this study had been enrolled in speech and language therapy for several years. Future studies should, among other, also control this variable.

verb processing ; developmental language disorder

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