Language Acquisition of Early Sequentially Bilingual Children Is Moderated by Short-Term Memory for Order in Developmental Language Disorder: Findings from the HelSLI Study

Autor/inn/en	Lahti-Nuuttila, Pekka; Laasonen, Marja; Smolander, Sini; Kunnari, Sari; Arkkila, Eva; Service, Elisabet
Titel	Language Acquisition of Early Sequentially Bilingual Children Is Moderated by Short-Term Memory for Order in Developmental Language Disorder: Findings from the HelSLI Study
Quelle	In: International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 56 (2021) 5, S.907-926 (20 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Lahti-Nuuttila, Pekka) ORCID (Laasonen, Marja) ORCID (Smolander, Sini) ORCID (Kunnari, Sari) ORCID (Arkkila, Eva) ORCID (Service, Elisabet)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1368-2822
DOI	10.1111/1460-6984.12635
Schlagwörter	Language Acquisition; Bilingual Students; Preschool Children; Developmental Disabilities; Language Impairments; Short Term Memory; Second Language Learning; Scores; Nonverbal Learning; Receptive Language + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Sprachaneignung; Spracherwerb; Pre-school age; Preschool age; Child; Children; Pre-school education; Preschool education; Vorschulalter; Kind; Kinder; Vorschulkind; Vorschulkinder; Vorschulerziehung; Vorschule; Entwicklungsstörung; Speech disorder; Speech disorders; Speech disabilities; Speech disability; Speech handicap; Speech handicaps; Speech impairment; Speech impairments; Language handicaps; Sprachbehinderung; Kurzzeitgedächtnis; Zweitsprachenerwerb; Rezeptive Kommunikationsfähigkeit
Abstract	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. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01