Despite publication of numerous cancer pain management guidelines, undermedication appears to be a persistent problem for patients with painful bone metastases referred for radiotherapy.

This paper reviews the findings of recent studies examining the motor abilities of children with specific language impairment (SLI). Standardized measures of motor ability confirm that children with SLI exhibit deficits in fine and gross motor skill, both simple and complex. These difficulties also extend to speech-motor ability, particularly with the control of their articulatory movements. Communicative gesturing, on the other hand, does not appear to be significantly impacted in SLI. Some of the latest studies reviewed in this paper have examined motor processes supported by procedural memory, which is argued to be impaired in SLI. The results of these studies indicate that children with SLI have difficulty with motor sequence learning, but may show deficits in other procedural motor processes as well. Despite significant progress with understanding the motor issues in SLI, future studies are needed to hone in on the nature of this impairment.

Purpose The aim of the current study was to investigate whether dual language experience modulates processing speed in typically developing (TD) children and in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). We also examined whether processing speed predicted vocabulary and sentence-level abilities in receptive and expressive modalities. Method We examined processing speed in monolingual and bilingual school-age children (ages 8–12 years) with and without DLD. TD children (35 monolinguals, 24 bilinguals) and children with DLD (17 monolinguals, 10 bilinguals) completed a visual choice reaction time task. The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and the Expressive Vocabulary Test were used as language measures. Results The children with DLD exhibited slower response times relative to TD children. Response time was not modified by bilingual experience, neither in children with typical development nor children with DLD. Also, we found that faster processing speed was related to higher language abilities, but this relationship was not significant when socioeconomic status was controlled for. The magnitude of the association did not differ between the monolingual and bilingual groups across the language measures. Conclusions Slower processing speed is related to lower language abilities in children. Processing speed is minimally influenced by dual language experience, at least within this age range. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12210311

Purpose The aim of the current study was to investigate whether dual language experience modulates the efficiency of the 3 attentional networks (alerting, orienting, and executive control) in typically developing (TD) children and in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Method We examined the attentional networks in monolingual and bilingual school-aged children (ages 8–12 years) with and without DLD. TD children (35 monolinguals, 23 bilinguals) and children with DLD (17 monolinguals, 9 bilinguals) completed the Attention Network Test ( Fan et al., 2002 ; Fan, McCandliss, Fossella, Flombaum, & Posner, 2005 ). Results Children with DLD exhibited poorer executive control than TD children, but executive control was not modified by bilingual experience. The bilingual group with DLD and both TD groups exhibited an orienting effect, but the monolingual group with DLD did not. No group differences were found for alerting. Conclusions Children with DLD have weak executive control skills. These skills are minimally influenced by dual language experience, at least in this age range. A potential bilingual advantage in orienting may be present in the DLD group.

The PDH requires reframing. The sequence learning deficits in SLI are modest and specific to more difficult tasks. Visual-motor adaptation, on the other hand, appears to be unaffected in SLI.

Background/Aims: Specific language impairment (SLI) is characterized by deficits in language ability. However, studies have also reported motor impairments in SLI. It has been proposed that the language and motor impairments in SLI share common origins. This exploratory study compared the gross, fine, oral, and speech motor skills of children with SLI and children with typical development (TD) to determine whether children with SLI would exhibit difficulties on particular motor tasks and to inform us about the underlying cognitive deficits in SLI. Methods: A total of 13 children with SLI (aged 8–12 years) and 14 age-matched children with TD were administered the Movement Assessment Battery for Children – Second Edition and the Verbal Motor Production Assessment for Children to examine gross and fine motor skills and oral and speech motor skills, respectively. Results: Children with SLI scored significantly lower on gross, fine, and speech motor tasks relative to children with TD. In particular, children with SLI found movements organized into sequences and movement modifications challenging. On oral motor tasks, however, children with SLI were comparable to children with TD. Conclusion: Impairment of the motor sequencing and adaptation processes may explain the performance of children with SLI on these tasks, which may be suggestive of a procedural memory deficit in SLI.

Procedural learning does not appear to be modified by language experience, supporting the notion that it is a child-intrinsic language learning mechanism that is minimally malleable to experience.

We suggest that this perseverative behavior is indicative of a domain-general problem in planning in SLI.