Serial order short-term memory capacities and specific language impairment: No evidence for a causal association

Abstract

This study re-explored the nature of verbal STM deficits in children with specific language impairment (SLI), by distinguishing item and serial order STM processes. Recent studies have shown serial order STM capacity to be a critical determinant of language development, relative to item STM. In Experiment 1, 12 children with SLI, 12 age-matched children and 12 language-matched children were administered serial order recognition and reconstruction tasks. Experiment 2 assessed implicit serial learning abilities via a Hebb learning task. The SLI group showed impaired performance for the serial order reconstruction and recognition tasks, relative to language-matched and/or age-matched control groups. However, normal serial position effects were observed in all SLI children in the serial order reconstruction task, suggesting normal coding of serial position information. Similarly, performance on the Hebb serial learning task was at chronological age appropriate levels. Experiment 3 showed that the group differences observed for the serial order STM tasks in Experiment 1disappeared when the SLI group was compared to a mental age-matched control group. Experiment 4 showed similar performance levels in the SLI group and the mental age-matched control group for a nonword recognition task assessing item STM capacities. This study shows that children with SLI have no specific impairments for serial order and item STM components but that poorer general cognitive efficiency is related to functional limitations in verbal STM tasks. The data are in line with limited information processing accounts of SLI.236 words

Domain-specific and domain-general constraints on word and sequence learning

“…Implicit learning of the sequence of pictures of familiar nouns was evident in our Hebb visual-auditory learning task, adding to the growing evidence of Hebbian learning in children (Majerus et al, 2008;Mosse & Jarrold, 2008. Consistent with Mosse and Jarrold (2008), the Hebbian learning pattern observed in our typically developing group was characterized by maintenance of performance on Hebb trials and by a decrement on filler trials.…”

“…Mosse and Jarrold (2008) suggested that the filler-list decrement was likely due to fatigue effects or to the buildup of proactive interference in their young participants, effects that were counteracted by Hebbian learning on the repeated lists. No group differences in Hebbian learning, when compared to typically developing matched controls, have been found for SLI (Majerus et al, 2008) or Down syndrome (Mosse & Jarrold, 2010) groups. These findings have been interpreted as suggesting that basic serial-order detection and learning mechanisms are preserved in both SLI and Down syndrome, despite deficits in phonological short-term memory in these groups.…”

“…The Hebb effect has been replicated in many studies involving adults (e.g., Couture & Tremblay, 2006;Cumming, Page, & Norris, 2003), but only more recently in typically developing children (Mosse & Jarrold, 2008) and children with impairments (Majerus et al, 2008;Mosse & Jarrold, 2010). In Mosse and Jarrold's (2008) study, a group of 5-to 7-year-old typically developing children completed three blocks of trials in which Hebb lists were presented alternately with eight filler lists.…”

“…As a result, in the present study we focused on the domain-specific processes of phonological short-term memory and the domain-general resources of working memory. Domain-specific phonological processes involving the retention, coding, and manipulation of phonological information have been found to be highly related to the long-term retention of phonological forms in word learning (Gupta & MacWhinney, 1997;Leclercq & Majerus, 2010;Majerus et al, 2009;Majerus, Poncelet, Greffe, & Van der Linden, 2006). The phonological loop, as described by Baddeley and Hitch (1974) and subsequently developed by others (Burgess & Hitch, 1998;Page & Norris, 1998), incorporates both the storage of phonological material in short-term memory and its recoding from visual stimuli.…”

Dissociable components of phonological and lexical–semantic short-term memory and their relation to impaired word production in aphasia

“…At the end of each trial, the participants were given cards on which the digits presented during the sequence were printed and they had to sort the cards according to their order of presentation. On the digit serial order recognition task (see details in Majerus et al, 2009), participants had to judge whether or not two lists of digits (length 3 to 8), presented auditorily, were presented in the same order. On both tasks, the stimuli were known in advance-the participants were told which items would be presented on each trial, and on the digit serial order reconstruction, the digits were also provided at recall.…”