The Relationship Between Language and Planning in Children With Language Impairment

Abstract

Purpose This study examined the relationship between language and planning, a higher order executive function skill, in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing (TD) children. We hypothesized differences between groups in planning performance and in the role of verbal mediation during planning. Method Thirty-one children with SLI and 50 TD age-matched peers (8–12 years) participated in the study. We assessed language ability via a standardized language measure and planning via a dual-task Tower of London paradigm with 3 conditions: no secondary task (baseline), articulatory suppression secondary task (disrupted verbal mediation), and motor suppression secondary task (control for secondary task demand). Results We found similar overall accuracy between children with SLI and TD peers on the Tower of London. Children with SLI executed trials more slowly at baseline than TD peers but not under articulatory suppression, and children with SLI spent less time planning than TD children at baseline and under articulatory suppression. There was a significant interaction among group, language ability, and planning time under articulatory suppression. Children with SLI who had relatively better language ability spent less time planning than children with SLI who had poorer language ability when verbal mediation was disrupted. This pattern was reversed for TD children. Conclusions This study provides evidence for a relationship between language and planning, yet this relationship differed between children with SLI compared to TD peers. Findings suggest that children with SLI use nonlinguistic perceptual strategies to a greater degree than verbal strategies on visuospatial planning tasks and that intervention might address strategy use for planning.

Are items actively removed from working memory during free time in children with developmental language disorder?

“…Additionally, the SOB‐CS model does not make specific predictions regarding the role of rehearsal in working memory (Oberauer et al., 2012) whereas other models of working memory (e.g., decay‐based models) do make such predictions. It is possible that rehearsal strategies, such as verbal mediation and attentional refreshing, were deployed differently in our DLD and TD groups, and it is possible that the relationship between rehearsal and working memory performance differed between the DLD and TD groups (e.g., Larson et al., 2019). Future work should explore these possibilities, as well as how other models of working memory may account for phenomena observed in the current study (Oberauer et al., 2016).…”

Mental rotation and language in autism spectrum disorder

“…Though we used a measure of language that captures the key area of weakness in language impairment, grammar skills, in our analyses, we were not able to examine within subgroup patterns. Future research would benefit from analyzing this subgroup to better understand structural language impairment in ASD, the possibility of overlapping patterns of findings with peers who have developmental language disorder (e.g., Larson et al, 2019), and the possibility of more similar patterns between NT peers and autistic individuals with relatively strong language skills than autistic individuals who experience structural language challenges. Also, investigating the potential role of spatial cognition and performance on mental rotation tasks for success at word learning may be informative.…”

“…In these autistic individuals with relatively poor structural language skills, there may be an even greater dissociation between language and cognitive systems or greater discrepancy between these systems. Larson et al (2021) showed that individuals with ASD and co‐occurring structural language impairment used verbal mediation to a lesser degree than autistic peers without structural language impairment, and both of these groups used verbal mediation to a lesser degree than NT peers on a visuospatial planning task (see also Larson et al, 2019, for similar patterns in a developmental language disorder group and Johnston & Ellis Weismer, 1983, for evidence of poorer mental rotation in individuals with language disorder). Ellis Weismer et al (2018) also demonstrated links between language and performance on several visuospatial executive function tasks that differed in ASD relative to NT peers and in autistic individuals with versus without co‐occurring structural language impairment.…”

Beyond the Senses: How Self-Directed Speech and Word Meaning Structure Impact Executive Functioning and Theory of Mind in Individuals With Hearing and Language Problems

“…In children around the age of 6 years, self-directed speech typically starts to internalize (it “goes underground;” Vygotsky, 1934/1986 , p. 34) until it finally becomes silent (i.e., inner speech; Vygotsky, 1934/1986 ; Bivens and Berk, 1990 ; Damianova et al, 2012 ). In children with language problems, this internalization process appears to be delayed (i.e., inner speech and private speech emerge at a later age; Lidstone et al, 2012 ; Aziz et al, 2017 ), and they draw upon it to a lesser degree in planning (Kuvalja et al, 2014 ; Larson et al, 2019 ).…”