This document discusses specific language impairment (SLI) in children. It summarizes that: 1) SLI causes language development to deviate from the typical course even though other areas develop normally, and is not due to hearing loss, physical issues, or brain damage. 2) Children with SLI often struggle with phonology and sentence comprehension. 3) Previous theories proposed that SLI is caused by auditory processing or short-term memory deficits, but recent studies found computerized training did not consistently help, and not all children with SLI have auditory issues. 4) A new study found that children with SLI learned vocabulary and sentences at a similar rate to controls when material was repeated,

1. Why do some children
find language so hard to learn?
Dorothy Bishop
University of Oxford
http://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/oscci/
http://deevybee.blogspot.com/

2. Specific language impairment (SLI)

Language does not follow usual
developmental course

Typical development in other areas

Not due to hearing loss, physical
abnormality, acquired brain damage

3. Aspects of language structure

Phonology
– Speech sounds

Areas of particular
difficulty for many
language-impaired
children
Sentence construction
– Appropriate use of grammatical
inflections
– Comprehension of complex
sentences
“The pencil on the shoe is blue”

4. Two types of explanation

SLI as an auditory perceptual problem
ba di bu da ki do

ba bi bu da di do
SLI as a short-term memory problem
ba di bu da ki do
ba di bu da ki do

5. SLI as an auditory deficit
Eisenson, J. (1972). Aphasia in children:
“The aphasic child’s basic perceptual impairment [is] one for
auditory perception for speech at the rate at which speech is
normally presented.”
Theory subsequently developed by Tallal and colleagues
Tallal, P. (2003). Language learning disabilities: integrating research approaches.
Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12, 206-211.

6. Auditory temporal processing model
Auditory
processing
deficit
Problems
distinguishing
speech sounds
Poor language
learning

7. Implications for intervention


FastForWord® - computerised training
– Developed by Tallal and colleagues;
– Very intensive; 90 min x 5 day/wk x 6 wk
– Uses speech that is modified to make brief/low
intensity portions more salient
Fast transitional elements amplified and stretched
7

8. FastForWord® : studies of effectiveness
Meta-analysis combining results from six
high-quality trials found FFW group did no
better than control group
Strong, G. K., et al. (2010). A systematic meta-analytic review of evidence for the
effectiveness of the ‘Fast ForWord’ language intervention program. Journal of Child 8
Psychology and Psychiatry, 52(3), 224-235.

9. Might auditory manipulation still
be effective?
 Auditory training is only part of the FFW package
 Some children who were given the intervention
had no problems with auditory discrimination

10. Bishop, Rosen & Adams, 2006
Questions

Can computerised training improve comprehension in
children with receptive language problems?

If so, does speech modification help?

Does child’s auditory processing status make a
difference?
Stuart Rosen
UCL
Caroline Adams
Oxford
Bishop, D. V. M., Adams, C. V., & Rosen, S. (2006). Resistance of grammatical
impairment to computerized comprehension training in children with specific and nonspecific language impairments. International Journal of Language and Communication
Disorders, 41, 19-40.

11. Adaptive threshold estimation; unpaced presentation

12. Design of study
Group S: trained with regular speech
Group M: trained with modified speech
Group U: untrained

Intervention
– Less intensive than FFW (15 min sessions)
– Only two training ‘games’:
• comprehension/spelling

13. Comprehension training

15. Amount of training
Normal
speech
group S
N = 12
sessions: mean (SD)
range
trials: mean (SD)
range
Modified
speech
group M
N = 12
14.50 (7.57) 16.00 (7.90)
6-26
6-29
1162 (847)
1162 (646)
243-2529
289-2191

16. Time 2 : retest



Average of 80 days after time 1
Same battery of standardized language
tests
Parallel forms used

17. TROG-2 scores
85
scaled score
80
75
70
pretest
65
posttest
60
55
50
Group S
N = 12
Group M
N = 12
Group U
N=9
drop-out
N=3
• All groups improved;
• No effect of training or speech modification
• Improvement unrelated to amount of training
• Improvement unrelated to initial auditory scores

18. Comprehension training

Examination of learning in the grammar game

Children tended to get stuck at a level of 8090% correct on constructions such as
above/below; active/passive

i.e. performance is not at chance, but children
seem unable to get to automatic correct
understanding

19. What have we learned?

Many children with receptive language disorders
don’t have the auditory processing problems
postulated by Tallal’s theory

No relationship between auditory impairment and
learning

On a task that doesn’t tax auditory perception,
learning occurs but it is very slow

20. Hsu & Bishop
New study looking at learning processes
in SLI
20
Julie Hsu

21. Ullman & Pierpont, 2005
The Procedural Deficit hypothesis

22. Ullman & Pierpont, 2005
The Procedural Deficit hypothesis
•
Evidence for two brain systems:
declarative and procedural
•
Declarative learning implicated in learning
arbitrary associations – inc. vocabulary
Procedural learning implicated in learning
of syntax and phonology:
•
•
•
Learning is unconscious/automatic
Rule learning

23. SLI:
Predictions from procedural deficit hypothesis
• Relatively unimpaired in verbal and nonverbal
paired-associate learning
• Sequential learning deficits for verbal and
nonverbal materials
1 4 2 2 4 1 3 1 4 2 2 4 1 3 1 4 2 2 4 1 3 ….
Ullman, M. T., & Pierpont, E. I. (2005). Specific language impairment is not specific to
language: The procedural deficit hypothesis. Cortex, 41, 399-433.

24. Current study: participants
48 children with SLI (7-11 yrs) (2 subgroups)
20 age-matched typically-developing children
28 language-matched* typically-developing
children (4-6 yrs)
Matched on
language
comprehension test
24

25. Paired-associate learning
25

26. Nonverbal paired-associate learning
• Same as vocabulary task except learn
to associate meaningless
sounds/patterns
Work in
progress,
please do
not quote!
26

27. Work in
progress,
please do
not quote!
• Noisy data – hard task, but clear learning
• No main effect of group; SLI and age-matched equivalent
27

28. Paired associate learning: vocabulary
• 8 new words; 3 times each within a
training session
• Presentation of all 8 items before
training started
• Same game format – put the named
item in the robot’s tummy
28

29. Work in
progress,
please do
not quote!
• SLI learning RATE is same as control groups
• Initial level lower than age-matched, equivalent to
language-matched
29

30. Sentence comprehension training
(spatial prepositions)
Training
Half the children trained with
above/below and the rest with
before/after
4 training sessions (5 mins
each)
30

31. Reversible prepositions
Learning for children scoring < 90% session 1
Work in
progress,
please do
not quote!
N = 15
N = 16
Main effect of group is not significant
Significant interaction of session x group
31

32. Additional feature of study

Inclusion of items where entire
sentence repeated: to see if
child rote-learns meaning
– e.g. item A is “the apple is above
the chair”
32

33. Reversible prepositions
Learning for children scoring < 90% session 1
Work in
progress,
please do
not quote!
• SLI significantly better with repeated items on trials 2-3
• No effect of repeated items in language-matched group
33

34. No transfer of training to TROG-2
Children scoring < 90% session 1
Pre-test Post-test
TROG-2 blocks passed
Pre-test Post-test
Work in
progress,
please do
not quote!
Language-controls
SLI
34

35. Predictors of learning: preposition task
Work in
progress,
please do
not quote!
Zero-order r
Variable
Nonword
repetition
Word span
Age (yr)
-.20
.16
.14
.20
.08
.32*
.33*
.16
-.06
.35*
.47**
.34**
.48**
.37**
Nonword rep.
Word span
Score day 1
Score day 1
Score
day 4

R2 = .35
Bottom line:
• Nonword repetition & word span predict day 1 performance
35
• Day 1 performance and word span predict day 4 performance

36. Conclusion
• Key deficit in SLI: learning to extract sequential
information from serial input, whether verbal or
nonverbal*
• Limited short-term memory, rather than perceptual
problems, seems a key problem for many children
• Learning does occur, though seems reliance on rotelearning, rather than pattern extraction
* Nonverbal sequences not covered in this talk: see Hsu, H. J., & Bishop, D. V.
M. (2014). Sequence-specific procedural learning deficits in children with
specific language impairment. Developmental Science, in press. doi:
10.1111/desc.12125
36

37. Raising Awareness of Language Learning Impairments
http://www.youtube.com/RALLIcampaign
https://www.facebook.com/ralli.campaign.page