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/

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

Aspects of language structure

Phonology

– Speech sounds

Sentence construction

– Appropriate use of grammatical

inflections

– Comprehension of complex

sentences

Areas of particular

difficulty for many

language-impaired

children

“The pencil on the shoe is blue”

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

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

SLI as an auditory deficit

Tallal, P. (2003). Language learning disabilities: integrating research approaches.

Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12, 206-211.

Problems distinguishing speech sounds

Poor language learning

Auditory processing

deficit

Auditory temporal processing model

7

Implications for intervention

Fast transitional elements amplified and stretched

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

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

Psychology and Psychiatry, 52(3), 224-235.

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

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?

Bishop, D. V. M., Adams, C. V., & Rosen, S. (2006). Resistance of grammatical

impairment to computerized comprehension training in children with specific and non-

specific language impairments. International Journal of Language and Communication

Disorders, 41, 19-40.

Stuart Rosen

UCL

Caroline Adams

Oxford

Adaptive threshold estimation; unpaced presentation

Design of study

Intervention

– Less intensive than FFW (15 min sessions)

– Only two training ‘games’:

• comprehension/spelling

Group S: trained with regular speech

Group M: trained with modified speech

Group U: untrained

Comprehension training

Amount of training

group S

N = 12

group M

N = 12

sessions: mean (SD) 14.50 (7.57) 16.00 (7.90)

range 6-26 6-29

trials: mean (SD) 1162 (847) 1162 (646)

range 243-2529 289-2191

Normal Modified

speech speech

Time 2 : retest

Average of 80 days after time 1

Same battery of standardized language

tests

Parallel forms used

TROG-2 scores

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

Group S

N = 12

Group M

N = 12

Group U

N = 9

drop-out

N = 3

sc

ale

d s

co

re

pretest

posttest

• All groups improved;

• No effect of training or speech modification

• Improvement unrelated to amount of training

• Improvement unrelated to initial auditory scores

Comprehension training

Examination of learning in the grammar game

Children tended to get stuck at a level of 80-

90% 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

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

Julie Hsu

Ullman & Pierpont, 2005 The Procedural Deficit hypothesis

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

SLI: Predictions from procedural deficit hypothesis

• Relatively unimpaired in verbal and nonverbal

paired-associate learning

• Sequential learning deficits for verbal and

nonverbal materials

Ullman, M. T., & Pierpont, E. I. (2005). Specific language impairment is not specific to

language: The procedural deficit hypothesis. Cortex, 41, 399-433.

1 4 2 2 4 1 3 1 4 2 2 4 1 3 1 4 2 2 4 1 3 ….

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

25

Paired-associate learning

26

• Same as vocabulary task except learn to associate meaningless sounds/patterns

Nonverbal paired-associate learning

Work in

progress,

please do

not quote!

27

• Noisy data – hard task, but clear learning

• No main effect of group; SLI and age-matched equivalent

Work in

progress,

please do

not quote!

28

• 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

Paired associate learning: vocabulary

29

• SLI learning RATE is same as control groups

• Initial level lower than age-matched, equivalent to

language-matched

Work in

progress,

please do

not quote!

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)

31

Main effect of group is not significant

Significant interaction of session x group

Reversible prepositions Learning for children scoring < 90% session 1

N = 15

N = 16

Work in

progress,

please do

not quote!

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

• SLI significantly better with repeated items on trials 2-3

• No effect of repeated items in language-matched group

Reversible prepositions Learning for children scoring < 90% session 1

Work in

progress,

please do

not quote!

34

TR

OG

-2 b

locks p

assed

Language-controls SLI

Pre-test Post-test Pre-test Post-test

No transfer of training to TROG-2 Children scoring < 90% session 1

Work in

progress,

please do

not quote!

Zero-order r

Variable Nonword

repetition

Word span Score day 1 Score

day 4

Age (yr) -.20 .16 .14 .20 .08

Nonword rep. .32* .33* .16 -.06

Word span .35* .47** .34**

Score day 1 .48** .37**

R2 = .35

35

Predictors of learning: preposition task

Bottom line:

• Nonword repetition & word span predict day 1 performance

• Day 1 performance and word span predict day 4 performance

Work in

progress,

please do

not quote!

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 rote-

learning, 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

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