Delage Hélène, Stanford Emily, Baratti Clara, Durrleman Stéphanie
Équipe de Psycholinguistique et Logopédie, Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de L'Éducation, Université de Genève, Genève, Switzerland.
Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Humanities, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Front Rehabil Sci. 2023 Jan 4;3:1068959. doi: 10.3389/fresc.2022.1068959. eCollection 2022.
This study assesses the impact of a working memory training program on the syntactic complexity of the spontaneous speech of French-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). Thirty-nine 6- to 12-year-old children with DLD were allocated to a WM training (DLD, = 20) or an active control group (DLD, = 19). The computerized training sessions took place three times a week, yielding 12 training hours per participant. Syntactic complexity was assessed in storytelling, measuring mean length of utterances, use of embedded clauses and rate of errors in complex utterances. The performance of participants with DLD was first compared to previous spontaneous data of 40 typically-developing (TD) children of the same age. Then, intragroup (pre- vs. post-test) and intergroup (DLD vs. DLD) comparisons were made to assess the impact of the working memory training on the language measures. Global results confirmed syntactic impairment in children with DLD, as opposed to TD children, with large differences for the use of embedded clauses. Findings also suggested gains in the mastery of embedded clauses in children who participated in the WM training, whereas no gains were observed in the DLD control group. These findings confirm deficits in complex syntax in children with DLD, in particular in embedded clauses, and may encourage the clinical use of language sample analysis, which provides an ecological account of children's language performance. While our results should be replicated on a larger scale, they also suggest positive transfer effects of working memory training on the capacity of participants with DLD to produce embedded clauses, in line with previous studies showing a positive effect of WM training on tasks of expressive syntax. It thus seems that working memory training can yield benefits for language, which leaves open the door to new therapeutic approaches for children with DLD.
本研究评估了工作记忆训练项目对患有发育性语言障碍(DLD)的法语儿童自发言语句法复杂性的影响。39名6至12岁的DLD儿童被分配到工作记忆训练组(DLD,n = 20)或积极对照组(DLD,n = 19)。计算机化训练课程每周进行三次,每位参与者共接受12小时的训练。通过讲故事来评估句法复杂性,测量话语平均长度、嵌入子句的使用情况以及复杂话语中的错误率。首先将DLD儿童的表现与40名同龄典型发育(TD)儿童先前的自发数据进行比较。然后进行组内(测试前与测试后)和组间(DLD与DLD)比较,以评估工作记忆训练对语言指标的影响。总体结果证实了DLD儿童存在句法损伤,这与TD儿童不同,在嵌入子句的使用上存在很大差异。研究结果还表明,参与工作记忆训练的儿童在嵌入子句的掌握方面有所进步,而DLD对照组则未观察到进步。这些发现证实了DLD儿童在复杂句法方面存在缺陷,尤其是在嵌入子句方面,并且可能会鼓励临床使用语言样本分析,这种分析能够对儿童的语言表现提供生态学解释。虽然我们的结果应在更大规模上进行重复验证,但它们也表明工作记忆训练对DLD参与者生成嵌入子句的能力具有积极的迁移效应,这与之前显示工作记忆训练对表达性句法任务有积极影响的研究一致。因此,工作记忆训练似乎可以对语言产生益处,这为DLD儿童的新治疗方法打开了大门。