Filiatrault-Veilleux Pamela, Pichonsky Julia, Desmarais Chantal
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Université Laval, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.
Autism Dev Lang Impair. 2025 Jun 20;10:23969415251353154. doi: 10.1177/23969415251353154. eCollection 2025 Jan-Dec.
Inferential comprehension difficulties and their impacts on reading comprehension are well documented in school-aged children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). In comparison, fewer studies have been conducted in young children with DLD prior to their formal schooling journey. In addition, the contribution of linguistic and cognitive skills to oral inferential comprehension abilities in preschoolers, notably receptive vocabulary, phonological short-term memory, and theory of mind (ToM), requires further investigation. The first aim of this study is to explore how young children presenting with DLD aged 5 to 6 years perform when compared to same-age and younger children presenting with typical language development (TLD) on measures of oral inferential comprehension, receptive vocabulary, ToM, and phonological short-term memory. The second aim is to analyze how these linguistic and cognitive skills contribute to oral inferential comprehension in both DLD and TLD preschool children.
A total of 112 preschool children participated in this study, including 21 ( = 21) children with DLD aged 5 to 6 years and two TLD groups, 37 ( = 37) younger children aged 4 to 5 years and 54 ( = 54) same-age children. A narrative-based oral inferential comprehension task was administered to all children, in addition to measures of receptive vocabulary, phonological short-term memory, and ToM. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVAs) were used to compare performances between the three groups, followed by Pearson correlations and hierarchical regression analyses to examine the contribution of these variables to oral inferential comprehension abilities across the sample.
After controlling for level of parental education (LPE) and biological sex, children with DLD performed significantly below the same-age TLD group on all four measures with large effect sizes ( < .001; = .17-.44). Their performance was comparable to the younger TLD group on measure of oral inferential comprehension ( = .234), and significantly below on measures of receptive vocabulary ( = .008), phonological short-term memory ( < .001), and ToM ( = .028). Results from the regression analysis indicated that age, LPE, diagnosis condition, receptive vocabulary and ToM accounted for 53% of the total variance in oral inferential comprehension.
This study reiterates the early listening comprehension difficulties experienced by preschool children with DLD when compared to children presenting with typical language development. The results also indicate that when controlling for age, LPE and diagnosis condition, children are likely to have better inferential comprehension abilities if they perform well on a measure of ToM. Considering that challenges related to language comprehension are acknowledged to be persistent and less responsive to intervention, these findings can help inform the development of evidence-based interventions aiming at supporting language comprehension of young children with DLD.
发育性语言障碍（DLD）学龄儿童的推理理解困难及其对阅读理解的影响已有充分记录。相比之下，针对尚未正式入学的患有DLD的幼儿开展的研究较少。此外，语言和认知技能对学龄前儿童口语推理理解能力的贡献，尤其是接受性词汇、语音短期记忆和心理理论（ToM），还需要进一步研究。本研究的首要目的是探讨5至6岁患有DLD的幼儿与同龄以及年龄更小的具有典型语言发展（TLD）的儿童在口语推理理解、接受性词汇、ToM和语音短期记忆测量方面的表现。第二个目的是分析这些语言和认知技能如何促进患有DLD和TLD的学龄前儿童的口语推理理解。
共有112名学龄前儿童参与了本研究，其中包括21名（=21）5至6岁患有DLD的儿童以及两个TLD组，37名（=37）4至5岁的年龄更小的儿童和54名（=54）同龄儿童。除了接受性词汇、语音短期记忆和ToM的测量外，还对所有儿童进行了基于叙事的口语推理理解任务。使用协方差分析（ANCOVAs）比较三组之间的表现，随后进行Pearson相关性分析和层次回归分析，以检验这些变量对整个样本口语推理理解能力的贡献。
在控制了父母教育水平（LPE）和生物性别后，患有DLD的儿童在所有四项测量上的表现均显著低于同龄TLD组，效应量较大（<0.001；=0.17 - 0.44）。他们在口语推理理解测量上的表现与年龄更小TLD组相当（=0.234），而在接受性词汇测量（=0.008）、语音短期记忆测量（<0.001）和ToM测量（=0.028）上显著低于后者。回归分析结果表明，年龄、LPE、诊断情况、接受性词汇和ToM占口语推理理解总方差的53%。
本研究重申了与具有典型语言发展的儿童相比，患有DLD的学龄前儿童早期听力理解存在困难。结果还表明，在控制年龄、LPE和诊断情况后，如果儿童在ToM测量上表现良好，他们可能具有更好的推理理解能力。鉴于与语言理解相关的挑战被认为是持续存在的且对干预反应较小，这些发现有助于为旨在支持患有DLD的幼儿语言理解的循证干预措施的制定提供参考。
