Laws G
Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 1998 Nov;39(8):1119-30.
Recent research suggests a significant relationship between verbal short-term memory and normal language development. Although poor short-term memory and impaired language are features of Down syndrome there has been little investigation of the relationship between these functions in this population, and no studies have included the nonword repetition test devised by Gathercole and Baddeley on which much of the evidence from normal development is based. This study reports the use of nonword repetition with 33 children and teenagers with Down syndrome aged from 5 to 18 years, and investigates the relationship between this test and other memory and language measures. Word repetition was included as an indirect control for the perceptual and speech impairments often associated with this group. Words were repeated significantly more successfully than nonwords and both these tasks were sensitive to word length. Nonword repetition was significantly correlated with age, and when age and nonverbal cognitive ability were controlled, nonword repetition was significantly correlated with all other language-based memory measures, i.e. auditory digit span, word span, sentence repetition, and fluency, and also with memory for a sequence of hand movements, but not with memory for faces or a visual digit span task. There was also a significant relationship between nonword repetition and receptive vocabulary, language comprehension, and reading. When performance on the word repetition task was controlled in addition to age and nonverbal ability, significant correlations between nonword repetition and word span, sentence memory, hand movements, language comprehension, and reading remained. Fewer relationships between auditory digit span and these other measures were established; in particular, there was no association between digit span and the language and reading measures. Results suggest that nonword repetition is a reliable measure of phonological memory in Down syndrome and can predict language comprehension and reading ability.
近期研究表明，言语短期记忆与正常语言发展之间存在显著关联。尽管短期记忆不佳和语言受损是唐氏综合征的特征，但针对该人群中这些功能之间的关系却鲜有研究，且尚无研究纳入由加瑟科尔和巴德利设计的非词重复测试，而正常发育的许多证据正是基于该测试。本研究报告了对33名年龄在5至18岁的唐氏综合征儿童和青少年进行非词重复测试的情况，并调查了该测试与其他记忆和语言指标之间的关系。纳入了单词重复作为对该群体常伴有的感知和言语障碍的间接对照。单词重复的成功率显著高于非词重复，且这两项任务都对单词长度敏感。非词重复与年龄显著相关，在控制年龄和非言语认知能力后，非词重复与所有其他基于语言的记忆指标，即听觉数字广度、单词广度、句子重复和流畅性，以及手部动作序列记忆显著相关，但与面孔记忆或视觉数字广度任务无关。非词重复与接受性词汇、语言理解和阅读之间也存在显著关系。在控制了年龄和非言语能力之外，再控制单词重复任务的表现后，非词重复与单词广度、句子记忆、手部动作、语言理解和阅读之间仍存在显著相关性。听觉数字广度与这些其他指标之间建立的关系较少；特别是，数字广度与语言和阅读指标之间没有关联。结果表明，非词重复是唐氏综合征中语音记忆的可靠指标，并且可以预测语言理解和阅读能力。
