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Grammatical sensitivity and working memory in children with language impairment
Klara Marton1, Luca Campanelli, Lajos Farkas
1The Graduate Center of the City University of New York ; Barczi Gusztav College of Special Education, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary.
Acta Linguistica Hungarica
|February 27, 2013
Summary
Children with language impairment (LI) struggle with grammar, showing a strong link between grammatical sensitivity and working memory. Performance variations in working memory predicted their ability to detect grammatical errors.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Developmental Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Children with primary language impairment (LI) often exhibit difficulties processing complex grammatical structures and verb inflections.
- Cross-linguistic studies indicate that the manifestation of these language-specific deficits varies across different languages.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate grammatical sensitivity to word order and agreement violations in Hungarian-speaking children with and without LI.
- To explore the relationship between working memory capacity and grammatical sensitivity in this population.
Main Methods:
- A study involving 50 Hungarian-speaking children, with and without a diagnosis of LI.
- Assessment of grammatical sensitivity through the detection of word order and agreement violations.
- Evaluation of working memory capacity.
Main Results:
- A significant association was found between sensitivity to grammatical violations and working memory capacity.
- Working memory performance variations were predictive of grammatical sensitivity.
- Hungarian children with LI demonstrated a deficit in identifying both agreement and word order errors.
Conclusions:
- Working memory capacity plays a crucial role in grammatical processing for children, including those with LI.
- Language impairment in Hungarian children is characterized by difficulties in detecting both word order and agreement violations, highlighting the interplay between linguistic and cognitive factors.
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