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Lexical processing deficits in children with developmental language disorder: An event-related potentials study
Sergey A Kornilov1, James S Magnuson1, Natalia Rakhlin2
1University of Connecticut.
Development and Psychopathology
|May 23, 2015
Summary
Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) show distinct brain responses during lexical processing, indicating potential independence between language and grammar deficits. This suggests DLD may affect brain development in specific ways.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
Background:
- Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is characterized by persistent difficulties in language acquisition.
- The relationship between lexical and grammatical deficits in DLD is debated, with theories suggesting causal links or compensatory mechanisms.
- Event-related potentials (ERPs) offer insights into the timing and nature of cognitive processes, including lexical access.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate event-related potential (ERP) indices of lexical processing in children with DLD compared to typically developing peers.
- To explore the relationship between ERP measures of lexical processing and behavioral measures of phonological, lexical, and grammatical development in DLD.
- To examine the functional independence of lexical/phonological and grammatical deficits in DLD.
Main Methods:
- A picture-word matching paradigm was employed.
- Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from children with DLD (n=23) and typically developing children (n=16).
- Participants responded to auditorily presented words in relation to pictured objects, with stimuli varying in semantic and phonological relatedness.
Main Results:
- Children with DLD exhibited reduced N400 amplitudes to both phonologically overlapping and unrelated words, suggesting impaired lexical access.
- These ERP differences correlated with behavioral measures of phonological and lexical skills, but not grammatical skills.
- A depressed phonological mapping negativity component was observed in DLD, indicating early phonological processing or lexical access deficits.
Conclusions:
- The findings partially support the overactivation account of lexical deficits in DLD and suggest relative functional independence of lexical/phonological and grammatical impairments.
- This supports a multidimensional view of DLD.
- The results indirectly support neuroplasticity accounts, where language impairments shape brain development and response patterns.
