Real-time preposition comprehension in monolingual Spanish-speaking preschool children with developmental language...

This study investigated comprehension of prepositions ("con" vs "sin" and "bajo" vs "sobre"; in English: 'with' vs 'without' and 'under'/'below' vs 'on') and prepositional locutions ("delante de" vs "detrás de" and "dentro de" vs "fuera de"; in English: 'in front of' vs 'behind' and 'in'/'inside' vs 'out of') (hereafter, PPL) in Spanish-speaking preschoolers with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) compared to their typically developing peers. We used an experimental approach assessing visual preference in real-time through eye tracking. The results showed that both groups demonstrated comprehension of the evaluated PPL, as evidenced by their visual preference for the image matching the sentence heard. However, children with DLD took longer to identify the correct image and tended to display a weaker preference pattern, although differences were not significant. Moreover, the prepositional locutions 'in front of' and 'behind'-which are typically acquired later among the morphological items assessed-were particularly challenging for children with DLD, who did not show a consistent visual preference for these prepositions. These findings suggest that, with respect to prepositions, children with DLD follow a trajectory similar to that of typically developing children, though characterized by a mild developmental delay. At a practical level, subtle difficulties in processing prepositions might have meaningful effects in everyday contexts, where rapid comprehension of language input is critical for children's participation and learning at school.