Verbal and Motor Skills in Mandarin-Speaking Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Do Co-Occurring Motor...

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Linguistics
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) frequently exhibit motor coordination difficulties.
• It is unclear if DLD with motor issues constitutes a distinct subtype with unique verbal profiles compared to DLD without motor difficulties.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the verbal and motor profiles of Mandarin-speaking school-aged children with DLD.
• To compare subgroups of children with DLD, specifically those with and without co-occurring developmental coordination disorder (DCD).

Main Methods:

• Assessed vocabulary, syntax, verbal short-term memory (STM), and motor coordination in 35 children with DLD and 59 typically developing (TD) children.
• Conducted group comparisons of motor components and overall coordination between DLD and TD groups, followed by subgroup analyses (DLD-only, DLD + DCD, TD).

Main Results:

• Children with DLD displayed widespread motor coordination deficits.
• The DLD + DCD group showed significantly lower scores in all motor and verbal domains compared to DLD-only and TD groups.
• The DLD-only group had reduced overall motor coordination and weaknesses in syntax and verbal STM, but not vocabulary, compared to TD peers.
• Motor coordination significantly predicted verbal abilities in children with DLD.

Conclusions:

• Motor coordination difficulties in DLD may indicate a more severe verbal profile.
• Findings suggest potential interrelated developmental and neurocognitive links between motor and verbal domains in DLD.