Haptic recognition of children with specific language impairment: effects of response modality

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) have been shown to exhibit deficient nonlinguistic symbolic functioning as indexed by their poor haptic recognition. Previous findings from conventional haptic tasks may be confounded because subject responses required cross-modal processing. The present study compared the haptic processing of children with SLI and children with normal language (NL) using one cross-modal and two tactile response conditions to isolate the influence of cross-modal processing on haptic recognition. Results showed that children with SLI and those with NL performed (a) similarly when the response modality was tactile and task requirements were minimal and (b) differently when the response demands included cross-modal processing or increased symbolic and memory processing. The results were interpreted to suggest that (a) children with SLI and those with NL possess comparable nonlinguistic representational abilities as indexed by haptic processing and (b) deficient cross-modal processing and limited capacity processing are two likely sources of the overall poorer haptic functioning of children with SLI.