Examining the relationship between oral language skills and executive functions: Evidence from Greek-speaking 4-5-year-old children with and without Developmental Language Disorder.
Preschoolers with DLD show clear gaps in updating and shifting skills that drag down their language scores.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers tested 60 Greek-speaking preschoolers. Half had Developmental Language Disorder. Half were typically developing.
Kids completed language tests and five executive-function games. The games measured updating, shifting, and inhibition.
What they found
Children with DLD scored lower on every language task. They also scored lower on updating and shifting tasks.
Inhibition scores were the same for both groups. Weak updating and shifting predicted weaker language skills.
How this fits with other research
Vugs et al. (2014) found the same pattern in English-speaking preschoolers. Both studies show SLI or DLD plus EF gaps.
Sutton et al. (2022) meta-analysis looked at intellectual disability. It found smaller EF deficits than we see here for DLD.
Ortiz et al. (2014) tested perceptual timing in dyslexia risk. Like us, they caught early problems before school age.
Why it matters
Check both language and EF in your preschool assessments. If updating or shifting is weak, add EF drills to your language program. Simple card-sorting or n-back games may boost the skills that support talking and listening.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have been found to demonstrate low performance in Executive Functions (EFs). However, the evidence-based data is so far scarce, especially for 4-5-year-old children. Most of the existing research involves English-speaking populations, while very few studies have been carried out with non-English-speaking populations. Nevertheless, it is documented that possible differences in the language-cognition relations may exist due to the specific characteristics of each language, and studies across different languages could contribute to the above. AIMS: The present study aimed to systematically investigate the profile of oral language and EF skills (verbal and nonverbal) and the way these skills are related with each other in 4-5-year-old Greek-speaking children with and without DLD. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Fifty-three 4-5-year-old children (age range: 51- 57 months) with DLD, and 62 Typically Developing (TD) peers (age range: 51- 57 months) were assessed on a standardized psychometric battery for oral language skills (phonological and morphological awareness, oral language comprehension, vocabulary knowledge, narrative speech and pragmatics) and on a series of verbal (v) and nonverbal (nv) tasks tapping EFs skills (updating-accuracy, inhibition -accuracy and reaction time-, and cognitive flexibility). OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Children with DLD demonstrated statistically significant lower performance across all oral language measures in comparison to their TD peers. Additionally, they performed significantly lower in the updating (nv) task, as well as in cognitive flexibility (v & nv) in comparison to the TD group. Further regression analyses demonstrated that updating (nv), inhibition (nv) and cognitive flexibility (v) predicted oral language comprehension in children with DLD while updating (v & nv), inhibition-reaction time (nv) and cognitive flexibility (v & nv) predicted phonological and morphological awareness, oral language comprehension, narrative speech as well as total language score in TD children. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: These results provide important information about the profile of oral language and EF skills in children with DLD compared to their TD peers as well as on the relationship of these skills in both groups. The findings also suggest that improving EFs skills may be a possible way for improving oral language skills in young children with DLD. Our findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical as well as practical implications regarding the diagnostic and intervention procedures for children with DLD.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2022 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2022.104215