Sequential Memory in Children With and Without Language Impairment.

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Journal of Speech and Hearing Research

Volume

38

Issue

2

Publication Date

1995

First Page

393

Last Page

402

Abstract

Serial recall was studied in children with language impairmentand two groups of normally achieving controls: a group matchedfor age and a younger group matched for reading and memory capacity.Participants were presented lists of digits that were one itemlonger than their memory span, in conditions requiring eitherwritten or oral recall. Digit lists were presented either withor without a final nonword item, or "suffix," that was capableof interfering with memory for items at the end of the list.The main finding was that the list-final suffix effect was substantiallylarger than normal in children with language impairment, eventhough other aspects of their recall were normal. This deficiencyin children with language impairment was evident only undera scoring system that credited recall of items in their correctserial positions, not under scoring systems that credited memoryfor the presence of items or their sequence. Results are interpretedaccording to the hypothesis that children with language impairmentare more dependent upon relatively unanalyzed acoustic and phoneticrepresentations of speech than are other children.

Comments

Published by American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research. Publisher PDF is available through link above. Publisher requires a subscription to access article.

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