Class
Article
Department
Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education Department
Faculty Mentor
Carla Orellana
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Abstract
This study examined the online processing of sentence comprehension in two groups of children ages 9-14: children who are typically developing (TD) and children with development language disorder (DLD). The literature shows that children with DLD have difficulty with complex sentence comprehension compared to their TD peers based on studies of offline processing. Few studies demonstrate how children process sentences using online processing measures. We used behavioral and eye tracking measures of online processing to answer: How does sentence processing of canonical and non-canonical sentences in children in the TD and DLD groups differ?Eye movements were recorded while participants listened to four sentence types: subject verb object (SVO), subject relative (SR), passive (PAS), and object relative (OR). Participants were asked to select the agent, the object performing the action in the sentence, with a mouse click. Two measures were analyzed. First, we measured the time to the first look as the time from the end of the sentence to the next fixation. Second, we measured the time to the first click or selection as the time from the end of the sentence to the first click. Each model included fixed effects for Sentence Type, Group, and Accuracy (correct, incorrect). We found that there were no Group or Sentence Type differences when children responded correctly. However, we found significant group differences when children responded incorrectly. When incorrect, children in the TD group tended to respond more slowly than children in the DLD group. This reflects that children in the TD group were spending more time to deliberate their choices, as if unsure, when incorrect. Whereas, the DLD group had no difference in time, regardless of accuracy, especially in the most difficult sentence type, OR. Future research should continue to explore online measures accounting for differences in correct and incorrect responses. Presentation Time: Wednesday, 3-4 p.m.
Location
Logan, UT
Start Date
4-9-2021 12:00 AM
Included in
Eye Tracking Patterns and Processing Times of Children With and Without Language Disorder During Sentence Processing
Logan, UT
This study examined the online processing of sentence comprehension in two groups of children ages 9-14: children who are typically developing (TD) and children with development language disorder (DLD). The literature shows that children with DLD have difficulty with complex sentence comprehension compared to their TD peers based on studies of offline processing. Few studies demonstrate how children process sentences using online processing measures. We used behavioral and eye tracking measures of online processing to answer: How does sentence processing of canonical and non-canonical sentences in children in the TD and DLD groups differ?Eye movements were recorded while participants listened to four sentence types: subject verb object (SVO), subject relative (SR), passive (PAS), and object relative (OR). Participants were asked to select the agent, the object performing the action in the sentence, with a mouse click. Two measures were analyzed. First, we measured the time to the first look as the time from the end of the sentence to the next fixation. Second, we measured the time to the first click or selection as the time from the end of the sentence to the first click. Each model included fixed effects for Sentence Type, Group, and Accuracy (correct, incorrect). We found that there were no Group or Sentence Type differences when children responded correctly. However, we found significant group differences when children responded incorrectly. When incorrect, children in the TD group tended to respond more slowly than children in the DLD group. This reflects that children in the TD group were spending more time to deliberate their choices, as if unsure, when incorrect. Whereas, the DLD group had no difference in time, regardless of accuracy, especially in the most difficult sentence type, OR. Future research should continue to explore online measures accounting for differences in correct and incorrect responses. Presentation Time: Wednesday, 3-4 p.m.