Statistical learning in language disorder (Kapa & Mettler, 2024)
Purpose: Our goal was to compare statistical learning abilities between preschoolers with developmental language disorder (DLD) and peers with typical development (TD) by assessing their learning of two artificial grammars.
Method: Four- and 5-year-olds with and without DLD were compared on their statistical learning ability using two artificial grammars. After learning an aX grammar, participants learned a relatively more complex abX grammar with a nonadjacent relationship between a and X. Participants were tested on their generalization of the grammatical pattern to new sequences with novel X elements that conformed to (aX, abX) or violated (Xa, baX) the grammars.
Results: Results revealed an interaction between age and language group. Four-year-olds with and without DLD performed equivalently on the aX and abX grammar tests, and neither of the 4-year-old groups’ accuracy scores exceeded chance. In contrast, among 5-year-olds, TD participants scored significantly higher on aX tests compared to participants with DLD, but the groups’ abX scores did not differ. Five-year-old participants with DLD did not exceed chance on any test, whereas 5-year-old TD participants’ scores exceeded chance on all grammar learning outcomes. Regression analyses indicated that aX performance positively predicted learning outcomes on the subsequent abX grammar for TD participants.
Conclusion: These results indicate that preschool-age participants with DLD show deficits relative to typical peers in statistical learning, but group differences vary with participant age and type of grammatical structure being tested.
Supplemental Material S1. Pearson correlations between executive function scores and artificial grammar learning.
Kapa, L. L., & Mettler, H. M. (2024). Statistical learning among preschoolers with and without developmental language disorder: Examining effects of language status, age, and prior learning. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2024_JSLHR-23-00602
