ERIC Number: EJ1176496
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-Apr
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1092-4388
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Planning Deficits in Children with Specific Language Impairment Are Reflected in Unnecessarily Awkward Grasps
Sanjeevan, Teenu; Rosenbaum, David A.; Mainela-Arnold, Elina
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, v61 n4 p887-896 Apr 2018
Purpose: Specific language impairment (SLI) affects many children, but its symptomatology is still being characterized. An emerging view, which challenges the notion that SLI is specific to language, is that SLI may actually reflect a domain-general deficit in procedural learning. We explored an extension of this hypothesis that a core deficit in SLI involves a domain-general problem in planning. Method: We used a dowel-transport task to study the extent to which 13 children with SLI and 14 typically developing (TD) controls (ages over both groups between 8;10 [years;months] and 12;11) would adopt initially awkward grasps that ensured comfortable final grasps when reaching out to move a dowel from 1 position to another (the end-state comfort effect). We predicted that children with SLI would be less likely to use end-state comfort grasps than would TD children. Results: Contrary to our prediction, when awkward grasps were needed to ensure comfortable final grasps, participants with SLI showed the end-state comfort effect as often as the TD children did. Unexpectedly, however, in trials where awkward grasps were not needed for comfortable final grasps, the participants with SLI used more awkward grasps than did the TD participants after trials in which initial awkward grasps were needed. Conclusion: We suggest that this perseverative behavior is indicative of a domain-general problem in planning in SLI.
Descriptors: Language Impairments, Language Processing, Prediction, Age Differences, Control Groups, Task Analysis, Symptoms (Individual Disorders), Children, Comparative Analysis, Behavior Patterns, Oral Language, Psychomotor Skills
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
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