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Neurocognitive and Psycholinguistic Profile of Specific Language Impairment: A Research Study on Comorbidity of SLI With/Without Reading Disabilities

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Language Development and Disorders in Spanish-speaking Children

Part of the book series: Literacy Studies ((LITS,volume 14))

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Abstract

This book chapter reviews different approaches that help to identify the complex pattern of Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in monolingual and bilingual native Spanish-speaking children. The brain bases for cognitive functioning and language processing, as well as some educational and genetic foundations of SLI are discussed. A new research study on phonological working memory deficits in children with SLI only, and a comorbid group with SLI and Reading Disabilities (RD) is presented.

Purpose: To compare the phonological working memory skills in children with SLI only, with SLI and RD, and children with Typical Language Development (TLD). To examine whether the Spanish Nonword Repetition Task (NRT) could discriminate these three groups.

Method: Forty native Spanish-speaking children (age 8;0–10;3), 20 with TLD, 12 with SLI only, and 8 with SLI+RD, received a battery of psycholinguistic tests, IQ, hearing screening, and the NRT. The children’s repetition accuracy of 20 non-words was scored.

Results: Children with SLI+RD made significantly more errors in the subset of 3-4-5 syllable non-words of the NRT than either children with TLD or children with SLI only. The performance for the 3-4-5 composite was also significantly poorer in children with SLI than children with TLD.

Conclusions: The present study provides evidence that the Spanish NRT may help to identify, not only children with SLI, but also the comorbid group of children with SLI+RD (with the poorest performance). Previous MRI findings of unique neurocognitive markers in children with SLI+RD are discussed.

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  1. Department of Basic, Clinical & Biological Psychology, Universitat Jaume I, Av. Sos Baynat s/n, 12071, Castelló, Spain

    Dolors Girbau

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  1. Hospital General “Dr. Manuel Gea González”, Mexico City, Mexico

    Alejandra Auza Benavides

  2. Program in Speech and Hearing, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, New York, USA

    Richard G. Schwartz

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Girbau, D. (2017). Neurocognitive and Psycholinguistic Profile of Specific Language Impairment: A Research Study on Comorbidity of SLI With/Without Reading Disabilities. In: Auza Benavides, A., Schwartz, R. (eds) Language Development and Disorders in Spanish-speaking Children. Literacy Studies, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53646-0_8

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