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Abstract:
Abstract: The present study was designed to investigate the
relationship between phonological working memory and different
language processes in American and Hungarian children with specific
language impairment (SLI). For the purpose of this study, we
developed a specific listening task that enabled us to examine both
components of Baddeley's (1986) working memory model, the
phonological loop and the central executive. These tasks required
simultaneous processing from the children to perform symbolic
computations while storing the word representations. The results
show that an increase in working memory demands results in a
decrease in performance accuracy in language related tasks,
particularly in the group of language impaired children. These
children indicate limited working memory capacity. Despite the
major differences in language structure between English and
Hungarian, the phonological working memory performance of the
children with SLI did not differ across languages, but differed
from their typically developing peers' performance in both
languages. The cross-linguistic comparison reflects further
relationship between phonological working memory and underlying
language processes. The results of phonological error analysis
suggest that the difference in performance accuracy between the
children with specific language impairment and their peers is
determined by their capacity limitations rather than by their
computational abilities. The limitation in capacity may also be
responsible for the diminished primacy and recency effects observed
in SLI children's performance pattern in this study.
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