Showing papers by "Susan E. Gathercole published in 2007"

Nonword repetition in specific language impairment: More than a phonological short-term memory deficit

Abstract: The possible role of phonological short-term memory in the nonword repetition deficit of children with specific language impairment (SLI) was investigated in a study comparing serial recall and nonword repetition of sequences of auditorily presented CV syllables. The SLI group showed impairments in both serial recall and nonword repetition relative to typically developing children of the same age, however the SLI deficit in nonword repetition was greater and persisted even when differences on an independent measure of short-term memory were taken into account. These findings cannot be readily explained in terms of a sole deficit in short-term memory, and point instead to differences between the serial recall and nonword repetition paradigms as potential factors contributing to this disorder of learning.

Nonword repetition and serial recall: Equivalent measures of verbal short-term memory?

Abstract: Evidence that the abilities to repeat nonwords and to learn language are very closely related to one another has led to widespread interest in the cognitive processes underlying nonword repetition. One suggestion is that nonword repetition is a relatively pure measure of phonological short-term memory closely associated with other measures of short-term memory such as serial recall. The present study compared serial recall of lists of monosyllabic nonwords and repetition of matched phonological forms presented as a multisyllabic nonword in typically developing school-age children. Results revealed that whereas both serial recall and nonword repetition responses showed classic short-term memory characteristics such as a serial position curve and decreasing accuracy with increasing sequence length, nonword repetition was associated with more accurate repetition overall and errors that were more closely matched to the target. Consonants benefited from nonword repetition to a greater extent than vowels. These findings indicate that factors in addition to short-term memory support retention in nonword repetition. It is suggested that coarticulatory and prosodic cues may play important roles in the recall of multisyllabic phonological forms.

Cognitive adaptations arising from nonnative experience of sign language in hearing adults.

Abstract: Three experiments examined spatial transformation abilities in hearing people who acquired sign language in early adulthood. The performance of the nonnative hearing signers was compared with that of hearing people with no knowledge of sign language. The two groups were matched for age and gender. Using an adapted Corsi blocks paradigm, the experimental task simulated spatial relations in sign discourse but offered no opportunity for linguistic coding. Experiment 1 showed that the hearing signers performed significantly better than the nonsigners on a task that entailed 180° rotation, which is the canonical spatial relationship in sign language discourse. Experiment 2 found that the signers did not show the typical costs associated with processing rotated stimuli, and Experiment 3 ruled out the possibility that their advantage relied on seen hand movements. We conclude that sign language experience, even when acquired in adulthood by hearing people, can give rise to adaptations in cognitive processes associated with the manipulation of visuospatial information.