Sequential Pattern Learning in Children with Developmental Language Disorder

Funding: NIH, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders

Language deficits feature prominently in children diagnosed with DLD, yet there are other cognitive and motor capacities affected—such as pattern induction, rhythmic grouping, and sequential organization. Sequential patterning is a central component of phonology and morphosyntax–domains of language difficulty presented in children with DLD. It has become apparent that this broad profile of deficits cannot be explained by a general motor co-morbidity, but rather forms a core component of DLD. The broad aim of this project is to determine whether learning and generalization would be facilitated by the inclusion of these more basic cognitive operations. Indeed, an exclusive focus on language (especially morphosyntactic) factors in intervention has resulted in slow and laborious learning in children with DLD with only small gains observed.

The central aim of this project is to implement a novel framework for applying domain general cognitive mechanisms to learning and generalization; specifically, all of the proposed experiments have in common the hypothesis that children with DLD will learn more effectively and generalize more broadly when targets are selected to emphasize the regularity of sequential patterns. The outcome of this work has the potential to inform early identification of very young children–when sequence learning (but not grammatical) deficits may be identified–and to alter the substance of intervention to incorporate broad cognitive, language, and motor mechanisms that underlie DLD.