An electrophysiological and behavioral examination of cognitive control in children with specific language impairment
Item
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Title
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An electrophysiological and behavioral examination of cognitive control in children with specific language impairment
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:8fc22e8d8be7:10247
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identifier
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10481
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Creator
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Tropper, Baila,
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Contributor
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Richard G. Schwartz | Valerie L. Shafer
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Date
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2009
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Speech therapy | children | cognitive control | event-related potentials | Go/No-GO | N2 | specific language impairment
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Abstract
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There is accumulating evidence that children with specific language impairment (SLI) are deficient in managing internal, cognitive conflict that arises as they process information (e.g., Bishop & Norbury, 2005). This ability is referred to as cognitive control, a higher-order skill that encompasses the detection and resolution of conflict among competing response alternatives (Miller & Cohen, 2001). A deficit in cognitive control would likely have wide-ranging ramifications for the efficiency of language and non-language processing and might underlie poor information processing in the SLI population. The goal of the present investigation was to examine whether children with SLI are deficient in managing conflict between competing response tendencies that are invoked during processing of linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli. A behavioral method involving a GO/No-GO paradigm was employed simultaneously with the collection of event-related potentials (ERP). The N2 component was utilized as a neural index of the ability to detect conflict between the tendencies to make a speeded response (GO) and to refrain from responding (No-GO).;Behavioral measures of hit rates and false-alarm rates in response to linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli did not distinguish children with SLI from children with typical language development of the same age (TLD-A). By contrast, analysis of the N2 component revealed absent, or attenuated, and delayed divergence of GO and No-GO amplitudes in SLI relative to TLD-A children in response to linguistic stimuli presented at various probability levels. The N2 effect in children with SLI resembled that of children with typical language development who were on average three years younger. This finding suggests that school-age children with SLI exhibit a maturational lag in detecting conflict among competing response alternatives when processing linguistic information. Deficient conflict detection may, in turn, hinder SLI children's ability to resolve conflict among semantic representations that are activated during language processing. An understanding of this limitation in cognitive control elucidates information processing deficits in SLI and bears promise to enhance our knowledge of how to remediate this developmental disorder.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Speech and Hearing Sciences
