The declarative system in children with specific language impairment: a comparison of meaningful and meaningless auditory-visual paired associate learning

摘要

BackgroundIt has been proposed that children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) have a selective deficit in procedural learning, with relatively spared declarative learning. In previous studies we and others confirmed deficits in procedural learning of sequences, using both verbal and nonverbal materials. Here we studied the same children using a task that implicates the declarative system, auditory-visual paired associate learning. There were parallel tasks for verbal materials (vocabulary learning) and nonverbal materials (meaningless patterns and sounds).