Evaluating the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis in Preschool Children with Speech, Language and Motor Deficits Renee Fabus1 and Peter Gordon2 1 Brooklyn College 2 Teachers College, Columbia University The Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH) 1. Comorbidity of Language, Memory and Motor Skills Children with Language Impairments often exhibit co-occurring fine motor deficits (Hill 1998, 2001; Owens 1997, Sommers,1988) Ullman (2001) proposed that deficits in rule-based aspects of language, working memory, and motor ability are based on common neural pathways underlying the procedural memory systems Underlying pathways include tracts connecting DLPFC, Basal Ganglia, and Cerebellum 2. Differential Disruption of Language Abilities Rule-based aspects of language are said to constitute a form of procedural knowledge (“knowing how”) as opposed to lexical aspects stored in declarative memory (“knowing what”) PDH predicts children with procedural deficits will show both motor impairment and specific deficits on regular past tense forms (-ed) but not on irregular past tense forms (run - ran), which are stored in the declarative memory system Full Test Battery 2. Are relations between language and motor abilities mediated through -motor-speech systems or directly through cognitive-level linguistic processes? Speech Goldman Fristoe-2 Test of Articulation Khan Lewis Test of Phonological Processes Memory Children’s Test of Non-Word Repetition Language Test of Language Development 2 (Primary-TOLD) Regular and Irregular past tense elicitation task Non-Verbal Block Design Subtest of the WPPSI Fine Motor Peabody Developmental Motor Scales Peg-Moving Bead-Threading Tasks from HELP Checklist: cut circle, draw stick figure, fold paper 3x, and build tower with blocks r. = .48,p<.005 r=-.24, p=.1 r.=-.14, p=.2 Language correlated with motor ability while speech did not, and Speech and Language did not correlate with each other. Therefore these data do not indicate that comorbitiy of language and motor ability are mediated via motor-speech systems Correlations do not improve with removal of ceiling effect data 3. Do relationships between motor and language abilities involve working memory? r. = .52, p<.002 r=-.35, p=.02 r.=-.50, p=.003 Verbal STM correlated with Language, Speech and Motor suggesting prominent role for working memory in all of these abilities and in accounting for comorbidity of impairments 1. How are speech, language, working memory, and motor ability affected in preschoolers who have been referred for Speech-Language therapy or occupational therapy for fine motor impairments? Unaffected control groups performed better on all tasks except Speech (Goldman-Fristoe) where the SLP group performed as well as the control group The SLP group performed worse than all groups on language tasks (TOLD) suggesting a profile resembling Specific Language Impairment (SLI) Comorbidity of Language and Motor Ability Children in Speech Language Therapy (SLP & Both) performed poorly in fine motor tasks compared to controls Children in therapy for fine motor impairment (OT) showed poor performance on speech and language tasks Results confirm comorbidity of Speech, Language and Motor Skills in this population Working Memory and Spatial Ability All impaired groups showed impairments in STM non-word repetition tasks (p< .001) and Spatial Block Design (p<.001) STM is hypothesized to be part of procedural system Connections of procedural system to parietal cortex, and procedural aspects of Block Design Questions How are speech, language, working memory, and motor ability affected in preschoolers who have been referred for Speech-Language therapy or occupational therapy for fine motor impairments? Are relations between language and motor abilities mediated through -motor-speech systems or directly through cognitive-level linguistic processes? Do relationships between motor and language abilities involve working memory? Are regular past tense forms more affected by deficits than irregular past tense forms as predicted by the PDH? 4. Are regular past tense forms more affected by deficits than irregular past tense forms as predicted by the PDH? Past Tense Elicitation Task 110 verbs: 43 regular verbs 67 irregular verbs w/ pictures She eats everyday. Everyday she eats. Yesterday she … (ate) Impaired vs. Contols Regular Past Tense forms: t=2.69, p = .006 Irregular Past Tense forms: t=2.46, p=.02 Results Impaired groups showed deficits in both regular and irregular past tense forms Impaired groups showed characteristic perseveration of 3rd person verb forms (“…yesterday, she eats”) Performance was very low for all groups in the irregular verb condition No support for differential deficits on rule-based forms Age group might be too young to elicit differences in past tense forms. However, if early forms are stored rather than computed, then these results do not support procedural deficit Participants 28 preschool children between 4 and 5 years of age: 7 no therapy services (Control) 7 occupational therapy (OT) 7 speech-language therapy (SLP) 7 both OT and SLP therapy (Both) Groups matched for mean age, range and SES Native English Speakers Normal Hearing No psychological or clear neurological disorder 1. rfabus@brooklyn.cuny.edu; 2. pgordon@tc.edu POSTER DOWNLOADS AT: www.tc.edu/faculty/documents.htm?facid=pg328