1 ROLE OF WORKING MEMORY IN TYPICALLY DEVELOPING CHILDREN’S COMPLEX SENTENCE COMPREHENSION AUTHORS; Shwetha M.P.,Deepthi M. Trupthi T, Nikhil Mathur &

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ROLE OF WORKING MEMORY IN TYPICALLY DEVELOPING

CHILDREN’S COMPLEX SENTENCE COMPREHENSION

AUTHORS;Shwetha M.P. ,Deepthi M.

Trupthi T , Nikhil Mathur & Deepa M.S.II Msc. IV sem [Speech & Hearing]

JSSISHII

JSS INSTITUE OF SPEECH AND HEARING MYSORE.

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Memory is an organism's mental ability to store, retain and recall information.

There are generally three types of memory: • Sensory memory• Short-term memory 

• Long-term memory  

INTRODUCTION

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Memory

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Working memory refers to the ability to store information while at the same time

engage in some kind of cognitively demanding activity such as verbal

reasoning or comprehension.

- Baddeley 2000

Working Memory

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Multi-Component Model of Working Memory

Baddeley and Hitch (2000)

Central Executive

Phonological Loop

Visio-Spatial sketch pad

Episodic buffer

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Multi-Component Model of Working Memory

Baddeley and Hitch (2000)

Central Executive

Phonological Loop

Visio-Spatial sketch pad

Episodic buffer

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Multi-Component Model of Working Memory

Central Executive

Directs attention to relevant information, suppressing irrelevant information, coordinates cognitive

processes involving more than one task

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Multi-Component Model of Working Memory

Baddeley and Hitch (2000)

Central Executive

Phonological Loop

Visio-Spatial sketch pad

Episodic buffer

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Multi-Component Model of Working Memory

Central Executive

Phonological Loop

Stores phonological information (i.e., the

sound of language) and prevents its decay

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Multi-Component Model of Working Memory

Central Executive

Phonological Loop

Visio-Spatial sketch pad

Episodic buffer

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Multi-Component Model of Working Memory

Central Executive

Visio-Spatial sketch pad

stores visual and spatial information.

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Multi-Component Model of Working Memory

Central Executive

Phonological Loop

Visio-Spatial sketch pad

Episodic buffer

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Multi-Component Model of Working Memory

Central Executive

Episodic buffer

Holds representation that integrate phonological, visual, spatial information

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Focus of the study

Central Executive

Phonological Loop

Phonological short term memory

Attentional resource control

/allocation mechanism

Their potential association with complex sentence comprehension in typically developing (TD) children

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Phonological Short-Term Memory

The ability to repeat nonwords is a sensitive index of PSTM capacity (Gathercole and Baddeley 1990).

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Attentional Resource Control and Allocation

• The ability to engage in simultaneous information processing and storage reflects attentional resource control and allocation.

• The working memory system has limited attentional capacity that can be allocated to information processing or storage or both (Just and Carpenter 1992).

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Need for the study

To study the influence of PSTM, attentional resource control/allocation on children’s

complex sentence comprehension in multi-cultural concern[Indian concern]

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AIM OF THE STUDY

The present study was designed to examine the influence of working memory on complex sentence structures that are well within children’s linguistic competence and experience.

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METHOD

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Group I

7-9yrs of age

10 males

10 females

40 typically developing children- 7-12 yrs of age

Group II

10-12yrs of age

10 males

10 females

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Normal hearing sensitivity

Average or above average academic performance

No oral structural/motor impairments affecting speech or non-speech movements of the articulators

Kannada as their primary spoken language

No H/o neurological impairment, psychological/ emotional disturbance or attention deficit disorder

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Phonological short term memory : Non-word repetition task

--20 non-words

--varying in length from 2syll to 5syll

-- Followed kannada phonotactic rules

Attentional Resource Control/Allocation

• 10 simple sentences And 10 complex sentences.

• Last word in each sentence contained a non-word.

• Each stimulus sentence contained question requiring yes/no response relating to comprehension of sentence.

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Phonological Short Term Memory

(PSTM)

Nonword Repetition Task

Attentional Resource

Control/Allocation

Concurrent Processing-Storage Task

Simple Sentence Complex Sentence

Repeated the non-word at the end of sentence and then answered “yes” or “no” to the comprehension question, which appeared

3 seconds after the nonword

Repeated the non-word with varying syllable length

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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

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Phonological Short-Term Memory : Non-word Repetition Task

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3.5

4

4.5

5

S Y 2 S Y 3 S Y 4 S Y 5

S ylla ble s

Mea

n p

erfo

rman

ce

G roup I

G roup II

Graph1: Performance of group I and group II in nonword repetition task with increasing syllable length

(sy2 = 2syllable words, sy3= 3 syllable words, sy4= 4 syllable words, sy5= 5 syllable words)

• The children were significantly more accurate repeating short non-words than longer non-words.

• Such a pattern has been interpreted by many investigators also to reflect the capacity-limited nature of the PSTM buffer (Baddeley 2003, Gathercole and Baddeley 1990, Montgomery 2004).

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Attentional Resource Control/Allocation: Concurrent

Processing-Storage Task

0 2 4 6 8

Me a n pe rform a nc e

S imple

C omplex

Sen

ten

ces

Graph2. Performance of children in Concurrent Processing-Storage Task with complex and simple sentences.

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The children’s performance on the Concurrent processing-storage task showed that -school age children have the ability to allocate their attentional resources simultaneously to verbal processing and verbal storage

(Ellis Weismer et al. 1999, Gavens and

Barrouillet 2004, Marton and Schwartz 2003, Montgomery 2000a,b).

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• Children achieved a mean score of 65% correct, reflecting both accurate nonword production and correct sentence comprehension of simple sentences.

• Children showed good ability to divide their resources concurrently to both the PSTM buffer and to the language processing system.

• Processing-storage balance was observed.

• The interaction was reflected that the children yielded significantly poorer non-word repetition when processing complex sentences relative to simple sentences.

• The memory measures were found to correlate with age, findings that agree well with the developmental memory literature.

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Graph3.Performance of children in Concurrent Processing-Storage Task across group and gender in complex sentences.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Per

form

ance

in

C

om

ple

x

G roup I G roup II Total

G roups

Male

F emale

Total

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CONCLUSION

• Memory variable did not correlate with children’s simple sentence comprehension as expected.

• Comprehension accuracy for complex sentences was significantly associated with attentional resource control/allocation .These associations remained significant even after ruling out the effects of age.

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The Concurrent-processing storage task score with 25% of the variance in comprehension between complex and simple sentence indicates that children’s comprehension of highly familiar complex sentence structures still requires considerable controlled attentional functioning.

• Children’s ability to engage in simultaneous information processing and storage improves with age as group II performed better than group I .

• Hence, there is development in working memory with increase in age from 7 to 12 years.

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The findings demonstrates a clear association between working memory and complex sentence comprehension in children of this age range.

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Acknowledgment

• Our sincere thanks to our Director Dr.Nataraja N. P., JSS institute of speech and hearing, for permitting us to conduct this study and for his immense guidance and support.

• Thanks to SCONLI for providing us platform for sharing our research work.

• Thanks to all our friends for their endless support.

References

• Adams, A., Bourke, L., &Willis, C. (1999).Working memory and spoken language comprehension in youngchildren. International Journal of Psychology, 34, 364–373.

• Baddeley, A. (2003).Working memory and language: An overview. Journal of Communication Disorders, 36,189–208.

• Barrouillet, P., & Camos, V. (2001). Developmental increase in working memory span: Resource sharing or temporal decay? Journal of Memory and Language, 45, 1–20.

• Montgomery J, Magimairaj BM,O’MalleyMH.(2008). Role of Working Memory in Typically Developing Children's Complex Sentence Comprehension.journal of psycholinguist research.

• Towse, J., Hitch, G., & Hutton, U. (1998). A reevaluation of working memory capacity in children. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 195–217.

• Vallar, G., & Baddeley, A. (1984). Phonological short-term store, phonological processing and sentence comprehension:A neuropsychological case study. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 1, 121–141.