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The role of nonverbal working memory in morphosyntactic processing by children with specific language impairment and autism spectrum disorders

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, July 2017
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (76th percentile)
  • Average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source

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Citations

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146 Mendeley
Title
The role of nonverbal working memory in morphosyntactic processing by children with specific language impairment and autism spectrum disorders
Published in
Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, July 2017
DOI 10.1186/s11689-017-9209-6
Pubmed ID
Authors

Susan Ellis Weismer, Meghan M. Davidson, Ishanti Gangopadhyay, Heidi Sindberg, Hettie Roebuck, Margarita Kaushanskaya

Abstract

Both children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and children with specific language impairment (SLI) have been shown to have difficulties with grammatical processing. A comparison of these two populations with neurodevelopmental disorders was undertaken to examine similarities and differences in the mechanisms that may underlie grammatical processing. Research has shown that working memory (WM) is recruited during grammatical processing. The goal of this study was to examine morphosyntactic processing on a grammatical judgment task in children who varied in clinical diagnosis and language abilities and to assess the extent to which performance is predicted by nonverbal working memory (WM). Two theoretical perspectives were evaluated relative to performance on the grammatical judgment task-the "working memory" account and the "wrap-up" account. These accounts make contrasting predictions about the detection of grammatical errors occurring early versus late in the sentence. Participants were 84 school-age children with SLI (n = 21), ASD (n = 27), and typical development (TD, n = 36). Performance was analyzed based on diagnostic group as well as language status (normal language, NL, n = 54, and language impairment, LI, n = 30). A grammatical judgment task was used in which the position of the error in the sentence (early versus late) was manipulated. A visual WM task (N-back) was administered and the ability of WM to predict morphosyntactic processing was assessed. Groups differed significantly in their sensitivity to grammatical errors (TD > SLI and NL > LI) but did not differ in nonverbal WM. Overall, children in all groups were more sensitive and quicker at detecting errors occurring late in the sentence than early in the sentence. Nonverbal WM predicted morphosyntactic processing across groups, but the specific profile of association between WM and early versus late error detection was reversed for children with and without language impairment. Findings primarily support a "wrap up" account whereby the accumulating sentence context for errors positioned late in the sentence (rather than early) appeared to facilitate morphosyntactic processing. Although none of the groups displayed deficits in visual WM, individual differences in these nonverbal WM resources predicted proficiency in morphosyntactic processing.

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The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 11 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 146 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 146 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 23 16%
Student > Ph. D. Student 22 15%
Student > Bachelor 17 12%
Researcher 15 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 12 8%
Other 26 18%
Unknown 31 21%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 55 38%
Linguistics 14 10%
Social Sciences 13 9%
Nursing and Health Professions 5 3%
Neuroscience 5 3%
Other 18 12%
Unknown 36 25%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 8. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 23 August 2017.
All research outputs
#4,600,537
of 24,592,508 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders
#214
of 501 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#75,378
of 317,980 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders
#9
of 15 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,592,508 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 81st percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 501 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.3. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 57% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 317,980 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 76% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 15 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 46th percentile – i.e., 46% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.