Lexical Access in Persian Speaking Children with and without Specific Language Impairment

Abstract

Introduction: Word retrieval problems are one of the limitations observed in children with specific language impairment during the initial years of schooling. These limitations are predictive of reading problems and poor performance at school. In addition, there are a few studies on lexical access in Persian speaking children. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate and compare the naming accuracy and latency in children with specific language impairment.

Methods: Twenty 7-9-year-old children with specific language impairment and 20 age-matched peers were recruited to name the 128 black and white line-drawing pictures from a Persian picture naming set for children as rapidly as possible. We compare the effects of psycholinguistic variables on naming latency in children with and without specific language impairment. Results: Linear mixed effects modeling showed an interaction between the groups and the psycholinguistic variables. Significant main effects were found for name agreement (p≤0.00) and age of acquisition (p=0.05) in children with typical language development, while significant effects for name agreement (p≤0.00) and log frequency (p≤0.00) were revealed in children with specific language impairment.

Conclusion: The obtained models indicated that psycholinguistic factors could affect the naming latency in children with and without specific language impairment differently. Factors that may have accounted for the findings are discussed.