Does Movement Contextually Cue Attention During Novel Word Exposure? A Comparison of Preschool Children With Developmental Language Disorder and With Typical Language

Abstract

Purpose: This study investigated the attentional tendencies of preschool children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and their typical language (TL) peers during a word learning task to examine what visual properties of novel objects capture their attention. Method: Twelve children with DLD and 12 children with TL completed a novel name extension task in which they selected which of three visual characteristics of referent objects (i.e., movement, color, pattern) was relevant during novel word–novel referent pairings. No visual feature was more relevant than the others; consequently, there were no correct and no incorrect responses. Results: Children with DLD were systematically different from their TL peers in which visual features of objects they attended to during nonword–novel referent pairings in that they selected movement as the relevant feature of novel objects more often than TL children. There was also a significant negative correlation between chronological age and the propensity for movement selections. Conclusions: In most cases, word learning involves mapping the auditory signal onto visual information. Identifying what children with DLD naturally attend to when exposed to novel word–novel referent pairings is an important first step in order to better understand how to design effective and efficient word learning interventions with this population.