The dynamic interaction between memory and linguistic knowledge in children’s language development: The role of sentence recall

Abstract

The role of working memory (WM) in language acquisition has been widely reported in the developmental literature, but few studies have explored the role of sentence recall in the way WM and related linguistic abilities evolve. This study seeks to explore the organization and development of the memory architecture underlying language using a longitudinal design. A total of 104 children were assessed on verbal WM, phonological short-term memory (pSTM), vocabulary, and sentence recall skills at age 6 and 1 year later at age 7. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed a robust direct predictive effect of pSTM and vocabulary on sentence recall at Time 1 and of verbal WM on sentence recall at Time 2, supporting Baddeley’s WM architecture. Additionally, pSTM and sentence recall abilities at age 6 predicted verbal WM and vocabulary at 7 years, respectively, regardless of autoregressive effects. These results support the notion of the dynamic nature of the language system and suggest a key role of specific memory abilities underlying sentence recall in language development during childhood.