The relationship between working memory and metaphor comprehension in school-age children with specific language impairments

Youngju Hong, Dongsun Yim

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Objectives: The present study investigated the relationship between working memory and metaphor comprehension in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typical development (TD). Methods: A total of 30 children between 10 to 12 years old, 15 children with SLI and 15 children with TD participated in the study. The experiments consisted of two working memory tasks (Competing Language Processing Task [CLPT] and Matrix) and two metaphor comprehension tasks (sentence and advertisement). Performance on the two working memory tasks and two metaphor comprehension tasks were analyzed by using two-way mixed ANOVA and correlational analyses. Results: Results were summarized as follows: There were significant differences between the groups on working memory tasks (CLPT and Matrix), and metaphor tasks (sentence and advertisement), showing that the SLI group had lower accuracy than TD group. There was a significant difference within conditions in which verbal working memory task performance had lower accuracy than the nonverbal working memory task. The correlational analyses were significant between metaphor tasks (sentence and advertisement) for both groups. However, correlational analyses among working memory tasks (CLPT), and metaphor tasks (sentence and advertisement) were significant for children with TD but not for children with SLI. Conclusion: The study results indicate that children with SLI have more difficulties in working memory and metaphor comprehension then children with TD. Although the working memory ability and metaphor comprehension ability were not significantly correlated for children with SLI, the differences between two groups of working memory abilities showed that difficulties in the metaphor comprehension for children with SLI may be involved with working memory difficulties.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)191-198
Number of pages8
JournalCommunication Sciences and Disorders
Volume19
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Korean Academy of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology.

Keywords

  • Metaphor
  • SLI
  • Working memory

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The relationship between working memory and metaphor comprehension in school-age children with specific language impairments'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this