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The role of cognitive control in anaphor resolution in children with specific language impairment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2017

ENIKŐ LADÁNYI ,
BENCE KAS  and
ÁGNES LUKÁCS
ENIKŐ LADÁNYI*
Affiliation:
Université Paris Descartes and Budapest University of Technology and Economics
BENCE KAS
Affiliation:
Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Eötvös Loránd University
ÁGNES LUKÁCS
Affiliation:
Budapest University of Technology and Economics
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Enikő Ladányi, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France. E-mail: eniko.ladanyi@parisdescartes.fr
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Abstract

We studied anaphor resolution and its relationship with cognitive control abilities in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing (TD) children. In a sentence–picture verification task assessing anaphor interpretation, the SLI group was less successful than age-matched TD peers, and displayed similar performance patterns as younger TD children in previous studies. The SLI group showed weaknesses in nonlinguistic cognitive control tasks, which were associated with anaphor interpretation results. These findings are in contrast with the view that proposes a grammar-specific deficit behind anaphor resolution problems in SLI. We suggest that anaphor interpretation in this population is delayed but not atypical, and this delay can be partly explained by weaker cognitive control abilities.

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Articles
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Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 38 , Issue 5 , September 2017 , pp. 1173 - 1199
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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