Motor Planning and Language in Children With and Without Language Impairment
Open Access
- Author:
- Koegler, Holly
- Graduate Program:
- Communication Sciences and Disorders
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- March 29, 2019
- Committee Members:
- Carol Anne Miller, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Carol Anne Miller, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Krista M Wilkinson, Committee Member
Ji Min Lee, Committee Member
David Rosenbaum, Outside Member - Keywords:
- action control
language development
procedural deficit hypothesis
developmental language disorder
specific language impairment
language and motor control
end state comfort
motor planning
child language
procedural memory - Abstract:
- Action is tightly coupled to the language system across the lifespan, and the relationship between these domains is particularly evident in development. Much of the work investigating this relationship in childhood has focused on typically developing children, and suggests that there are shared processes interacting and supporting development and performance in both domains. Additionally, there is a large body of evidence that children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have deficits in motor skills, which may be related to their language impairment. However, few studies have observed and compared performance in both language and action at the same time, in either typically developing or disorder populations. This study is a novel investigation of the relationship between language and motor skills in typically developing children, and sheds new light on the motor skills in children with DLD. Using multiple levels of language, at the phonological, morphosyntactic, and narrative levels, the results helps to understand how motor skills relate to different levels of language planning and production. Using multiple levels of motor skills as well, with single objects or arrays of objects to manipulate, helps to reveal different aspects of temporally extended motor production. This study found that motor skills are related to language skills in children with typical language, although the relationships among different levels of language and motor skills are complex. Manipulating single objects is most strongly related to morphosyntactic language skills, and manipulating arrays of objects is most strongly related to the narrative language skills. Manipulating objects, especially in array conditions, may tap into temporally extended procedural motor processes, and reveals a difference between children with DLD and children with typical language development. Comparing multiple levels of planning and production across domains provides a new perspective on how these domains relate, and the processes underlying language and action, in typically developing children and children with DLD.