HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal My Folders Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Finneran, D. A. Articles by Leonard, L. B. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Finneran, D. A. Articles by Leonard, L. B. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Sustained Attention in Children With Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

Contact author: Denise A. Finneran, who is now with the University of South Carolina, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Williams Brice Building, 6th Floor, 1621 Greene Street, Columbia, SC 29208. E-mail: dfinneran{at}sc.edu.

Purpose: Information-processing limitations have been associated with language problems in children with specific language impairment (SLI). These processing limitations may be associated with limitations in attentional capacity, even in the absence of clinically significant attention deficits. In this study, the authors examined the performance of 4- to 6-year-old children with SLI and their typically developing (TD) peers on a visual sustained attention task. It was predicted that the children with SLI would demonstrate lower levels of performance in the absence of clinically significant attention deficits.

Method: A visual continuous performance task (CPT) was used to assess sustained attention in 13 children with SLI (M = 62.07 months) and 13 TD age-matched controls (M = 62.92 months). All children were screened for normal vision, hearing, and attention. Accuracy (d') and response time were analyzed to see if this sustained attention task could differentiate between the 2 groups.

Results: The children with SLI were significantly less accurate but not significantly slower than the TD children on this test of visual sustained attention.

Conclusion: Children with SLI may have reduced capacity for sustained attention in the absence of clinically significant attention deficits that, over time, could contribute to language learning difficulties.

KEY WORDS: specific language impairment (SLI), attention, information processing

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?