Presentation
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Differences in brain activation, lexical processing, and language interference in Bilingual children with and without Developmental language disorder (DLD)
Poster C1 in Poster Session C, Wednesday, October 25, 10:15 am - 12:00 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
Stephanie Martin1, Laurel Lawyer1; 1University of Essex
Objective: This study aimed to investigate lexical processing and language interference in bilingual children with and without Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) using electroencephalography (EEG). Methods: Participants were 36 DLD Spanish-English bilinguals, ages 7 to 10 and 32 Typically developed (TD) matched grouped on gender and age. Participants were recruited from 5 Bilingual schools in Chile in 2021. Lexical processing abilities were measured using a “Lexical Decision task”, and participants were presented with 80 stimuli containing 40 non-words, 20 Spanish words, and 20 English words. Spanish words did not include any item with special characters such as /ñ/ and accents in words like más (more) or música (music). All stimuli had between 5 to 7 characters (MEAN=6.12, SD=0.74). The second task was a Stroop task, for this, bilinguals add the complexity of being able to perform the Stroop task in both of their languages. Cognitive function, inhibitory control and Language interference were examined with this task. The task had 4 different conditions for language interference. English and Spanish word colours were used for congruent (same colour name and ink colour) and incongruent (different ink colour) conditions. It is important to mention that only congruent/incongruent conditions were “recorded”, and priming was only used as a distractor. EEG and behavioural data were recorded while participants were doing both tasks. Results: For the lexical decision task, a visual inspection of grand averages showed a centro-parietal negative ongoing ERP component in the 350-500 ms interval which was visible for non-words for both groups. This N400 component was not present for Spanish and English words. A linear mixed-effect model was done, and an interaction of type of word and group was made (type*group). This showed a significant effect on type of word, meaning that Non-Words were the hardest ones to be categorised for both groups (F (2,30) = 52.23, p < .001). There was no significant interaction between groups. The same analysis was made for the Stroop task. A three-way interaction was done with language*group*congruency. Results show significant results between language and congruency (F(2,79) = 10.4; p<.001), which means that incongruent condition for Spanish and English was the hardest to categorise. An N400 was visible for both groups' incongruent condition in Spanish and English. This could be explained because an incongruent condition creates conflict between the word and the colour, requiring increased cognitive control to resolve the conflict and resulting in longer responses for incongruent conditions. Conclusion: Contrary to initial expectations, the results of this study revealed no significant differences in lexical processing and language interference between bilingual children with and without DLD. Both groups demonstrated similar performance in the lexical decision and Stroop task, suggesting that lexical processing abilities were comparable irrespective of DLD status. These findings challenge previous assumptions regarding the impact of DLD on lexical processing and language interference in bilingual children. Finally, this study provides novel insights into the differences in brain activation, lexical processing, and language interference in bilingual children with and without DLD.
Topic Areas: Disorders: Developmental, Language Development/Acquisition