2008/04/23 by Tracy Packiam Alloway, Lisa M. D. Archibald · 3 citations
Psychology · Medicine · #Children's Physical and Motor Development #Reading and Literacy Development #Infant Development and Preterm Care #Psychology #Specific language impairment #Working memory #Short-term memory #Developmental psychology #Cognitive psychology #Numeracy #Learning disability #Reading (process) #Verbal learning #Cognition #Literacy #Linguistics
paper · doi:10.1177/0022219408315815
openalex publication_date 2008/04/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/07
The authors compared 6- to 11-year-olds with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and those with specific language impairment (SLI) on measures of memory (verbal and visuospatial short-term and working memory) and learning (reading and mathematics). Children with DCD with typical language skills were impaired in all four areas of memory function for their age level, and this pattern was also found to be characteristic of a larger DCD group with varied language abilities. SLI-group deficits in standard scores were observed for the verbal versions of the short-term and working memory tasks only. There were also differential links between memory and attainment between the two groups, with visuospatial working memory strongly related to numeracy in the SLI group and all of the memory measures correlated with at least one attainment measure in the DCD group. Reasons for why working memory contributes to learning in these two developmental groups are discussed.