Challenges in skill acquisition and memory retention in children with developmental language disorder

Background: Understanding memory retention in children with developmentallanguage disorder (DLD) compared with their typically developing (TD) peersenhances our knowledge of memory processes.Aims: To examine long-term memory consolidation of a declarative object-location task and a procedural symbol-writing task, along with grammatical andlexical skills, in 5-year-old children with DLD and their age-matched peers.Methods & Procedures: A total of 23 children with DLD and 30 TD peersparticipated. For procedural memory, children practiced writing a new symboland were assessed 4 hours and 2 weeks post-practice. For declarative memory,they practiced locating cards until they achieved 75% correct responses and wereassessed again 4 hours and 2 weeks post-practice.Results & Discussion: Children with DLD had fewer correct responses onthe declarative-memory object location task with the gap widening significantlyfrom 4 hours to 2 weeks post-training. On the procedural symbol-writing task,children with DLD showed overall lower accuracy. Furthermore, only their TDpeers exhibited delayed gains 4 hours post-training in production times, whilethey narrowed the gap two weeks later. A speed–accuracy trade-off was observedduring their symbol-writing practice. These results highlight atypical long-termdeclarative memory retention and procedural knowledge acquisition in DLD.Consistent with previous studies, declarative memory correlated with lexicalscores in both groups, while procedural memory correlated with grammaticalscores only in TD peers. Interestingly, long-term procedural learning was linkedto lexical abilities in children with TD. Characterizing child performance in shortand long intervals following practice may aid clinicians in supporting childrenwith DLD beyond the clinical setting.