# Procedural Memory Deficits in Preschool Children with Developmental Language Disorder in a Spanish-Speaking Population

## TL;DR

This study found that preschool children with language disorders in a Spanish-speaking population have trouble with procedural memory tasks compared to typically developing peers.

## Contribution

The study provides evidence for the procedural deficit hypothesis in a Spanish-speaking population with developmental language disorder.

## Key findings

- Children with DLD had longer reaction times and lower accuracy in procedural learning tasks.
- Typically developing children showed improved performance in sequential blocks but declined in random blocks.
- The findings support the idea that language disorders may stem from procedural memory deficits in this population.

## Abstract

This study aimed to compare procedural learning skills between Spanish-speaking preschool children (ages 4 years to 4 years, 11 months) with developmental language disorder (DLD) and their chronologically matched typically developing (TD) peers. Using the serial reaction time (SRT) task, participants (30 children with DLD and 30 TD children) responded to visual stimuli in a sequenced manner over four blocks, followed by a random order block. The task assessed reaction time (RT) and accuracy. The results showed a significant interaction between group and block for RT and accuracy, with children with DLD exhibiting longer RTs and accuracy deficits across blocks. In contrast, the TD group showed higher RT efficiency and accuracy in the sequential blocks and, as expected, decreased performance in the random block according to the experimental manipulation. Overall, the results of this investigation suggest that there was no implicit learning in the DLD group, as indicated by the SRT task paradigms of procedural memory. These findings align with some aspects of the procedural deficit hypothesis (PDH), which suggests that linguistic deficits in the DLD population may derive from a deficit in sequential learning from the procedural memory system domain in the Spanish context.