Similarities in semantic processing across verbal and pictorial domains in school children with developmental language disorder

This study investigates whether Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is a specific language impairment or a domain-general disorder, thereby addressing the broader question of whether language processing is distinct from or comparable to cognitive processing in other domains. Specifically, we investigate semantic processing in verbal and pictorial domains among 9-12-year-old children with DLD in comparison to an age-matched control group. We measured the amplitude of the event-related potential (ERP) effect indicating semantic processing, the N400, to narratives in the form of both auditorily presented sentences and of wordless picture sequences (comic strips). We compared the N400 effect of predictability in both domains across group. Our findings from a total of 39 participants show an expected N400 effect in both domains in age-matched controls, though with longer latency for the more unfamiliar picture domain but no N400 effect in either domain in children with DLD. This study, thus, indicates similarities in semantic processing across the verbal and the pictorial domains in children with DLD, which is consistent with domain general theories of language.