[Visual short-term memory in children with specific language impairment].
BACKGROUND
relationship between Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and visual short-term memory.


OBJECTIVE
to compare the performance of children with SLI to a control group of children with normal language development in tasks involving visual short-term memory.


METHODS
subjects were 20 SLI children (ages 3;0 to 5;11), and 29 children with normal language development (ages 2;0 to 4;11), assessed in tasks of visual short-term memory involving picture recognition and localization recall of objects previously manipulated by the examiner. As the diagnosis of SLI implies in the linguistic age being at least one year below the expected for the chronological age, the control group was also constituted by younger children with normal language development.


RESULTS
SLI children presented an inferior performance when compared to their pairs of the same age, similar to the younger children or below the younger age group.


CONCLUSIONS
SLI children presented deficits in tasks involving visual short-term memory, which must be discussed in order to understand the nature of the disorder and also in terms of speech-language intervention.
Menezes
Camila Gioconda de Lima e
CG
Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo. cagimenezes@yahoo.com.br
Takiuchi
Noemi
N
Befi-Lopes
Debora Maria
DM
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*