Lopez, A. & Acha, J. .
University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU
Non-modular accounts of SLI assume that non-linguistic processing deficits might be involved in language disorders. Research in this vein using auditory materials has supported this claim but little research has examined this issue using visual materials. This study investigated whether children with SLI have specific impairments tracking visual material that involved use of language (letters), and whether the deficits observed were related to basic non-linguistic processing deficits. To that aim, forty six children aged 6 (13 SLI, 33 CA controls) were tested in a letter identification task across random consonant (DLFGN) and syllabic presentation conditions (DEFAN). Children with SLI were not slower but committed more errors than CA controls, particularly in the syllable condition and in the rightmost positions. Additionally only in the SLI group letter detection time and accuracy correlated not only to linguistic abilities (CELF sentence repetition and syllable deletion) but also to non-linguistic ones (WISC speed of processing and CPT sustained attention). These results claim that basic processing deficits in SLI children might impair specific abilities in the linguistic domain, and support the non-modular accounts of SLI.