Effects of Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and bilingualism on verbal short-term memory

摘要: The current study assessed independent and combined effects of SLI bilingualism on tasks tapping into verbal short-term memory (vSTM) with varying linguistic load in two languages (Russian Hebrew). explored the extent to which presence is related limited vSTM storage associated reduced vocabulary size. A total 190 monolingual bilingual children aged 5;5–6;8 participated study: 108 sequential Russian-Hebrew bilinguals (18 SLI), 48 Hebrew monolinguals (13 SLI) 34 Russian (14 SLI). Children performed three repetition tasks: forward-digit span (FWD), non-word (NWR) sentence (SRep); were tested both their languages. Results indicated a negative effect all experimental vSTM. rose as function increased load. Regarding bilingualism, no was found measure lowest while its robust once (SRep). results reported this bring evidence that lower performance measures stem from different sources. Although, have limitations vSTM, deficient cannot fully account for difficulties observed SLI. As it does not affect when minimal, poor greater attributed smaller sizes.