Children with DLD have problems in perceiving spoken consonants presented audiovisually and visually. The weaker McGurk effect could be accounted for by the poorer lipreading ability of children with DLD.

Speech processing deficits in SLI extend also to the perception of visual speech. Lipreading performance was associated with phonological skills. Poor lipreading in children with SLI may be, thus, related to problems in phonological processing.

We developed a computerized audiovisual training programme for school-aged children with specific language impairment (SLI) to improve their phonological skills. The programme included various tasks requiring phonological decisions. Spoken words, pictures, letters and written syllables were used as training material. Spoken words were presented either as audiovisual speech (together with the talking face), or as auditory speech (voice alone). Two groups (10 children/group) trained for six weeks, five days per week: the audiovisual group trained with audiovisual speech, and the other group received analogically the same training but with auditory speech. Before and after training, language skills and other cognitive skills were assessed. The audiovisual group improved in a non-word-repetition test. Such improvement was not observed with auditory training. This result suggests that audiovisual speech may be helpful in the rehabilitation of children with SLI.

The study attempted to identify characteristics of individual differences in sign language abilities among deaf children. Connections between sign language skills and rapid serial naming, hand motor skills, and early fluency were investigated. The sample consisted of 85 Finnish deaf children. Their first language was sign language. Simple correlations and multiple linear-regression analysis demonstrated the effect of early language development and serial hand movements on sign language abilities. Other significant factors were serial fingertapping and serial naming. Heterogeneity in poor sign language users was noted. Although identifying learning disorders in deaf children is complicated, developmental difficulties can be discovered by appropriate measurements. The study confirmed the results of earlier research demonstrating that the features of deaf and hearing children's learning resemble each other. Disorders in signed and spoken languages may have similar bases despite their different modalities.