The contribution of visual and linguistic cues to the production of passives in ADHD and DLD: evidence from thematic priming

Abstract

This study investigated how thematic priming via visual and linguistic cues influences the choice of syntactic voice in healthy Frenchspeaking adults and in French-speaking children with typical and atypical development. In particular, we focused on children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and developmental language disorder (DLD), two clinical groups with documented syntactic difficulties. Twenty adults (M= 24;7) and 60 children aged 6-11 (20 typically developing, 20 with DLD and 20 with ADHD) were presented with agent or patient cues that progressively increased in strength over three conditions: a no cue condition, a visual cue condition with two cue types (perceptual vs. referential) and a linguistic cue condition with two cue types (topicalization of the agent/patient with and without subsequent sentence initiation). Results showed that all participants produced more passives after having been presented with a patient cue, regardless of cue type (cue > no cue), but linguistic cues facilitated the production of passives significantly more than visual cues (linguistic cue > visual cue). We also found that children with DLD were more sensitive than children with ADHD to visual cues (DLD > ADHD), which were more implicit than the linguistic cues and may have required more attentional resources. The opposite pattern (ADHD > DLD) was true for the linguistic cues, which required syntactic processing. These findings highlight how the development of dynamic tools using cue modality and cue sensitivity might be useful for discriminating children with and without syntactic impairment.

Language Skills in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Developmental Language Disorder: A Systematic Review

“…This may explain the difference between the groups in the use of visual cues: children with DLD were more sensitive to visual cues than children with ADHD, which may require more attentional resources. In contrast, the DLD group was less sensitive to linguistic cues, as these cues required syntactic processing [6].…”

“…Some empirical reports suggest ADHD and DLD are not only the most common neurodevelopmental disorders, but may also be co-occurring disorders [5,6]. There is a complex relationship between DLD and ADHD, with overlapping and distinct features [4].…”

“…Research shows children diagnosed with ADHD have language impairments [6,17,29]. In fact, ADHD and DLD are two of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders and are co-occurring disorders [5,6], which increases the interest in comparing them.…”

“…Narrative tasks engage not only language skills but also executive functions [43]. Stanford and Delage [6,17] conducted a study on French speaking children, focusing on syntactic and morphosyntactic aspects, while simultaneously assessing executive-function variables. The EF and morphosyntactic profiles of children with ADHD and DLD are different [17].…”

“…Although its prevalence is high compared to other neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or childhood hearing loss, DLD is understudied [2][3][4]. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and DLD are two of the most common neurodevelopmental and comorbid disorders [5,6]. Children with comorbid DLD and ADHD may show a wide variety of signs that may overlap and impact different areas, such as language and executive function.…”