Executive Function and Language in Deaf and Hearing Children

Anna Jones, Chloe Marshall, Nicola Botting, Gary Morgan

BPS Developmental Section Conference, Amsterdam, Sep 2014

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Executive Functioning

Executive functioning (EF) refers to high-level goal-directed behaviour, which encompasses skills in strategic planning, flexibility of thought and action (switching), inhibition of inappropriate responses, generation of new responses (fluency), and concurrent remembering and processing (working memory)

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EF and Language

• Use of “self- talk” to guide and plan behaviour

• Vocabulary predicts preschoolers' EF

• Children with SLI and ASD have EF difficulties

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EF in deaf children

• Greater impulsiveness, distractibility and memory problems

• Language delay or auditory deprivation?

• Hintermair (2013): parental ratings on the BRIEF

• Correlations between deaf children’s EF and vocabulary (Figureas, Edwards & Langdon, 2008)

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Aims

• Test large sample deaf children (BSL, SSE, oral) (N = 108)

• Non-verbal EF tasks

• Language measures suitable deaf and hearing populations

• Follow up after two years

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Non-verbal EF tasks

6 Working memory

Planning Inhibition

Switching

Executive loaded working-memory

• Which shape is the odd-one-out?

Odd one out task (Henry, 2001)

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• Now point to where that shape appeared on the grid

Design fluency/semantic fluency

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“Name as many

animals as you

can in a minute”

“Make different designs by

connecting two or more dots

with straight lines”

Children with poor EF

• Poor organizational strategies and planning strategies (tower)

• Rule violations (tower, colour trails, pictures tests)

• Poor word list generation (semantic fluency)

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Other measures

Language

• Vocabulary measure- expressive one word picture vocabulary test

• Narrative BSL test of production (Herman et al., 2004): spider story

Non language measures

• Symbol search- processing speed

• Non verbal ability-Matrix reasoning

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Research hypotheses

• Hypothesis one: Deaf children will have difficulties on at least some of the EF tasks in comparison to hearing children

• Hypothesis two: There will be a relationship between language and deaf children’s performance on some of the EF tasks

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EF and language in deaf children

• Preliminary findings at Time 1

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Participant demographics

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Deaf Hearing

N 108 128

Gender M = 60 F= 48

M = 72 F = 56

Age 8.9 (1.8) 8.9 (1.5)

Age Groups 6-7 years 8-9 years 10-11years

38 39 31

41 59 28

Background measures

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Deaf Hearing

N 108 128

t-score WASI 50.48 (10.43) 53.1 (10.81)

Scaled symbol search** 10.74 (4.42) 12.42 (3.61)

Vocabulary (raw)*** 72.95 (21.67) 93.7 (23.16)

narrative (content + structure, Max. 28)**

16.79 (6.38) 19.24 (5.64)

** p <.01; *** p <.001

BRIEF

16

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

65

Behavioural regulation

Metacognition Global

Deaf

Hearing

** ** **

**p <.01

Planning – Tower of London

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Deaf

Hearing

N 101 116

Mean no. additional moves

30.82 (18.39)

26.87 (14.96)

F (1, 212) = 1.61, p =.21

Mean time taken (seconds)

329.12 (153.93)

298.70 (118.60)

F (1, 212) = .62, p =.50

Inhibition - sun apple

**p <.01 30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

congruent incongruent

Pe

rce

nta

ge a

ccu

racy

deaf

hearing

**

**

F ( 1,198) = 6.58, MSE = 241.71, p = .01

Working Memory – odd one out

19

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

deaf hearing

F (1, 222) = 7.92, MSE = 12.13, p = .005

Working Memory – Corsi block

20

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Deaf Hearing

F (1,222) = 8.74, MSE = 2.75, p = .003

Switching (cognitive control)

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Deaf (N = 95)

Hearing (N = 125)

CCT1 time taken (secs)

31.36 (12.85)

31.02 (11.12)

F (1,221) = .01, MSE = 166.45, p =.94

CCT2 time taken (secs)*

69.04 (25.85)

61.21 (19.44)

F (1, 217) = 4.12, MSE = 296.14, p = .04

CCT2 Total errors***

1.07 (1.12)

.54 (.86)

F (1, 217) = 13.14, MSE = .96, p <.001

Design fluency

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Deaf (N = 103)

Hearing (N = 125)

Total designs (scaled score)

8.93 (3.1) 9.49 (3.4) F (1,224) = .01, MSE = 8.98, p =.92

Design repetitions*

2.41 (3.21) 1.49 (2.22) F (1, 222) = 4.98, MSE = 7.08, p = .03

Semantic fluency

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Deaf (N = 102)

Hearing (N = 125)

Total*** 14.06 (5.16) 17.66 (6.07) F (1, 222) = 15.33, MSE = 22.41, p <.001

Repetitions .56 (1.14) .34 (.65) F (1. 222) = 2.82, MSE = .83, p = .10

Summary

Differences No differences

Accuracy on sun apple - inhibition Tower extra moves - planning

Odd one out – working memory Design total - fluency

Corsi block backwards – working memory Semantic fluency - repetitions

Semantic fluency (total)

Design repetitions - inhibition

Colour trail (errors and time taken) switching/inhibition

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EFs and Language

• Multiple linear regressions

• Vocabulary predicted:

WM odd-one-out (β = .22 , p =.2 )

corsi bkwds (β = .28, p =.005)

Semantic fluency (β = .47, p <.001)

• Narrative predicted:

Design repetitions (β = -.26, p=.04) 25

Summary

• Differences between deaf and hearing for some but not all EF tasks

• Vocabulary predicts working memory and semantic fluency in deaf children

• Further analysis communication, hearing amplification etc. background needed

• Language measures still being developed

• TIME 2: Executive Function Language

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• Thanks to the research team at DCAL:

Gary Morgan

Chloe Marshall

Nicola Botting

Jo Atkinson

Kathryn Mason

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