Children With Developmental Language Disorder Show Deficits in the Production of Musical Rhythmic Groupings

Abstract

Purpose: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) show evidencof domain-general deficits in sequentially patterned motor skills. This studfocuses on the production of rhythmically grouped sequences drawn from music task, with the hypothesis that children with DLD will show a sequenpattern learning deficit that crosses language and action domains. Method: Fifty-seven 4-to 5-year-old children (36 with DLD) drummed anclapped a developmentally appropriate musical rhythmic sequence 24 time(clapped 12 times, drummed 12 times). The accuracy of rhythmic events (maings of claps, drums, and pauses in a target sequence) was assessed througmodification of classic speech and language transcription procedures. The varability and prosodic structure of the rhythmic groupings were also measured. Results: Children with DLD produced less accurate and more variable rhythmgroupings compared to their typically developing (TD) peers. While the finaposition grouping of the sequence was especially vulnerable for all children, thowith DLD included more co-occurring errors in initial and final groupings of same rhythmic sequence. Both TD children and children with DLD were leaccurate in the clapping than the drumming task. Neither rhythmic drumming nclapping accuracy correlated with motor skill in either group of children. Conclusions: This study provides novel evidence of a manual rhythmic grouing deficit in DLD, one that is motivated by language—not motor or speecfactors. Cognitive abilities necessary to organize rhythmic events into higheorder groupings are impaired across music and language in children with DLRhythmic organization and sequencing may serve an important role in diagnosand intervention in this population.