Purpose: In this study, it was aimed to comparatively examine the verbal memory processes of children aged 5-9 years with typical development and children with specific language disorders. Method: Participants were first asked to fill in the General Information Form. According to the answers given to the questions in the general information form, individuals whose native language was Turkish and who did not have any hearing loss, cognitive and neurodevelopmental disorders were included in the study. It was necessary that there should be no significant difference in nonverbal intelligence scores between individuals with specific language impairment and typical development. For this reason, non-verbal intelligence scores of all participants were evaluated with the Raven Colored Progressive Matrices Test, and no statistical difference was observed between the scores. Then, the language skills of the participants were evaluated with the Turkish School Age Language Development Test. The individuals whose language skills were found to be appropriate for their age were classified as the typical development group, and the individuals whose language skills were retarded according to their age were classified as the specific language disorder group. The sample of the study consisted of 36 children aged 5-9 years, 16 with specific language disorders and 20 with typical development. The memory processes of the groups were evaluated with the Verbal Memory Processes Test and the First Word Recall subtest of the Working Memory Scale. Results: According to the data collected from the participants, children with spesific language disorder; showed lower performance in highest learning (t34= 3.799, p<.05), total learning (t34= 4.209, p<,05), long-term memory (t34= 2.706, p<.05), instant memory (t34= .311, p= 0.758), total recall (t34= 3.182, p<.05) and working memory (t34= 4.523, p<.05) skills compared to their typic development peers. Conclusion: It has been observed that the spesific language disorder group performed weaker than the typic development group in all memory functions. This shows that the skills specific to the types of memory work as a whole. Therefore all memory skills should be included in the diagnosis, evaluation and therapy processes of individuals children with spesific language disorder, and the interrelationships of these skills should also be considered.
Keywords
specific language disorder, memory processes, long-term memory, working memory, short-term memory
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