The implementation of inherent strategies on children with and without language delay: SNARC effect and chunking effect

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to compare the differences in spatial-numerical association and chunking ability among 21 typically developing children (TD) and, 15 children with language delay (LD). This study aimed to identify whether the SNARC effect exists in the LD group. Methods: This study assumed that there was a mental number line where numbers are sequentially recognized from left to right. In other words, smaller numbers would be induced faster on the left side, and larger numbers would be induced faster on the right side (Gevers et al., 2010). The study included a visual number search (VNS) for verifying the SNARC effect, and linguistic and non-linguistic chunking tasks (word list recall, symmetric-asymmetric matrix) for identifying the chunking effect. Results: The SNARC effect was confirmed in both TD and LD children. The SNARC effect also showed the highest explanatory power in expressive language ability. However, in the LD group, neither the SNARC nor chunking effect was significantly predicted by receptive language ability. Conclusion: Both groups showed SNARC effects in terms of response time, and there was an inherent information processing strategy, which significantly predicted expressive language ability. If LD children were able to consistently demonstrate not only spatial-numerical association but also chunking ability; these could be more useful inherent strategies to facilitate efficient language skills. © 2020 Korean Academy of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology.