Prof. ZHANG Caicai, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies

The neurocognition of developmental disorders of language. The 28th International Conference on Yue Dialects. Research Institute for Bilingual Learning and Teaching (RIBiLT), Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Hong Kong, 13-14 December 2024.

Abstract
Despite their importance, competence at language is not universal. Various neurodevelopmental speech and language disorders can impact these critical abilities in children, including developmental language disorder (DLD) and developmental dyslexia (DD). Each of these disorders affect a significant portion of children; they also co-occur frequently. However, the neurocognitive bases of these disorders and their relationships with each other are not well-understood. In this talk, I will report initial findings from a large-scale, theory-driven study that investigated how procedural and declarative learning, including their behavioral manifestations, brain anatomy, and memory consolidation, contribute to typical and atypical language development in Chinese children. Seventy-seven L1 Cantonese school-age children aged between 6 and 12 years old (including 32 typically developing children and 45 children with DLD, DD or their comorbidities) completed procedural and declarative learning and overnight memory retention tasks via a two-day design. Among the participants, 40 children (including 11 typically developing children and 29 children with disorders) also provided sMRI and DTI data. Preliminary data analysis yielded some support for the hypothesized procedural circuity deficit in Chinese children with these disorders, but also suggested a nuanced picture of their neurocognitive difficulties. The findings should advance our understanding of the neurocognition of these deleterious disorders and their brain-cognition-language interrelations in Chinese children, laying the foundation for the development of evidence-based diagnosis and intervention approaches.