Predictors of sentence recall performance in children with and without DLD: Complexity matters.

The study used correlations, so it cannot show that any one skill causes poorer sentence recall or that training that skill would help. The regression approach was stepwise, and the typical group result changed depending on the entry criterion, so the predictor pattern for typical children was not stable. DLD performance at the highest complexity level was near floor, which can restrict the range of scores and make the regression less informative. The sample was kindergarten children from rural Louisiana speaking two English dialects, so results may not apply to older children, other dialects or other languages. Nonword repetition was treated as phonological short-term memory but also depends on linguistic knowledge, and the working memory task used verbal material, so the labels may not isolate purely memory processes. Dialect scoring counted some permitted zero forms as errors, which may have affected ungrammatical and tense error findings, especially for African American English speakers.

The authors declared no competing interests.

Do not conclude that working memory training will improve sentence recall. This was a correlational study, not an intervention test, so it only shows that working memory was independently associated with exact repetition in children with DLD at lower complexity levels.