Deficits in working memory (WM) have been reported repeatedly in children with primary language impairment (PLI) and may significantly contribute to the language difficulties that are experienced by these children. However, interventional studies within the field regarding the cross-domain effects between working memory and language are limited, and their results are contradictory. Therefore, the first aim of this study was to explore whether WM training can improve the WM skills of these children and whether the effects of training could be transferred to language, specifically to grammatical skills. The second aim of this study was to investigate the near and far transfer effects of direct language intervention on grammar and WM, respectively, as this is the most (and sometimes the only) considered treatment programme for children with PLI. Using a single-subject experimental design, ten 6–8-year-old children with PLI received WM training and language intervention, respectively, in two consecutive phases of study. The treatment gains on targeted areas and generalization to the other domain were tracked by repeated measurements of some WM and language tasks and were completed by a set of pre- and post-intervention measures. Regarding the results, it appears that if sufficient time is spent on WM training, WM-related skills improve and the effects also transferred to morpho-syntactic language skills. However, a cross-domain effect in the reverse direction is questionable. Though the language intervention programme resulted in good gains in grammatical skills, it did not improve participant performance in WM tasks, with the exception of non-word repetition (NWR). The observed participant gains in non-word repetition were likely due to the improvement in higher-level linguistic processing, rather than the actual enhancement of WM skills.

中文翻译：

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原发性语言障碍的认知和语言干预：研究工作记忆训练和直接语言干预对扩展语法和工作记忆能力的有效性

有初级语言障碍 (PLI) 的儿童反复报告工作记忆 (WM) 缺陷，这可能会显着导致这些儿童遇到语言困难。然而，该领域内关于工作记忆和语言之间跨领域效应的干预研究有限，其结果相互矛盾。因此，本研究的第一个目的是探索西语培训是否可以提高这些孩子的西语技能，以及培训的效果是否可以转移到语言，特别是语法技能上。本研究的第二个目的是分别调查直接语言干预对语法和 WM 的近和远转移效应，因为这是最（有时是唯一）考虑的 PLI 儿童治疗方案。采用单受试者实验设计，10 名 6-8 岁 PLI 儿童在连续两个研究阶段分别接受了 WM 培训和语言干预。通过重复测量一些 WM 和语言任务来跟踪目标区域的治疗收益和对其他领域的泛化，并通过一系列干预前和干预后措施完成。关于结果，似乎如果在 WM 培训上花费足够的时间，WM 相关技能会提高，并且效果也会转移到形态句法语言技能上。然而，反向的跨域效应是有问题的。尽管语言干预计划在语法技能方面取得了良好的进步，但它并没有提高参与者在 WM 任务中的表现，除了非单词重复 (NWR)。