This study investigated the longitudinal relationship between children’s domain-general cognitive constraints underlying phonological and sentence processing development in a big sample of typically developing children. 104 children were tested on non-linguistic processing speed, phonological skills (phonological short term memory, phonological knowledge, phonological working memory), and sentence processing abilities (sentence repetition and receptive grammar) in 1st grade (aged 6 to 6.5) and one year later. A cross-lagged structural equation model showed that non-linguistic processing speed was a concurrent predictor of phonological skills, and that phonology had a powerful effect on the child’s sentence processing abilities concurrently and longitudinally, providing clear evidence for the role of domain-general processes in the developmental pathway of language. These findings support a cascaded cognitive view of language development and pose important challenges for evaluation and intervention strategies in childhood.

本研究调查了典型发育儿童的大样本中儿童的领域-一般认知约束之间的纵向关系，这些约束是语音和句子处理发展的基础。第一阶段对 104 名儿童进行了非语言处理速度、语音技能（语音短期记忆、语音知识、语音工作记忆）和句子处理能力（句子重复和接受语法）的测试年级（6 至 6.5 岁）和一年后。交叉滞后结构方程模型表明，非语言处理速度是语音技能的并发预测因子，语音对孩子的句子处理能力同时和纵向有强大影响，为领域一般过程的作用提供了明确的证据在语言的发展过程中。这些发现支持语言发展的级联认知观点，并对儿童时期的评估和干预策略提出了重要挑战。