What is it about?
This study examined how Spanish-speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD) perform on various thinking skills, specifically executive functions. These skills are essential because they help us stay focused, manage information in our minds, and adjust to new situations. We compared children with DLD to typically developing children of the same age. The results showed that children with DLD had more difficulties in some areas, especially ignoring distractions or mentally working with verbal information, while other skills were similar to those of their peers. The findings also show that not all children with DLD share the same pattern of strengths and weaknesses in executive functions.
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Why is it important?
Our study helps clarify that, as a group, children with developmental language disorder (DLD) do not all have the same level across executive functions. Some thinking skills, such as cognitive flexibility, may even appear as a relative strength. These findings highlight the need to approach the assessment and intervention of children with DLD in a more comprehensive way, broadening the focus beyond language. Importantly, our results also show that not all children with DLD experience the same executive function challenges, emphasizing the value of individualized assessment before planning therapy. Finally, this research contributes to the existing limited evidence on Spanish-speaking populations, thereby expanding knowledge beyond English-speaking contexts.
Perspectives
This article is based on the findings of my doctoral dissertation, which represents the culmination of several years of research on executive functions and language development in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). It is also a very meaningful publication for me because, in addition to being an academic, I am a clinician who works directly with children with DLD. This research has provided insights that will undoubtedly enhance my own clinical practice. Moreover, this article emerged from a collaboration among Chilean researchers in the fields of speech-language pathology and psychology, as well as a colleague from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain. This interdisciplinary collaboration has enriched the study, fostering a truly integrative perspective on DLD.
Felipe Torres
Universidad de Chile
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Executive Function Performance in Spanish-Speaking Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Uniformity and Variability, Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, October 2025, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA),
DOI: 10.1044/2025_jslhr-24-00344.
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