Some Links between Executive Function and Spoken Language Processing: Preliminary Findings using Self-Ordered Pointing and Missing Scan Tasks

Early auditory deprivation and a delay in language acquisition may result in disturbances to the normal development of executive function behaviors in congenitally deaf children with cochlear implants. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between executive function and spoken language processing using two new executive function measures, the Self-Ordered Pointing (SOP) and Missing Word task (MWT). Other cognitive and language measures were also collected in this study. Twenty adult subjects completed the experiment. Results showed that subjects performed better in the verbal condition of SOP in comparison to the non-verbal condition. Subjects also showed a trend for improvement over block presentations. These results replicate earlier studies that used SOP. Additional analyses revealed associations of executive functions and language measures. Specifically, correlations were found between the non-verbal condition of SOP and receptive vocabulary as well as non-verbal SOP and backward Digit Span. Few results were found with MWT. Subjects showed a trend for a decrease in performance as set size increased. A weak relationship was observed for MWT and forward Digit Span. The results contribute to our understanding of the relationship between executive functions and spoken language processes. Future directions for this research include the use of these new behavioral measures with normal hearing children and congenitally deaf children with cochlear implants.