Predictors of verbal working memory in children with cerebral palsy

The goal of the present study was to examine the precursors of verbal working memory in 52 children with cerebral palsy with varying degrees of speech impairments in the first grade of special education. Following Baddeley's model of working memory, children's verbal working memory was measured by means of a forced-recognition task. As precursors of verbal working memory, measures of intelligence, speech rate, speech intelligibility, auditory perception, and phonological awareness were also administered. Correlations were computed between all measures followed by Structural Equation Modeling analyses with speech rate and speech intelligibility being identified as a single factor ‘speech’. The results revealed that verbal working memory was mostly predicted by intelligence, auditory perception and speech ability. It was also found that children with cerebral palsy with additional intellectual and speech impairments were at risk for limited verbal working memory spans.