Maturation and relationship of working memory and suprasegmental perception in school-age children

Purpose: Understanding how cognitive and perceptual abilities develop and interact across childhood is central to theories of cognitive development. Working memory (WM) is a key domain-general process that supports learning and reasoning, whereas suprasegmental perception involves processing speech features such as rhythm, stress, and emotion. However, the extent to which these abilities develop in parallel across childhood remains unclear. Therefore, the present study aimed to examine the developmental trajectories of WM and suprasegmental perception in individuals with normal-hearing. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, WM was assessed using the auditory, visual, and spatial backward span tests, and suprasegmental perception was assessed using the emotion perception test and the stress and rhythm discrimination tests, in 140 subjects aged 7–12 years and 18–30 years. The performance of six groups of children in the above domains was compared with that of an adult group. Results: Results showed strong age-related gains for all measures. WM improved steadily across childhood, in line with the continued maturation of domain-general executive resources. Suprasegmental perception demonstrated similarly steep developmental growth, with emotion perception yielding the steepest age-related increase. Across both domains, post hoc analyses suggested convergence to adult-like levels by around 11–12 years of age, at which point there were no significant differences between older children and adults. However, visual WM continues to mature into adulthood, where adults performed significantly better than 12-year olds. Conclusions: The findings from this study support developmental accounts that propose a shared maturational timeline for domain-general cognitive resources and complex auditory–perceptual processing. Late childhood appears to be a critical phase for integrating WM and suprasegmental speech processing, informing theoretical models of cognitive and language development.