The use of articles by monolingual Puerto Rican Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment

2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
RAQUEL T. ANDERSON ◽  
SOFÍA M. SOUTO
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Puerto Rican Spanish ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Phonological Skill ◽  
Target Article

The present investigation sought to evaluate patterns of article use in a group of monolingual Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI). In particular, because of conflicting results reported in previous studies, it was of interest to discern specific types of nontarget responses and how these corresponded to what has been reported in other Spanish-speaking children with SLI. Eleven children with SLI and 11 age-matched peers participated in the study. Three different spontaneous speech samples were gathered from each child. In addition, an experimental task that assessed the children's use of articles with a variety of nouns was also administered to the children. The results of the study for both spontaneous speech and experimental data indicated that the children with SLI performed significantly poorer in their use of Spanish articles than their age-matched peers. Most of the nontarget responses consisted of omission of the target article. In contrast to a previous study by Restrepo and Gutiérrez–Clellen, the children did not present with deficits in noun phrase gender agreement. The gender errors that were observed appeared to be due to difficulties accessing the correct article form and not due to deficits in knowledge of the gender agreement paradigm. Possible theoretical explanations were explored suggesting that both processing and linguistic explanations, in particular optionality of determiners, could explain the observed patterns. Reasons for cross-study differences in error patterns are suggested, including relative phonological skill and language learning environment.

Verb inflections and noun phrase morphology in the spontaneous speech of Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment

2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
LISA M. BEDORE ◽  
LAURENCE B. LEONARD
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
General Linguistic ◽  
Verb Inflections ◽  
Mean Length Of Utterance

Spanish-speaking preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI) were compared to typically developing same-age peers (TD-A) and younger typically developing children matched for mean length of utterance (TD-MLU) in terms of their use of grammatical morphology in spontaneous speech. The children with SLI showed high levels of accuracy on present tense and past tense (preterite) verb inflections. However, their use of definite articles and direct object clitics was significantly more problematic than for either the TD-MLU or the TD-A children. Substitutions and omissions were observed, especially in contexts requiring plural articles and clitics. Many of the details of the observed Spanish SLI profile were predicted by Wexler's (Extended) Unique Checking Constraint (EUCC) proposal. Remaining details in the data could be accommodated by making additional assumptions within the same general linguistic framework as the EUCC. Some of the differences between the findings from Spanish and those from previous studies on related languages such as Italian suggest the need for clinical assessment and intervention procedures that are shaped as much by language-specific details as by the language's typology.

Morphology in incipient bilingual Spanish-speaking preschool children with specific language impairment

2002 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
PEGGY F. JACOBSON ◽  
RICHARD G. SCHWARTZ
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Language Impairments ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Experimental Task ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Verb Inflections

This study examined the use of clitic pronouns by incipient bilingual Spanish-speaking 4- and 5-year-old children with and without language impairments. Incipient bilingualism refers to the initial stages of contact between two languages, when an individual still has only passive knowledge of a second language. The participants included 10 children with typical language development and 10 children with specific language impairment (SLI). The experimental task elicited clitic pronouns serving as direct objects with finite verbs (lo, la, los, and las). The children who had SLI used clitic pronouns less frequently than their age-matched peers and were less accurate in their use of gender agreement for clitics. No group differences were found for third person singular and plural verb inflections in the preterite tense. These results were compared to previous studies of Spanish- and Italian-speaking children with SLI.

Article use in Spanish-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment

2001 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 433-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARÍA ADELAIDA RESTREPO ◽  
VERA F. GUTIERREZ-CLELLEN
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Analysis Of Covariance ◽  
Nonparametric Analysis ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Normal Language ◽  
And Gender

The current study analysed article use in Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment who are learning English as a second language. The SURFACE HYPOTHESIS account of specific language impairment was evaluated in relation to the use of articles in these children. Language samples were obtained from 15 Spanish-speaking children with language impairment and 15 with normal language, ages 5;0 to 7;1, matched by age, gender, and school. The percentage of article errors was tested between groups with a nonparametric analysis and an analysis of covariance with mean length of terminable unit as the covariate. Results revealed significant differences between groups on percent of article errors with and without MLTU as the covariate. Nonparametric statistics on percent of article error types indicated that most errors consisted of omissions and gender agreement substitutions. As predicted by the Surface Hypothesis, article errors were likely to occur in unstressed definite articles, suggesting that perceptual and prosodic processes have some impact on children's production of articles.

Deficits in Explicit Language Problem Solving Rather Than in Implicit Learning in Specific Language Impairment: Evidence From Learning an Artificial Morphological Rule

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (10) ◽  
pp. 3790-3807 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Ferman ◽  
Liat Kishon-Rabin ◽  
Hila Ganot-Budaga ◽  
Avi Karni
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Explicit Knowledge ◽  
Procedural Memory ◽  
Procedural Learning ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Language Problems ◽  
Morphological Rule ◽  
Semantic Distinction

Purpose The purpose of this study was to delineate differences between children with specific language impairment (SLI), typical age–matched (TAM) children, and typical younger (TY) children in learning and mastering an undisclosed artificial morphological rule (AMR) through exposure and usage. Method Twenty-six participants (eight 10-year-old children with SLI, 8 TAM children, and ten 8-year-old TY children) were trained to master an AMR across multiple training sessions. The AMR required a phonological transformation of verbs depending on a semantic distinction: whether the preceding noun was animate or inanimate. All participants practiced the application of the AMR to repeated and new (generalization) items, via judgment and production tasks. Results The children with SLI derived significantly less benefit from practice than their peers in learning most aspects of the AMR, even exhibiting smaller gains compared to the TY group in some aspects. Children with SLI benefited less than TAM and even TY children from training to judge and produce repeated items of the AMR. Nevertheless, despite a significant disadvantage in baseline performance, the rate at which they mastered the task-specific phonological regularities was as robust as that of their peers. On the other hand, like 8-year-olds, only half of the SLI group succeeded in uncovering the nature of the AMR and, consequently, in generalizing it to new items. Conclusions Children with SLI were able to learn language aspects that rely on implicit, procedural learning, but experienced difficulties in learning aspects that relied on the explicit uncovering of the semantic principle of the AMR. The results suggest that some of the difficulties experienced by children with SLI when learning a complex language regularity cannot be accounted for by a broad, language-related, procedural memory disability. Rather, a deficit—perhaps a developmental delay in the ability to recruit and solve language problems and establish explicit knowledge regarding a language task—can better explain their difficulties in language learning.

Dynamic Temporal Processing of Nonspeech Acoustic Information by Children With Specific Language Impairment

1996 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 510-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane C. Visto ◽  
Jerry L. Cranford ◽  
Rosalind Scudder
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Precedence Effect ◽  
Complex Sound ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Acoustic Information ◽  
Rapid Changes ◽  
Spectral Components ◽  
Normal Language

The present study investigated whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) differed from children with normal language learning in their ability to process binaural temporal information. The SLI group was matched with peers of the same chronological age, as well as peers with similar language age. All three subject groups were tested with measures of complex sound localization involving the precedence effect phenomenon. Subjects were required to track the apparent motion of a “moving” fused auditory image (FAI). Movement of the FAI was simulated by varying the delay incrementally between pairs of clicks presented, one each, from two matched loudspeakers placed on opposite sides of the child’s head. With this task, the SLI subjects’ performances were found to be similar to their language age-matched but chronologically younger peers. Both groups exhibited tracking skills that were statistically poorer than that of the chronologically age-matched group. Additional tests indicated this effect was not due to differences in motoric tracking abilities nor to the SLI subjects’ abilities to perceive small binaural time cues. Thus, children with SLI appear to be impaired in their ability to use binaural acoustic information in a dynamic ongoing fashion. The requirements for processing such nonlinguistic acoustic information in a “dynamic and ongoing” fashion may be similar to those involved in the ongoing processing of rapid changes in the temporal and spectral components of the speech chain.

Specific Language Impairment as a Clinical Category

1991 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 66-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence B. Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Language Ability ◽  
Central Mechanism ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Language Measures ◽  
Clinical Category

Many children are diagnosed as "specifically language-impaired" principally on the basis of their low scores relative to the norm on language measures. Yet it is often assumed that such children must suffer from a subtle disruption or defect in some peripheral or central mechanism that is involved in language learning. In this paper, an alternative view is offered: Many of these children may simply be limited in language ability in much the same way that others may be poor in musical, spatial, or bodily kinesthetic abilities.

A Preliminary Investigation of Reduplication in Children with Specific Language Impairment

1985 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Lahey ◽  
Judy Flax ◽  
Gloria Schlisselberg
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Children ◽  
Language Development ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Preliminary Investigation ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Whole Word

The frequency of reduplication was examined in relation to syllable maintenance, final consonant production, and whole word repetitions in two preschool children with specific language impairment—one who reduplicated frequently and one who did so infrequently. Spontaneous speech was sampled for a period of 18 months. During the single-word utterance period, reduplication was associated with infrequent production of final consonants but frequent maintenance of multisyllabic structure. After the single-word utterance period the child who had frequently reduplicated during this period ceased reduplication but frequently produced whole word repetitions. Infrequent production of final consonants continued, but syllable maintenance decreased. The data are discussed in relation to hypotheses about the function of reduplication and the function of whole word repetitions in language development.

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