The aim of the present study is to investigate the relationship between
language comprehension and language production in Swedish children.
This was done longitudinally with 10 children with specific language
impairment (SLI), aged 4;0 to 6;3 at Time I, and 10 children with
unimpaired language development, aged 3;1 to 3;7 at Time I. The
target structure was subordination, more precisely relative clauses. The
children's comprehension was tested with picture pointing, act-out and
oral response tests. Their production was tested with elicited imitation
and sentence completion tests. Data were collected twice, with an
interval of six months. The results from the unimpaired children at
Time I showed a difference between comprehension and production. At
Time II these children scored higher on production than on comprehension.
The children with SLI scored significantly higher on
comprehension than on production at Time I. In half of the SLI group
there was a clear development between the two data collection sessions,
diminishing the dissociation. On neither testing did the children with
SLI differ significantly from the unimpaired children in comprehension.
At both testings, however, the children with SLI had significantly more
responses where they did not insert the complementizer in relative
clauses. The results indicate that the relationship between comprehension
and production is different at different stages in development.
They also show that structures involving dependency relations are
particularly difficult to produce for children with SLI.