scholarly journals An Initial Investigation of the Neural Correlates of Word Processing in Preschoolers With Specific Language Impairment

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 729-739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen Haebig ◽  
Laurence Leonard ◽  
Evan Usler ◽  
Patricia Deevy ◽  
Christine Weber
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Typical Development ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Positive Component ◽  
Late Positive Component ◽  
Specific Language

Purpose Previous behavioral studies have found deficits in lexical–semantic abilities in children with specific language impairment (SLI), including reduced depth and breadth of word knowledge. This study explored the neural correlates of early emerging familiar word processing in preschoolers with SLI and typical development. Method Fifteen preschoolers with typical development and 15 preschoolers with SLI were presented with pictures followed after a brief delay by an auditory label that did or did not match. Event-related brain potentials were time locked to the onset of the auditory labels. Children provided verbal judgments of whether the label matched the picture. Results There were no group differences in the accuracy of identifying when pictures and labels matched or mismatched. Event-related brain potential data revealed that mismatch trials elicited a robust N400 in both groups, with no group differences in mean amplitude or peak latency. However, the typically developing group demonstrated a more robust late positive component, elicited by mismatch trials. Conclusions These initial findings indicate that lexical–semantic access of early acquired words, indexed by the N400, does not differ between preschoolers with SLI and typical development when highly familiar words are presented in isolation. However, the typically developing group demonstrated a more mature profile of postlexical reanalysis and integration, indexed by an emerging late positive component. The findings lay the necessary groundwork for better understanding processing of newly learned words in children with SLI.

scholarly journals Production and Processing of Subject–Verb Agreement in Monolingual Dutch Children With Specific Language Impairment

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 952-965 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elma Blom ◽  
Nada Vasić ◽  
Jan de Jong
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Typical Development ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
Test Sensitivity ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Listening Task ◽  
Dutch Children

Purpose In this study, the authors investigated whether errors with subject–verb agreement in monolingual Dutch children with specific language impairment (SLI) are influenced by verb phonology. In addition, the productive and receptive abilities of Dutch acquiring children with SLI regarding agreement inflection were compared. Method An SLI group (6–8 years old), an age-matched group with typical development, and a language-matched, younger, typically developing (TD) group participated in the study. Using an elicitation task, the authors tested use of third person singular inflection after verbs that ended in obstruents (plosive, fricative) or nonobstruents (sonorant). The authors used a self-paced listening task to test sensitivity to subject–verb agreement violations. Results Omission was more frequent after obstruents than nonobstruents; the younger TD group used inflection less often after plosives than fricatives, unlike the SLI group. The SLI group did not detect subject–verb agreement violations if the ungrammatical structure contained a frequent error (omission), but if the ungrammatical structure contained an infrequent error (substitution), subject–verb agreement violations were noticed. Conclusions The use of agreement inflection by children with TD or SLI is affected by verb phonology. Differential effects in the 2 groups are consistent with a delayed development in Dutch SLI. Parallels between productive and receptive abilities point to weak lexical agreement inflection representations in Dutch SLI.

The interface between bilingual development and specific language impairment

2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHANNE PARADIS
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Processing Capacity ◽  
Typical Development ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Bilingual Development

ABSTRACTResearch at the interface of bilingual development and child language disorders has increased greatly in the past decade. The purpose of this article is to highlight the theoretical and clinical implications of this research. Studies examining the similarities in linguistic characteristics between typically developing sequential bilingual children and monolingual children with specific language impairment (SLI) the same age are reviewed in light of predictions from a maturational model of SLI. Studies examining the linguistic characteristics of bilingual children with SLI compared to monolinguals with SLI and their bilingual peers with typical development are reviewed in light of predictions of limited processing capacity theories of SLI. It is shown that data from bilingual children pose interesting challenges to both theoretical perspectives, although in different ways. Finally, the findings from this research are discussed in terms of their relevance for assessment of SLI in bilingual children.

scholarly journals Input sources of third person singular -s inconsistency in children with and without specific language impairment

2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 786-820 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAURENCE B. LEONARD ◽  
MARC E. FEY ◽  
PATRICIA DEEVY ◽  
SHELLEY L. BREDIN-OJA
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Typical Development ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Simple Sentences

ABSTRACTWe tested four predictions based on the assumption that optional infinitives can be attributed to properties of the input whereby children inappropriately extract non-finite subject–verb sequences (e.g. the girl run) from larger input utterances (e.g. Does the girl run? Let's watch the girl run). Thirty children with specific language impairment (SLI) and thirty typically developing children heard novel and familiar verbs that appeared exclusively either in utterances containing non-finite subject–verb sequences or in simple sentences with the verb inflected for third person singular -s. Subsequent testing showed strong input effects, especially for the SLI group. The results provide support for input-based factors as significant contributors not only to the optional infinitive period in typical development, but also to the especially protracted optional infinitive period seen in SLI.

Perfective – imperfective

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katerina Konstantzou ◽  
Angeliek van Hout ◽  
Spyridoula Varlokosta ◽  
Maria Vlassopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Typical Development ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Perfective Aspect ◽  
Imperfective Aspect ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Asymmetrical Pattern

Tense morphology has been found to be cross-linguistically vulnerable in specific language impairment (SLI). Research on the development of aspect is rather limited and results are quite inconsistent; some studies suggest that aspect appears intact (Leonard et al. 2003), while others report severe deficits (Fletcher et al. 2005). The present study is the first one to examine the comprehension and production of aspectual distinctions in Greek SLI. Forty children participated in the study; eight children with SLI (mean age: 6;7), sixteen age-matched typically developing children (mean age: 6;6) and sixteen language-matched typically developing children (mean age: 4;5). Our results provide evidence that the development of aspectual distinctions in Greek SLI seems to be delayed rather than deviant, as it follows the asymmetrical pattern described for earlier stages of typical development; perfective aspect is fully acquired, whereas interpretation of imperfective aspect is still inadequate (Kazanina & Phillips 2003; van Hout 2005).

scholarly journals Examining the Language Phenotype in Children With Typical Development, Specific Language Impairment, and Fragile X Syndrome

2016 ◽  
Vol 59 (5) ◽  
pp. 1046-1058 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen Haebig ◽  
Audra Sterling ◽  
Jill Hoover
Keyword(s):  
Fragile X Syndrome ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Fragile X ◽  
Typical Development ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Language Assessments ◽  
Assessment Procedures ◽  
Mean Length Of Utterance

Purpose One aspect of morphosyntax, finiteness marking, was compared in children with fragile X syndrome (FXS), specific language impairment (SLI), and typical development matched on mean length of utterance (MLU). Method Nineteen children with typical development (mean age = 3.3 years), 20 children with SLI (mean age = 4.9 years), and 17 boys with FXS (mean age = 11.9 years) completed the Test of Early Grammatical Impairment (TEGI; Rice & Wexler, 2001), and other cognitive and language assessments. Quantitative comparisons on finiteness marking and qualitative comparisons of unscorable (i.e., nontarget) TEGI responses were conducted. Results Children with typical development and FXS performed better on finiteness marking than children with SLI. Although unscorable responses were infrequent, boys with FXS produced more unscorable responses than children with typical development and SLI. Conclusions Although boys with FXS have language deficits, they performed similarly to MLU-matched typically developing children on finiteness marking. This language profile differs from children with SLI, who present with a delay-within-a-delay profile with finiteness marking delays that exceed delays in MLU. Unscorable responses produced by the boys with FXS may reflect pragmatic deficits, which are prominent in this population. Assessment procedures should be carefully considered when examining language in boys with FXS.

Learning, Forgetting, and Relearning: Skill Learning in Children With Language Impairment

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 696-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Adi-Japha ◽  
Haia Abu-Asba
Keyword(s):  
Motor Skills ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Skill Learning ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Fine Motor ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Retention Testing ◽  
Over Time

Purpose The current study tested whether the difficulties of children with specific language impairment (SLI) in skill acquisition are related to learning processes that occur while practicing a new skill or to the passage of time between practice and later performance. Method The acquisition and retention of a new complex grapho-motor symbol were studied in 5-year-old children with SLI and peers matched for age and nonverbal IQ. The children practiced the production of the symbol for 4 consecutive days. Retention testing took place 10 days later. Results Children with SLI began each practice day slower than their peers but attained similar levels of performance by its end. Although they increased their performance speed within sessions more than their peers, they did not retain their learning as well between sessions. The loss in speed was largest in the 10-day retention interval. They were also less accurate, but accuracy differences decreased over time. Between-session group differences in speed could not fully be accounted for based on fine motor skills. Conclusions In spite of effective within-session learning, children with SLI did not retain the new skill well. The deficit may be attributed to task forgetting in the presence of delayed consolidation processes.

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