Morpheme Learning of Children With Specific Language Impairment Under Controlled Instructional Conditions

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 844-852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phil J. Connell ◽  
C. Addison Stone
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Effect ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Specific Response ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Response To Instruction ◽  
Nonverbal Ability

Three groups of children were exposed to instances of a novel morpheme under controlled experimental conditions. The performance of 32 children with specific language impairment (SLI), aged 5:0 to 7:0 years (years:months), was compared to that of 24 normally developing children matched for age and nonverbal ability and 20 younger normally developing children matched for language development and nonverbal ability. The children were taught under two instructional conditions that differed only in whether the child was asked to imitate the new language form after each instance imitation) or just to observe its use (modeling). Consistent with past research (Connell, 1987b), the children with SLI performed significantly better under the imitation condition than under modeling, but the age-matched controls showed no difference in response to instruction. The performance of the language-matched controls was similar to that of the age-matched controls, suggesting that the instruction-specific effect for the children with SLI is not merely a function of general language immaturity. Although the superiority of the imitation condition for the children with SLI was evident for test trials requiring production of the new morpheme (as in past research), no such effect was evident for comprehension trials. This differing effect of output demands suggests that the SLI-specific response to instruction is not a matter of different mastery of the new rule but rather is specific to the need to access the newly induced rule on production trials. The accessing of phonological representations as a possible explanation for the effect is discussed.

On the nature of verb–noun dissociations in bilectal SLI: A psycholinguistic perspective from Greek

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARIA KAMBANAROS ◽  
KLEANTHES K. GROHMANN ◽  
MICHALIS MICHAELIDES ◽  
ELENI THEODOROU
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Word Class ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Per Se

We report on object and action picture-naming accuracy in two groups of bilectal speakers in Cyprus, children with typical language development (TLD) and children with specific language impairment (SLI). Object names were overall better retrieved than action names by both groups. Given that comprehension for action names was relatively intact for all children, this finding is taken to be the result of a breakdown at the interface of the semantic lexicon and phonological representations, or access to them. The results complement similar research on English, a minimally inflected language in contrast to Greek. Overall, cross-linguistic word class effects provide strong evidence for the hypothesis that grammatical category is an organizing principle shared across languages. Finally, our results suggest that bilectal children with SLI present with general lexical delay rather than a deficit in verb naming per se.

The Conceptual Basis for Morpheme Learning Problems in Children With Specific Language Impairment

1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 389-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phil J. Connell ◽  
C. Addison Stone
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Rule Learning ◽  
Cognitive Domain ◽  
Learning Problems ◽  
Symbol Systems ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Linguistic Rule ◽  
Visual Tasks ◽  
Nonverbal Ability

Two groups of children were exposed to instances of a nonlinguistic conceptual rule under controlled instructional conditions to determine whether the problems children with specific language impairment (SLI) have learning and accessing language rules extend beyond the language domain into the general cognitive domain. The performance of 20 children with SLI, aged 5:0 to 6:11 (years:months), was compared to that of 20 normally developing children matched for age and nonverbal ability. These children were taught under two instructional conditions that differed only in whether the child was asked to imitate the solution to a conceptual problem after each demonstration (imitation) or merely to observe it (modeling). Contrary to previous findings regarding linguistic rule-learning using auditory or visual symbol systems and similar instructional conditions, no difference was found between the extent of overall learning displayed by the normally developing children and those with SLI. Also, the performance of the children with SLI was not uniquely better under the imitation condition than under modeling, as had been the case with the learning of a novel morpheme in an auditory linguistic task. These results are interpreted as confirming the earlier assumption that the generally lower overall learning rate of the children with SLI on both the auditory and visual tasks reflects a specific linguistic rule-learning difficulty, rather than a general deficiency in rule induction.

Information Processing by School-Age Children With Specific Language Impairment

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 913-926 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald B. Gillam ◽  
Nelson Cowan ◽  
Jeffrey A. Marler
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Memory Span ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
School Age ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Immediate Recall ◽  
Audiovisual Stimuli

School-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) and age-matched controls were tested for immediate recall of digits presented visually, auditorily, or audiovisually. Recall tasks compared speaking and pointing response modalities. Each participant was tested at a level that was consistent with her or his auditory short-term memory span. Traditional effects of primacy, recency, and modality (an auditory recall advantage) were obtained for both groups. The groups performed similarly when audiovisual stimuli were paired with a spoken response, but children with SLI had smaller recency effects together with an unusually poor recall when visually presented items were paired with a pointing response. Such results cannot be explained on the basis of an auditory or speech deficit per se, and suggest that children with SLI have difficulty either retaining or using phonological codes, or both, during tasks that require multiple mental operations. Capacity limitations, involving the rapid decay of phonological representations and/or performance limitations related to the use of less demanding and less effective coding and retrieval strategies, could have contributed to the working memory deficiencies in the children with SLI.

scholarly journals Information Processing and Proactive Interference in Children With and Without Specific Language Impairment

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klara Marton ◽  
Luca Campanelli ◽  
Naomi Eichorn ◽  
Jessica Scheuer ◽  
Jungmee Yoon
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Proactive Interference ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Processing Abilities ◽  
Inhibition Control

Purpose Increasing evidence suggests that children with specific language impairment (SLI) have a deficit in inhibition control, but research isolating specific abilities is scarce. The goal of this study was to examine whether children with SLI differ from their peers in resistance to proactive interference under different conditions. Method An information processing battery with manipulations in interference was administered to 66 children (SLI, age-matched peers, and language-matched controls). In Experiment 1, previously relevant targets were used as distractors to create conflict. Experiment 2 used item repetitions to examine how practice strengthens word representations and how the strength of a response impacts performance on the following item. Results Children with SLI performed similarly to their peers in the baseline condition but were more susceptible to proactive interference than the controls in both experimental conditions. Children with SLI demonstrated difficulty suppressing irrelevant information, made significantly more interference errors than their peers, and showed a slower rate of implicit learning. Conclusion Children with SLI show weaker resistance to proactive interference than their peers, and this deficit impacts their information processing abilities. The coordination of activation and inhibition is less efficient in these children, but future research is needed to further examine the interaction between these two processes.

The Influence of Prosodic and Gestural Cues on Novel Word Acquisition by Children With Specific Language Impairment

1993 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 1013-1025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Ellis Weismer ◽  
Linda J. Hesketh
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Kindergarten Children ◽  
Speaking Rate ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Repeated Measures Design ◽  
Novel Words

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of prosodic and gestural cues on children’s lexical learning. Acquisition of novel words was examined under linguistic input conditions that varied in terms of rate of speech, stress, and use of supplemental visual cues i.e., gestures). Sixteen kindergarten children served as subjects in this study, including 8 children with normal language (NL) and 8 children with specific language impairment (SLI). A repeated-measures design was used such that all subjects in both groups participated in each of the three experimental conditions (the Rate, Stress, and Visual Condition). Results indicated that acquisition of novel words by the groups with NL and SLI was significantly affected by alterations in speaking rate and by the use of gestures accompanying spoken language. There were no statistically significant effects for the stress manipulations, although subjects with SLI tended to correctly produce novel words that had received emphatic stress during training more often than words presented with neutral stress. Implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the importance of considering how the manner of presentation of the linguistic signal influences the processing and acquisition of language.

Frequency Discrimination Deficits in People With Specific Language Impairment

2004 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. M. McArthur ◽  
D. V. M. Bishop
Keyword(s):  
Phonemic Awareness ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Frequency Discrimination ◽  
Poor Reading ◽  
Significant Group ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Nonverbal Ability ◽  
And Control

The reliability and validity of a frequency discrimination (FD) task were tested in 16 people with specific language impairment (SLI) and 16 people with normal spoken language (controls). The FD thresholds of the 2 groups indicated that FD thresholds for 25-ms and 250-ms tones were remarkably stable across 18 months. The FD thresholds were lower for control listeners than for listeners with SLI for both duration conditions, and the FD thresholds for both groups of listeners were lower for 250-ms tones than for 25-ms tones. Moreover, the FD thresholds were influenced little by nonperceptual, task-related abilities (e.g., paired-associative learning, memory for temporal order, sustained attention, and control of attention) of the listener groups. The significant group difference between the mean FD thresholds of the SLI and control groups was explained by a subgroup of people with SLI who had particularly poor thresholds compared with those of controls and the majority of the SLI group. This subgroup did not differ from the remainder of the SLI sample in terms of age or nonverbal ability but was characterized by very poor reading that was associated with poor phonemic awareness.

Auditory Lexical Decisions of Children With Specific Language Impairment

1996 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 1263-1273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Edwards ◽  
Margaret Lahey
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Auditory Signal ◽  
Vocal Response ◽  
Processing Capacity ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Auditory Lexical Decision

To determine whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) take longer than age peers to recognize sequences of sounds that represent words in their lexicon, we compared auditory lexical decision times of children with SLI to those of typically developing age peers. Children with SLI were significantly slower than peers, but speed of word recognition was not correlated with measures of language comprehension for children with SLI. Furthermore, time to detect an auditory signal and initiate a vocal response did not account for the differences between groups. Possible interpretations of the results are discussed with two explanations—differences between groups in task-related factors that stressed processing capacity or in the nature of phonetic/phonological representations—seeming more likely than others.

Nonword repetitions of children with specific language impairment: Exploration of some explanations for their inaccuracies

1998 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Edwards ◽  
Margaret Lahey
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Auditory Discrimination ◽  
Nonword Repetition ◽  
Phonological Information ◽  
Phonological Representations ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Duration Of Response

AbstractTo examine possible explanations of the reported inaccuracies of children with specific language impairment (SLI) on nonword repetition, we compared the repetitions of 54 children with SLI and their peers in terms of number and type of error as well as latency and duration of response. We found no evidence of differences between the groups in auditory discrimination or response processes, but we did find some evidence suggesting differences in either the formation or storage of phonological representations in working memory. Because repetition accuracy was significantly correlated with expressive, but not receptive, measures of language, we hypothesized that the problem lay with the nature of phonological representations in working memory and not with the ability to hold phonological information in working memory.

Mapping at the interface

2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shula Chiat
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Rich Source ◽  
Typical Development ◽  
Language Abilities ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Language Capacity ◽  
Language Exposure

The cross-overs between monolingual–bilingual and typically atypically developing children are a goldmine for research on language development. The four permutations of language exposure and language abilities create “natural experimental conditions” for investigating the nature of the language capacity and how this is shaped by input in typical development, and importantly, in specific language impairment (SLI). Paradis has played a prominent part in identifying and exploring this rich source of evidence. Her Keynote Article provides a valuable review of findings from her own and others' research, a carefully considered evaluation of their compatibility with competing theories of language development, and an excellent catalyst for debate.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document