Grammatical Morphology and the Lexicon in Children With Specific Language Impairment

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 678-689 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence B. Leonard ◽  
Carol Miller ◽  
Erika Gerber
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Grammatical Morphology ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Related Morphology ◽  
Finite Verb

We examined the use of grammatical morphology by preschool-age English-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) as a function of their lexical diversity. Relative to a group of normally developing (ND) preschoolers, these children's use of finite-verb morphology lagged behind expectations based on the number of different verbs they used. Noun-related morphology fell below expectations based on overall lexical diversity. Differences between the ND children and children with SLI were also seen for the slope of the increases in finite-verb morphology as a function of lexical diversity, with shallower slopes in the SLI data. The findings of this study add to existing evidence suggesting that a measure of finite grammatical-morphology use has promise as a clinical marker of SLI in English.

Specific Language Impairment and Grammatical Morphology

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 1185-1192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Bedore ◽  
Laurence B. Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Function Analysis ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Mean Length Of Utterance ◽  
Finite Verb

Discriminant function analysis was employed to determine if grammatical morpheme production could be used to classify preschool-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children with typically developing language skills. Three variables were included in the discriminant analysis: a finite verb morpheme composite, a noun morpheme composite, and mean length of utterance in morphemes. The children with SLI and age-matched controls were discriminated with high levels of accuracy, though the three variables did not yield identical classifications. Across two samples of typically developing children and children with SLI, the verb morpheme composite showed sensitivity exceeding 85% and specificity of 100%. In light of these results and growing evidence that problems with finite verb morphology continue into the school years in children with SLI, the verb morpheme composite was considered to hold promise as a clinical marker for SLI.

Deficits in Finite Verb Morphology

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 701-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol A. Miller ◽  
Laurence B. Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Grammatical Morphology ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Finite Verb

The grammatical morphology deficits common in children with specific language impairment (SLI) are characterized in some models as linguistic deficits. Such models must assume some mechanism for correct productions of finite verb forms. Three such assumptions were tested by analyzing speech samples from 18 children with SLI (aged 3 years 6 months to 6 years 9 months). Assumption 1, that nonfinite forms are used consistently until replaced by memorized finite forms, was tested by examining the distribution of verb types in present thirdperson singular and noun types in present third-person singular contractible copula contexts. Significantly more word types than expected were inflected inconsistently. Both Assumption 2, that finite and nonfinite verb forms are memorized but used indiscriminately, and Assumption 3, that affixation rules are applied indiscriminately, predict random use of finite forms. This prediction was not supported.

Predicting tense: finite verb morphology and subject pronouns in the speech of typically-developing children and children with specific language impairment

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 231-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
MONIQUE J. CHAREST ◽  
LAURENCE B. LEONARD
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Nominative Case ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Subject Pronoun ◽  
Finite Verb

According to the AGREEMENT/TENSE (Agr/Tns) OMISSION MODEL, children's failure to produce finite verb morphemes represents the selection of an optional infinitive form, in which tense and/or agreement is not specified. When agreement is specified, nominative case is licensed. Following the assumptions of this model, a child's utterance such as She run reflects a failure to specify tense only, given that the subject pronoun shows nominative case. We tested this assumption in two studies through the analysis of spontaneous speech samples from young typically-developing (TD) children and children with specific language impairment (SLI). In Study 1, 15 children were included (TD aged 2;1–3;11, SLI aged 4;0–6;2); in Study 2, 33 children were included (TD aged 2;5–3;11, SLI aged 3;6–6;9). We determined whether there was a relationship between the children's use of past tense -ed and their use of third person singular -s and copula is when nominative case was also used. Because nominative case was used, any failures to produce third person singular -s and copula is should be attributable to tense and not agreement. Such use should therefore be related to the children's use of -ed which presumably hinges on tense only. However, a relationship was not found in the speech of either group of children. This was true both for the children in each group who were consistent in using nominative case pronouns and for those who were not. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed.

Grammatical Morphology and Speech Perception in Children With Specific Language Impairment

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 1076-1085 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence B. Leonard ◽  
Karla K. McGregor ◽  
George D. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Speech Stream ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Grammatical Morphology ◽  
Grammatical Morphemes ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Performance Profiles

Many English-speaking children with specific language impairment have been found to be especially weak in their use of grammatical morphology. In a separate literature, many children meeting the same subject description have shown significant limitations on tasks involving the perception of rapid acoustic changes. In this study, we attempted to determine whether there were parallels between the grammatical morphological limitations of children with specific language impairment and their performance profiles across several perceptual contrasts. Because most English grammatical morphemes have shorter durations relative to adjacent morphemes in the speech stream, we hypothesized that children with specific language impairment would be especially weak in discriminating speech stimuli whose contrastive portions had shorter durations than the noncontrastive portions. Results from a group of eight children with specific language impairment with documented morphological difficulties confirmed these predictions. Several possible accounts of the observed morphology-perception parallels are offered.

Verb Use in Specific Language Impairment

1997 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 1298-1313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gina Conti-Ramsden ◽  
Melanie Jones
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Lexical Diversity ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Normal Language ◽  
Matched Samples

The aim of the present study was to use longitudinal data to provide a detailed profile of early word combinations by children with SLI. Three children with SLI were videotaped during mother-child interactions in the home over a 2-year period. The data obtained were compared to MLU-matched samples of normal language-learning children from Wells’ (1981) longitudinal database, which provided a control for the linguistic measures used in this study. A range of analyses were carried out on controlled data samples in order to determine how the children with SLI’s early utterances compared with those of MLU-matched normal language peers. The measures were specifically designed to assess the children’s use of verbs and verb morphology because recent research has suggested that verbs may play a central role in the acquisition process, and children with SLI may have particular problems with verbs. We found that children with SLI used verbs less frequently, nouns more frequently, and were more input-dependent than their MLU-matched peers. The children with SLI used verb bare stems incorrectly more often than their MLU-matched counterparts. However, further analyses showed that this high frequency of incorrect bare stems may be at least partly due to the fact that children with SLI have particular difficulties using auxiliaries. Furthermore, the proportion of verb use that consisted of General All Purpose (GAP) verbs for children with SLI was similar to that of the MLU-matched children. The above findings were compared with those from other relevant studies of lexical diversity in children with SLI, and the potential implications of these data for theories of SLI language development were discussed, particularly with reference to Marchman and Bates’ (1994) "critical mass" hypothesis.

scholarly journals Extending the Application of Tense and Agreement Measures: A Reply to Rispoli and Hadley (2018)

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (6) ◽  
pp. 1460-1461
Author(s):  
Laurence B. Leonard ◽  
Eileen Haebig ◽  
Patricia Deevy ◽  
Barbara Brown
Keyword(s):  
Diagnostic Accuracy ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Sample Sizes ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Direct Activation ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Good Diagnostic Accuracy ◽  
Finite Verb

Purpose In this reply, we respond to comments on our article “Tracking the Growth of Tense and Agreement in Children With Specific Language Impairment: Differences Between Measures of Accuracy, Diversity, and Productivity.” Conclusion The finite verb morphology composite can be disproportionately affected by frequently occurring grammatical forms produced through direct activation. This assumption was one of the reasons we wished to compare this measure to the tense marker total and the tense/agreement productivity score. The latter two measures provide valuable developmental information that is not available from the finite morphology composite. Yet, the finite verb morphology composite shows good diagnostic accuracy and an interpretable pattern of growth and is relatively stable across different sample sizes.

scholarly journals Noun phrase morphology in Swedish-speaking children with specific language impairment

2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 619-639 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAURENCE B. LEONARD ◽  
EVA-KRISTINA SALAMEH ◽  
KRISTINA HANSSON
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Preschool Age Children ◽  
Mean Length Of Utterance

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) are often described as having great difficulty with grammatical morphology, but most studies have focused only on these children's use of verb morphology. In this study, we examined the use of noun phrase (NP) morphology by preschool-age children with SLI who are acquiring Swedish. Relative to typically developing same-age peers and younger peers matched according to mean length of utterance, the children with SLI had greater difficulty in the use of genitive inflections, indefinite articles, and article + adjective + noun constructions. Their difficulties were evidenced in omissions as well as substitutions. Furthermore, article omissions were more frequent in NPs containing an adjective and a noun than in NPs with only a noun. These findings indicate that in languages such as Swedish, NP morphology as well as verb morphology can be quite problematic for children with SLI. Factors that might have contributed to these children's difficulties are the lack of transparency of the gender of Swedish nouns, the morphological complexity of NPs containing adjectives in Swedish, the weak syllable status of articles, and the consonantal nature of some of the inflections.

Learning and Generalization Components of Morphological Acquisition by Children With Specific Language Impairment

1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 1406-1413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Swisher ◽  
David Snow
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Vocabulary Learning ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Rule Induction ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
Memory Storage ◽  
Skills Acquisition ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Chi Square Analysis

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) have particular difficulty acquiring bound morphemes. To determine whether these morphological deficits spring from impairments of rule-induction or memory (storage/access) skills, 25 preschool-age children with normal language (NL) and 25 age-matched children with SLI were presented with a novel vocabulary and novel bound-morpheme learning task. A chi square analysis revealed that the children with SLI had significantly lower vocabulary learning levels than NL children. In addition, there was tentative evidence that a dependency relationship existed in some children between success in vocabulary learning and proficiency in generalizing a trained bound morpheme to untrained vocabulary stems. These findings are predicted by the storage/access but not the rule-induction theory of specific language impairment. They suggest that intervention targeting bound-morpheme skills acquisition in children with SLI might include attention to vocabulary development.

Specific Language Impairment in Swedish

2000 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 848-864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Hansson ◽  
Ulrika Nettelbladt ◽  
Laurence B. Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Appropriate Use ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
New Findings ◽  
Present Tense ◽  
Mean Length Of Utterance

Several competing proposals have been offered to explain the grammatical difficulties experienced by children with specific language impairment (SLI). In this study, the grammatical abilities of Swedish-speaking children with SLI were examined for the purpose of evaluating these proposals and offering new findings that might be used in the development of alternative accounts. A group of preschoolers with SLI showed lower percentages of use of present tense copula forms and regular past tense inflections than normally developing peers matched for age and younger normally developing children matched for mean length of utterance (MLU). Word order errors, too, were more frequent in the speech of the children with SLI. However, these children performed as well as MLU-matched children in the use of present tense inflections and irregular past forms. In addition, the majority of their sentences containing word order errors showed appropriate use of verb morphology. None of the competing accounts of SLI could accommodate all of the findings. In particular, these accounts—or new alternatives —must develop provisions to explain both the earlier acquisition of present tense inflections than past tense inflections and word order errors that seem unrelated to verb morphology.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document