scholarly journals Specific Language Impairment and Reading Disability: Categorical Distinction or Continuum?

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Spanoudis ◽  
Timothy C. Papadopoulos ◽  
Spyroula Spyrou

Specific language impairment (SLI) and reading disability (RD) are familial, moderately heritable comorbid developmental disorders. The key deficit of SLI is oral language, whereas children with RD exhibit impairment in learning to read. The present study examines the possible co-occurrence of RD and SLI and the nature of this co-occurrence at a linguistic and a cognitive level in an orthographically consistent language. Four groups of children participated in the study: an RD group ( n = 10), an SLI group ( n = 13), a possible comorbid group ( n = 9), and a control–no deficit group ( n = 20). Analysis showed that all three clinical groups in our sample performed similarly in phonological awareness and naming-speed tasks. However, significant group differences were observed in orthographic processing, reading, semantics, and phonological memory measures, thus supporting the view that SLI and RD are distinct disorders. Results are in line with previous findings indicating that SLI and RD share common characteristics, although the two conditions are manifested with different symptoms.

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 696-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Adi-Japha ◽  
Haia Abu-Asba

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.


2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICK G. RICHES

AbstractChildren with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) have language difficulties of unknown origin. Syntactic profiles are atypical, with poor performance on non-canonical structures, e.g. object relatives, suggesting a localized deficit. However, existing analyses using ANOVAs are problematic because they do not systematically address unequal variance, or fully model random effects. Consequently, a Generalised Linear Model (GLM) was used to analyze data from a Sentence Repetition (SR) task involving relative clauses. seventeen children with SLI (mean age 6;7), twenty-one Language Matched (LM) children (mean age 4;8), and seventeen Age Matched (AM) children (mean age 6;5) repeated 100 canonical and non-canonical sentences. ANOVAs found a significant Group by Canonicity interaction for the SLI versus AM contrast only. However, the GLM found no significant interaction. Consequently, arguments for a localized deficit may depend on statistical methods which are prone to exaggerate profile differences. Nonetheless, a subgroup of SLI exhibited particularly severe structural language difficulties.


QJM ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 113 (Supplement_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
S Hassan ◽  
M Hegazi ◽  
H Ghandour ◽  
G Abdelrazek ◽  
D Elrefaie

Abstract Background Specific language impairment (SLI) occurs when children present language maturation, at least 12 months behind their chronological age in the absence of sensory or intellectual deficits, pervasive developmental disorders, evident cerebral damage, and adequate social and emotional conditions. Internalizing behavior is actions that are taken out toward the self. The symptoms of internalizing behavior problems are depression, anxiety, somatic complaints and withdrawal. Aim of the Work This study aimed to investigate the presence of internalizing behavioral problems among SLI and their frequencies if present. Patients and methods We assessed SLI by PLS-4 and assessed internalizing behavioral problems with CBCL 1 1/5-5. Fifty children with SLI with an age range of (4-5 years old), divided into 2 subgroups according to the type of SLI, are compared to fifty children with normal language development with the same age and gender regarding internalizing behavioral problems. Results SLI group had more internalizing behavioral problems than control group and there is significant association between behavioral problems and the severity of language deficits. Conclusion the most frequently behavioral problem found in preschool (SLI) children were withdrawn and anxiety, which need therapeutic interventions to remediate them.


1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 182-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna J. Kelly ◽  
Mabel L. Rice

This study examined initial preferences for verb interpretation by children with specific language impairment (SLI), MLU-matched children, and age-matched children. Each child watched motion and change-of-state activity scenes on videotape and was then asked to point to the scene that depicted a novel verb, thereby indicating a preferred interpretation. The children were also asked to label the same activity scenes on a second tape. The findings indicated that the 5-year-old age-matched children exhibited a significant verb interpretation preference for the change-of-state scenes, whereas the children with specific language impairment and their 3-year-old MLU-matched peers did not have an interpretation preference for either the motion or change-of-state scenes. The children’s labeling of the activity scenes yielded findings that further supported group differences on the two semantic verb categories. The findings suggest that children’s initial verb interpretation biases vary relative to age and language proficiency.


2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 1378-1396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh W. Catts ◽  
Suzanne M. Adlof ◽  
Tiffany P. Hogan ◽  
Susan Ellis Weismer

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether specific language impairment (SLI) and dyslexia are distinct developmental disorders. Method: Study 1 investigated the overlap between SLI identified in kindergarten and dyslexia identified in 2nd, 4th, or 8th grades in a representative sample of 527 children. Study 2 examined phonological processing in a subsample of participants, including 21 children with dyslexia only, 43 children with SLI only, 18 children with SLI and dyslexia, and 165 children with typical language/reading development. Measures of phonological awareness and nonword repetition were considered. Results: Study 1 showed limited but statistically significant overlap between SLI and dyslexia. Study 2 found that children with dyslexia or a combination of dyslexia and SLI performed significantly less well on measures of phonological processing than did children with SLI only and those with typical development. Children with SLI only showed only mild deficits in phonological processing compared with typical children. Conclusions: These results support the view that SLI and dyslexia are distinct but potentially comorbid developmental language disorders. A deficit in phonological processing is closely associated with dyslexia but not with SLI when it occurs in the absence of dyslexia.


2006 ◽  
Vol 64 (2a) ◽  
pp. 173-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Rocha de Vasconcelos Hage ◽  
Fernando Cendes ◽  
Maria Augusta Montenegro ◽  
Dagma V. Abramides ◽  
Catarina A. Guimarães ◽  
...  

Specific language impairment (SLI) occurs when children present language maturation, at least 12 months behind their chronological age in the absence of sensory or intellectual deficits, pervasive developmental disorders, evident cerebral damage, and adequate social and emotional conditions. The aim of this study was to classify a group of children according to the subtypes of SLI and to correlate clinical manifestations with cortical abnormalities. Seventeen children with SLI were evaluated. Language assessment was based on standardized test (Peabody) and a non-standardized protocol, which included phonological, syntactical, semantical, pragmatical and lexical aspects of language. All children, except one, had abnormal MRI. Thirteen children presented perisylvian polymicrogyria. The MRI findings in the remaining three patients were: right frontal polymicrogyria, bilateral fronto-parietal atrophy, and hypogenesis of corpus callosum with Chiari I. The data show that patients with posterior cortical involvement tended to present milder form of SLI (no sign of articulatory or bucofacial praxis disturbance), while diffuse polymicrogyric perisylvian cortex usually was seen in patients who presented severe clinical manifestation, mainly phonological-syntactic deficit. In conclusion, SLI may be associated with perisylvian polymicrogyria and clinical manifestation may vary according to the extent of cortical anomaly.


2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 1452-1467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelley Gray

Purpose: This study investigated whether phonological or semantic encoding cues promoted better word learning for children with specific language impairment (SLI) and whether this treatment differentially affected children with SLI and normal language (NL). Method: Twenty-four preschoolers ages 4;0 (years;months) to 5;11 with SLI and 24 age- and gender-matched children with NL participated. The between-group factor was language group (NL, SLI) and within-group factors were language modality (comprehension, recognition, production) and treatment condition (phonological, semantic). Word learning was assessed during fast mapping, word learning, and posttesting with trials to criterion calculated for the number of words learned. A drawing task assessed the change in semantic representation of words. Results: The SLI group comprehended more words in the semantic condition and produced more words in the phonological condition, but the NL group performed similarly in both. The NL group required significantly fewer trials than the SLI group to comprehend words in the semantic and phonological conditions and to produce words in the semantic condition, but between-group differences for production were not significant for the phonological condition. Conclusions: The results suggest that preschoolers with SLI may benefit from cues that highlight the phonological or semantic properties of words but that different cues may aid different aspects of word learning.


2002 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 756-757 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naama Friedmann ◽  
Aviah Gvion

Evidence from various subtypes of Specific Language Impairment and developmental peripheral dyslexias is presented to support the idea that even developmental disorders can be modular. However, in developmental letter position dyslexia and neglect dyslexia we show that additional errors can occur because of insufficient orthographic-lexical knowledge.


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