Phonology and children with specific language impairment: status of structural constraints in two languages

Two studies are reported in which the phonological characteristics of preschool-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) are compared with those seen in younger normally developing children matched for mean length of utterance and consonant inventory size. The productions of both English-speaking and Italian-speaking children with SLI were more likely to deviate from the adult standard than the productions of the younger control children. In Italian, the children with SLI had more difficulty than the younger controls in the use of non-final weak syllables; in English, the children with SLI were poorer than the younger controls in the use of non-final weak syllables, word-final consonants, and word-final consonant clusters. These are the same phonological details that are required for several grammatical inflections and many function words in the two languages. However, the children with SLI were also less consistent than their younger compatriots in using consonants in structurally simple words. These findings provide evidence for the view that for many preschool-age children with SLI, phonological problems go beyond those that might be predicted on the basis of the children's short utterances and limited consonant inventories.