Structural priming in children with and without specific language impairment
Carol A Miller1, Patricia Deevy
1The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802-3100, USA. cam47@psu.edu
Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics
|May 27, 2006
Summary
Children with specific language impairment (SLI) demonstrate structural priming effects similar to typically developing children. This finding suggests priming is a valuable tool for studying language production in all children.
Area of Science:
- Developmental linguistics
- Child language acquisition
- Language disorders
Background:
- Structural priming is a phenomenon where exposure to a sentence structure increases the likelihood of using that same structure.
- Investigating structural priming in children with specific language impairment (SLI) can offer insights into their language production mechanisms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether structural priming effects are present in young children with SLI.
- To compare priming effects in children with SLI to those in typically developing (TD) children.
Main Methods:
- A mixed-model design was employed, comparing 18 children with SLI to 36 TD children (18 age-matched, 18 MLU-matched).
- Participants described drawings after hearing and repeating sentence structures (transitive or intransitive) to prime specific constructions.
Main Results:
- All groups, including children with SLI, showed a significantly higher tendency to produce transitive sentences after being exposed to a transitive prime.
- No significant differences in priming effects were observed between children with SLI and TD children.
Conclusions:
- Children with SLI exhibit structural priming abilities comparable to their typically developing peers.
- Structural priming shows potential as a methodology for examining factors influencing language production in both typical and atypical development.
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