Phonological profile of Spanish-Catalan children with specific language impairment at age 4: are there any changes...

The phonology of a group of Spanish-Catalan children with specific language impairment (SLI, n = 5), who had been analysed at age 3;10, is now analysed at age 4;09 and compared with two control groups: an age-matched control (n = 5) and a language level control (measured using the mean length of utterance by words; n = 5). The children with SLI continue to show a delay in the acquisition of segments, syllabic structures and in the use of the simplification processes, but not in word structures, compared with their age-matched controls. Children with SLI also display significant differences compared with their language level controls, but not in the same areas as observed at age 3: the differences are now in nasals and liquids at the segmental level, and in CCV, CVC and other complex structures at the syllabic level. There are also some simplification processes that seem to be more prevalent in these children than in their language level controls: absence of trill, cluster reductions and consonant deletions. The results enable us to interpret SLI as more than a delayed development and to show the differences in the profiles over time.