Analogical reasoning in children with specific language impairment
Sandrine Leroy1, Christophe Parisse, Christelle Maillart
1University of Liège, Department of Psychology: Cognition and Behaviour, Liège, Belgium. Sandrine.Leroy@ulg.ac.be
Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics
|March 13, 2012
Summary
Children with specific language impairment (SLI) struggle with analogical reasoning, impacting their ability to develop language schemas. This cognitive difficulty affects their morphosyntactic development, independent of linguistic skills.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
Background:
- Usage-based theory posits analogical reasoning is crucial for language acquisition.
- Difficulties in analogical reasoning may impede the abstraction of linguistic construction schemas.
- Specific language impairment (SLI) may be linked to deficits in analogical reasoning.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate analogical reasoning abilities in children with SLI.
- To test the hypothesis that impaired analogical reasoning hinders morphosyntactic development in SLI.
- To explore the shared mechanisms of analogical reasoning in linguistic and non-linguistic domains.
Main Methods:
- A non-linguistic analogical reasoning task was administered to 15 children with SLI and age-matched controls.
- The task assessed prerequisites for analogical reasoning: structural alignment and relational vs. perceptual similarity.
- Performance was compared between the SLI group and the control group.
Main Results:
- Children with SLI demonstrated significant difficulties in the non-linguistic analogical reasoning task.
- These difficulties align with hypotheses suggesting problems in abstract construction schema formation.
- The findings indicate specific cognitive challenges in children with SLI, separate from their language development.
Conclusions:
- Difficulties with analogical reasoning appear to be a core cognitive deficit in children with SLI.
- This cognitive deficit likely contributes to challenges in morphosyntactic development.
- The study supports the notion of shared cognitive mechanisms underlying linguistic and non-linguistic analogical processing.
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