Verb morphology in German-speaking children with developmental language disorder and phonological impairment

The verb inflections of matched groups of German-speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and phonological impairment (PI) were evaluated, and performance compared with age-matched and language-matched typically developing (TD) children (66 participants in total). An elicitation task for second- and third-person singular present tense inflections was used and spontaneous language samples were also analysed for present tense inflections. Errors resulting from the children's speech difficulties were excluded from the analysis. Evidence was found in the elicited data for delayed development in the DLD children, but no differences were found between this group and the TD group matched on language development. Both clinical groups made errors consistent with bare stem- and prosodic factors described in the literature. The children with PI, although scoring within normal limits on standardised tests of language, displayed difficulties with tense inflections that went beyond limitations imposed by their speech. This suggests there may be underlying difficulties in both phonological and grammatical domains for both clinical groups, and potential interaction between these domains. It is recommended that clinicians take account of this possibility when assessing and identifying children with DLD and with PI, and that they avoid reliance on standardised language tests or assessment of grammatical morphology alone when assessing for DLD.