Responses to requests for clarification by linguistically normal and language-impaired children in conversation

This study compared the conversational repair strategies employed by 8 language-impaired children (mean chronological age 9:2 years) and their linguistically normal age- and language-matched peers in response to a stacked series of requests for clarification. A 30-min language sample was elicited by an adult examiner from each of the subjects. During the course of the conversation, the examiner initiated 10 stacked request for clarification sequences. Each sequence consisted of three different neutral requests for clarification (Huh?, What?, and I didn't understand that.) and the subject's response to each request. All of the subjects appeared to recognize the obligatory nature of the neutral clarification requests employed. However, there were differences noted in the performance of the three groups. These included differences related to language maturity as well as differences specific to language condition.