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

This study compared the conversational repair strategies employed by language-impaired and normal children in response to a stacked series of requests for clarification. Ten linguistically normal and 10 language-impaired children were sampled from each of the following age levels, 4:10-5:10, 6:10-7:10, and 8:10-9:10, resulting in a total of 60 subjects. Each subject was asked to describe a series of action pictures for an examiner who was seated behind a screen. At regular intervals, the examiner responded to the child's description by initiating a repair sequence. 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. Although all subjects appeared to recognize the obligatory nature of the neutral clarification requests employed, differences were observed in the repair strategies used by normal and language-impaired children. In addition, impaired and younger normal subjects had greater difficulty responding appropriately as the stacked sequence progressed.