Past-tense marking by children with and without specific language impairment
1Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge 70803-2606, USA. cdjanna@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research : JSLHR
|February 1, 1997
Summary
Children with specific language impairment (SLI) show productive past-tense marking, but with less accuracy than peers. Their language system is sensitive to grammar, though regular past-tense marking is limited.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Developmental Psychology
- Speech-Language Pathology
Background:
- Specific Language Impairment (SLI) affects language development, particularly morphology.
- Past-tense marking is a complex grammatical feature crucial for language acquisition.
- Understanding morphological productivity in SLI informs diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the productivity and representation of past-tense marking in children with SLI.
- To compare children with SLI to age-matched and MLU-matched controls.
- To identify specific strengths and weaknesses in the morphological system of children with SLI.
Main Methods:
- Participants included 11 children with SLI, 11 age-matched controls, and 11 MLU-matched controls (all 6-year-olds).
- Productivity of regular past-tense marking was assessed using regular and irregular verbs.
- Past-tense representation was examined through inflection of homophonous verb pairs.
Main Results:
- All groups demonstrated productive past-tense marking, with controls showing higher accuracy.
- Patterns of past-tense marking were similar across SLI and MLU-matched groups, indicating sensitivity to grammatical structure.
- Children with SLI exhibited strengths in sensitivity to grammatical/phonological factors but weaknesses in regular past-tense productivity and frequency effects.
Conclusions:
- Children with SLI possess a grammatical system sensitive to linguistic properties, replicating previous findings.
- Specific weaknesses in past-tense marking productivity and frequency sensitivity are identified in SLI.
- Findings contribute to understanding the SLI profile and evaluating theoretical models of language development.
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