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Purpose: In English and related languages, many preschool-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have difficulties using tense and agreement consistently. In this review article, we discuss two potential input-related sources of this difficulty and offer several possible strategies aimed at circumventing input obstacles. Method: We review a series of studies from English, supplemented by evidence from computational modeling and studies of other languages. Collectively, the studies show that instances of failures to express tense and agreement in DLD resemble portions of larger sentences in everyday input in which tense and agreement marking is appropriately absent. Furthermore, experimental studies show that children's use of tense and agreement can be swayed by manipulating details in fully grammatical input sentences. Results: The available evidence points to two particular sources of input that may contribute to tense and agreement inconsistency. One source is the appearance of subject + nonfinite verb sequences that appear in auxiliary-fronted questions (e.g., Is [the girl running]? Does [the boy like popcorn]? ) and as dependent clauses in more complex sentences (e.g., Help [her wash the dishes] ; We saw [the frog hopping] ). The other source is the frequent appearance of bare stems in the input, whether nonfinite (e.g., go in Make him go fast ) or finite (e.g., go in I go, you go ). Conclusions: Although the likely sources of input are a natural part of the language that all children hear, procedures that alter the distribution of this input might be used in the early stages of intervention. Subsequent steps can incorporate more explicit comprehension and production techniques. A variety of suggestions are offered.

Purpose: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have well-documented verb learning difficulties. In this study, we asked whether the inclusion of retrieval practice during the learning period would facilitate these children's verb learning relative to a similar procedure that provided no retrieval opportunities. Method: Eleven children with DLD ( M age = 60.09 months) and 12 children with typical language development (TD; M age = 59.92 months) learned four novel verbs in a repeated spaced retrieval (RSR) condition and four novel verbs in a repeated study (RS) condition. The words in the two conditions were heard an equal number of times, in the context of video-recorded actors performing novel actions. Results: Recall testing immediately after the learning period and 1 week later revealed greater recall for novel verbs in the RSR condition than for novel verbs in the RS condition. This was true for both groups, and for immediate as well as 1-week testing. The RSR advantage remained when children had to recall the novel verbs while watching new actors perform the novel actions. However, when tested in contexts requiring the children to inflect the novel verbs with – ing for the first time, the children with DLD were much less likely to do so than their peers with TD. Even words in the RSR condition were only inconsistently inflected. Conclusions: Retrieval practice provides benefits to verb learning—an important finding given the challenges that verbs present to children with DLD. However, these benefits do not appear to automatically translate to the process of adding inflections to newly learned verbs but rather appear to be limited to the operations of learning the verbs' phonetic forms and mapping these forms onto associated actions.

Purpose Recent behavioral studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of implementing retrieval practice into learning tasks for children. Such approaches have revealed that repeated spaced retrieval (RSR) is particularly effective in promoting children's learning of word form and meaning information. This study further examines how retrieval practice enhances learning of word meaning information at the behavioral and neural levels. Method Twenty typically developing preschool children were taught novel words using an RSR learning schedule for some words and an immediate retrieval (IR) learning schedule for other words. In addition to the label, children were taught two arbitrary semantic features for each item. Following the teaching phase, children's learning was tested using recall tests. In addition, during the 1-week follow-up, children were presented with pictures and an auditory sentence that correctly labeled the item but stated correct or incorrect semantic information. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were time locked to the onset of the words noting the semantic feature. Children provided verbal judgments of whether the semantic feature was correctly paired with the item. Results Children recalled more labels and semantic features for items that had been taught in the RSR learning schedule relative to the IR learning schedule. ERPs also differentiated the learning schedules. Mismatching label–meaning pairings elicited an N400 and late positive component (LPC) for both learning conditions; however, mismatching RSR pairs elicited an N400 with an earlier onset and an LPC with a longer duration, relative to IR mismatching label–meaning pairings. These ERP timing differences indicated that the children were more efficient in processing words that were taught in the RSR schedule relative to the IR learning schedule. Conclusions Spaced retrieval practice promotes learning of both word form and meaning information. The findings lay the necessary groundwork for better understanding of processing newly learned semantic information in preschool children. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.15063060

Purpose In this article, we review the role of retrieval practice on the word learning and retention of children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method Following a brief review of earlier findings on word learning in children with SLI and the assumptions behind retrieval practice, four experiments are described that compared novel words learned in a repeated spaced retrieval condition and those learned in either a repeated study condition or a repeated immediate retrieval condition. Preschool-age children with SLI and their same-age peers with typical language development were the participants in all experiments. The effects of repeated spaced retrieval were assessed through measures of recall of word form and meaning and, receptively, through both picture-pointing and electrophysiological measures. Results Repeated spaced retrieval resulted in greater recall of word form and meaning across the experiments. This advantage was seen not only for word–picture pairs used during the learning period but also when generalization of the word to new pictures was required. Receptive testing through picture pointing showed similar results, though in some experiments, ceiling effects rendered this measure less sensitive to differences. An alternative receptive measure—the N400 elicited during picture–word mismatches—showed evidence at the neural level favoring repeated spaced retrieval. The advantages of repeated spaced retrieval were seen in both children with SLI and their typically developing age mates. Conclusion Future efforts are warranted to refine and extend the experiments reviewed here. If these efforts prove successful, procedures that incorporate repeated spaced retrieval into more naturalistic clinical and educational activities might be an appropriate next step. Presentation Video https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13063730

Purpose Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) often have difficulty with word learning. Recent studies have shown that incorporating retrieval practice provides a significant benefit to this learning. However, we have not yet discovered the best balance between the amount of retrieval and the amount of study (hearing the word in the presence of the referent) that is provided. In this investigation, we compared a word learning procedure using more retrieval and less study with a procedure that used more study and less retrieval. Method Participants were 13 children with DLD and 13 same-age peers with typical language development (TD). Both groups ranged in age from 4 to 6 years. The children learned two sets of novel words, with each set taught in two sessions. During an initial criterion period, the children had the opportunity to retrieve all of the words. Following this period, the words were either retrieved without further study or studied without additional retrieval. Recall and recognition testing immediately followed the second learning session and was repeated 1 week later. Testing assessed the children's retention of both the word forms and their meanings. Results Better recall both immediately after learning and after 1 week was seen for the more retrieval/less study condition. This was seen for both groups of children for word form recall and for children with DLD for meaning. Group differences were not found. Conclusion This study served as a stringent test of the benefits of retrieval to children's word learning. Continued retrieval after initial retrieval practice appeared to be helpful even when further study was discontinued and when the comparison study condition had also provided retrieval practice in the initial stages. Further refinement of retrieval procedures might lead to the development of useful clinical tools to promote word learning.

Purpose There are strong retention benefits when learners frequently test themselves during the learning period. This practice of repeated retrieval has recently been applied successfully to children's word learning. In this study, we apply a repeated retrieval procedure to the learning of novel adjectives by preschool-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and their typically developing (TD) peers. We ask whether the benefits of retrieval extend to children's ability to apply the novel adjectives to newly introduced objects sharing the same characteristics as the objects used during the learning period. Method Fourteen children with DLD ( M age = 62.64 months) and 13 TD children ( M = 62.54 months) learned novel adjectives in 2 sessions. For each child, half of the adjectives were learned in a repeated spaced retrieval condition, and half were learned in a repeated study–only condition. Recall was assessed immediately after the second learning session and 1 week later. A recognition test was also administered at the 1-week mark. Results On the recall tests, for both groups of children, recall was better for adjectives learned in the repeated spaced retrieval condition. Adjectives learned by the 2nd day were retained 1 week later. Every adjective correctly applied to an object used during the learning period was also extended accurately to new objects with the same characteristics. On these recall tests, the children with DLD did not differ from the TD group in the number of items recalled, though their phonetic accuracy was lower. On the recognition test, the DLD group showed greater accuracy for adjectives that had been learned in the repeated spaced retrieval condition than for those learned in the repeated study condition, whereas the TD group performed at high levels in both conditions. Conclusion Repeated spaced retrieval appears to provide an effective boost to word learning. Because its benefits are seen even when a word must be extended to new objects, the application of this procedure seems well suited for learning new language material rather than being limited to item-specific memorization.

In this study, we examined the verb morphology system of Turkish-speaking preschoolers with developmental language disorder (DLD) and compared their use to that of two groups of typically developing (TD) children. We report data from a total of 80 monolingual children - 40 children with DLD, 20 TD age-matched children and 20 TD younger MLU-matched children. Language samples obtained from the children served as the source of the data. The results show that the children with DLD were less accurate in their use of verb suffixes than both the younger and the age-matched TD children. The most frequent error types included use of bare stems, omission of the suffix, and replacing one finite verb suffix with another. The distinction between witnessed past and reported past also posed a challenge. Multi-level model results showed that phonemic length and irregular morphophonology were the best predictors of the children's level of accuracy. These results indicate that even though Turkish is considered a "verb friendly" language, children with DLD do not succeed in closing the gap with their TD peers. The complex interplay of morphology and phonology in Turkish appears to be the major obstacle for children with DLD acquiring this agglutinative language.

Purpose Retrieval practice has been found to be a powerful strategy to enhance long-term retention of new information; however, the utility of retrieval practice when teaching young children new words is largely unknown, and even less is known for young children with language impairments. The current study examined the effect of 2 different retrieval schedules on word learning at both the behavioral and neural levels. Method Participants included 16 typically developing children ( M TD = 61.58 months) and 16 children with developmental language disorder ( M DLD = 59.60 months). Children participated in novel word learning sessions in which the spacing of retrieval practice was manipulated: Some words were retrieved only after other words had been presented (i.e., repeated retrieval that required contextual reinstatement [RRCR]); others were taught using an immediate retrieval schedule. In Experiment 1, children's recall of the novel word labels and their meanings was tested after a 5-min delay and a 1-week delay. In Experiment 2, event-related brain potentials were obtained from a match–mismatch task utilizing the novel word stimuli. Results Experiment 1 findings revealed that children were able to label referents and to retain the novel words more successfully if the words were taught in the RRCR learning condition. Experiment 2 findings revealed that mismatching picture–word pairings elicited a robust N400 event-related brain potential only for words that were taught in the RRCR condition. In addition, children were more accurate in identifying picture–word matches and mismatches for words taught in the RRCR condition, relative to the immediate retrieval condition. Conclusions Retrieval practice that requires contextual reinstatement through spacing results in enhanced word learning and long-term retention of words. Both typically developing children and children with developmental language disorder benefit from this type of retrieval procedure. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7927112

Purpose This study tested children's sensitivity to tense/agreement information in fronted auxiliaries during online comprehension of questions (e.g., Are the nice little dogs running? ). Data from children with developmental language disorder (DLD) were compared to previously published data from typically developing (TD) children matched according to sentence comprehension test scores. Method Fifteen 5-year-old children with DLD and fifteen 3-year-old TD children participated in a looking-while-listening task. Children viewed pairs of pictures, 1 with a single agent and 1 with multiple agents, accompanied by a sentence with a fronted auxiliary ( is + single agent or are + two agents) or a control sentence. Proportion looking to the target was measured. Results Children with DLD did not show anticipatory looking based on the number information contained in the auxiliary ( is or are ) as the younger TD children had. Both groups showed significant increases in looking to the target upon hearing the subject noun (e.g., dogs ). Conclusions Despite the groups' similar sentence comprehension abilities and ability to accurately respond to the information provided by the subject noun, children with DLD did not show sensitivity to number information on the fronted auxiliary. This insensitivity is considered in light of these children's weaker command of tense/agreement forms in their speech. Specifically, we consider the possibility that failure to grasp the relation between the subject–verb sequence (e.g., dogs running ) and preceding information (e.g., are ) in questions in the input contributes to the protracted inconsistency in producing auxiliary forms in obligatory contexts by children with DLD. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7283459

Purpose Recent findings in preschool children indicated novel adjective recall was enhanced when learned using repeated retrieval with contextual reinstatement (RRCR) compared to repeated study (RS). Recall was similar for learned pictures used during training and new (generalized) pictures with the same adjective features. The current study compared the effects of learning method and learned/generalized pictures on the neural processes mediating the recognition of novel adjectives. Method Twenty typically developing children aged 4;6–5;11 (years;months) learned four novel adjectives, two using RRCR and two using RS. Five-minute and 1-week tests assessed adjective recall using learned and generalized pictures. Also, at the 1-week visit, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to assess children's processing of learned/generalized pictures, followed by naturally spoken novel adjectives in a match–mismatch paradigm. Results Naming recall and match–mismatch judgment accuracy were similar for the RS and RRCR conditions and across learned/generalized pictures. However, ERPs revealed more reliable condition effects in the phonological mapping negativity, indexing phonological expectations, and the late positive component, indexing semantic reanalysis, for the adjectives learned in the RRCR relative to the RS condition. Unfamiliar pictures (generalized) elicited larger amplitude N300 and N400 components relative to learned pictures. Conclusions Although behavioral accuracy measures suggest similar effects of the RS and RRCR learning conditions, subtle differences in the ERPs underlying novel adjective processing indicate advantages of RRCR for phonological processing and semantic reanalysis. While children readily generalized the novel adjectives, ERPs revealed greater cognitive resources for processing unfamiliar compared to learned pictures of the novel adjective characteristics. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13683214

Introduction Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have difficulties learning words. However, the severity of these difficulties can be reduced through word learning procedures that incorporate repeated spaced retrieval (RSR). Previous studies have shown positive outcomes with RSR but we still know very little about how learning unfolds with this procedure. In this study, we focus on the process of learning under RSR. Methods We analyze the learning data from children with DLD and with typical development (TD) from three recent studies using RSR. We fit growth curves to the trial-by-trial learning data for immediate and spaced retrieval trials and use the characteristics of children's individual word-learning trajectories to predict their long-term recall. Results We found that children in both groups demonstrated linear growth during learning, despite breaks within and across days. Success on early immediate retrieval trials promoted success on subsequent spaced retrieval trials. Children's trial-by-trial RSR learning trajectories were related to their long-term recall: both cumulative success and growth over time on the spaced retrieval trials positively predicted long-term recall. Consecutive success was also highly correlated with growth over time. Conclusions Repeated spaced retrieval supplemented with immediate retrieval trials during learning promotes long-term recall.

Purpose Studies have shown that children with typical development (TD) respond to frequency and predictability when repeating nonidiomatic multiword sequences (e.g., go wash your hands ). We extended these findings by explicitly examining the interaction between frequency and predictability in a repetition task for children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and children with TD. Method We created 48 four-word phrases, manipulating two factors: the frequency of occurrence of the entire four-word phrase (e.g., look in the mirror vs. look in the basket ) and the predictability of the fourth word in the phrase given the preceding three words (e.g., corn on the ___ vs. look in the ___ ). These phrases were presented in a repetition task to 17 children with DLD ( M age = 58.89 months), 19 same-age children with TD ( M age = 59.79 months), and 17 younger children with TD matched to the DLD group on nonword repetition and mean length of utterance ( M age = 38.94 months). Children's repetitions were judged for the presence or absence of word and morphological errors. Only the first three words of the sequence were scored (e.g., look in the ). Results We found a main effect of sequence frequency, with high-frequency sequences being repeated more accurately than low-frequency sequences, modulated by a significant interaction with predictability, where the effect of sequence frequency was larger for sequences with high-predictability contexts than for sequences with low-predictability contexts. We also found a significant effect of group, with children with DLD demonstrating poorer overall performance, particularly when compared to the same-age group with TD. Conclusions Frequency and predictability are strong predictors of language production in children with TD. These factors also have effects for children with DLD, raising important clinical questions about the design of facilitative contexts for the teaching of difficult linguistic forms.

BACKGROUND Turkish has a rich system of noun suffixes, and although its complex suffixation system may seem daunting, it can actually present a learning opportunity for children. Despite its unique features, Turkish has not been studied extensively, especially in the case of children with language deficits, such as developmental language disorder (DLD). Most of the extant studies are focused on bilingual children, and the results are somewhat mixed. AIMS To focus on the noun morphology system of Turkish-speaking preschoolers with DLD and compare their use with that of two groups of typically developing (TD) children. Moreover, to investigate the nature of their noun suffix errors in detail. METHODS & PROCEDURES We report data from a total of 80 monolingual children, 40 children with DLD (age range = 4;0-7;10), 20 TD age-matched children (4;0-7;3) and 20 younger mean length of utterance (MLU)-matched children (2;0-4;3). The data for this study came from language samples obtained from children in individual clinical assessment sessions. OUTCOMES & RESULTS The children with DLD made less use of noun suffixes than both the younger and the age-matched TD children. The use of the unmarked (nominative case) form in place of an overt suffix was the most likely error by all groups. Suffix-change alternations required beyond vowel harmony seemed to pose real problems for these children. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS These results suggest that even when a language appears to provide significant advantages for the learning of noun morphology, children with DLD do not succeed in closing the gap. Certain factors such as morphophonological changes beyond vowel harmony, multiple allomorphs for the same suffix type and accusative suffixes that are not uniformly applied in the adult input were found to be significant predictors of the DLD group's difficulty with noun suffixes. Because these same factors can serve as characteristics of other languages, a child's difficulties might seem to be language specific (e.g., a particular allomorph in the language), but may actually be based on a broader difficulty (e.g., dealing with multiple allomorphs for the same suffix). Accordingly, factors that transcend a single language should be considered during clinical assessment and therapy. What this paper adds? What is already known on this subject? The current literature on the use of noun suffixes by Turkish-speaking children with DLD is very limited. Although Turkish is often described as a learner-friendly language, the degree to which children with DLD enjoy these learning benefits is unknown. What does this paper add to existing knowledge? Turkish children with DLD are less accurate in noun suffixes than both age-matched and younger control groups. For this group, the central problem seems to be increased complexity in morphophonology rather than difficulty with suffixation more generally. What are some of the clinical applications of this study? For clinicians who work with Turkish-speaking children with DLD, priority should be given to morphophonology. These children would benefit from treatment that focuses on how to attach different allomorphs to different open-class words. Because factors such as morphophonological complexity operate in other languages, the findings have broader clinical implications. In particular, regardless of the target language, clinicians should consider the possibility that these broader factors, rather than language-specific details, are the basis for a child's difficulty.

Purpose Previous behavioral studies have found deficits in lexical–semantic abilities in children with specific language impairment (SLI), including reduced depth and breadth of word knowledge. This study explored the neural correlates of early emerging familiar word processing in preschoolers with SLI and typical development. Method Fifteen preschoolers with typical development and 15 preschoolers with SLI were presented with pictures followed after a brief delay by an auditory label that did or did not match. Event-related brain potentials were time locked to the onset of the auditory labels. Children provided verbal judgments of whether the label matched the picture. Results There were no group differences in the accuracy of identifying when pictures and labels matched or mismatched. Event-related brain potential data revealed that mismatch trials elicited a robust N400 in both groups, with no group differences in mean amplitude or peak latency. However, the typically developing group demonstrated a more robust late positive component, elicited by mismatch trials. Conclusions These initial findings indicate that lexical–semantic access of early acquired words, indexed by the N400, does not differ between preschoolers with SLI and typical development when highly familiar words are presented in isolation. However, the typically developing group demonstrated a more mature profile of postlexical reanalysis and integration, indexed by an emerging late positive component. The findings lay the necessary groundwork for better understanding processing of newly learned words in children with SLI.

Purpose The purpose of this article is to present 3 approaches that emphasize the role that input plays in the treatment of grammatical deficits in children with language impairments. Method These approaches—input informativeness, competing sources of input, and high variability—were selected because they go beyond issues of token frequency and emphasize instead type frequency, relative frequency, and frequency at an abstract as well as a concrete level of grammar. Each of these approaches can be applied to the grammatical deficits seen in children with specific language impairment and can be readily used with well-established procedures, such as focused stimulation and recasting. Results Each approach is supported by a body of laboratory research with children with typical language skills, and the feasibility of each has been tested in studies with a treatment design. Furthermore, the assumptions of the 3 approaches are largely compatible, permitting application of combinations of these approaches without violating any of their principles. Conclusion The positive findings from each of these approaches should serve as a basis for further clinical research.

Purpose This study tested the feasibility of a method designed to assess children's sensitivity to tense/agreement information in fronted auxiliaries during online comprehension of questions (e.g., Are the nice little dogs running? ). We expected that a group of children who were proficient in auxiliary use would show this sensitivity, indicating an awareness of the relation between the subject–verb sequence (e.g., dogs running ) and preceding information (e.g., are ). Failure to grasp this relation is proposed to play a role in the protracted inconsistency in auxiliary use in children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method Fifteen 3-year-old typically developing children who demonstrated proficiency in auxiliary use viewed pairs of pictures showing a single agent and multiple agents while hearing questions with or without an agreeing fronted auxiliary. Proportion looking to the target was measured. Results Children showed anticipatory looking on the basis of the number information contained in the auxiliary ( is or are ). Conclusions The children tested in this study represent a group that frequently serves as a comparison for older children with SLI. Because the method successfully demonstrated their sensitivity to tense/agreement information in questions, future research that involves direct comparisons of these 2 groups is warranted.

Purpose Our purpose was to test the competing sources of input (CSI) hypothesis by evaluating an intervention based on its principles. This hypothesis proposes that children's use of main verbs without tense is the result of their treating certain sentence types in the input (e.g., Was she laughing ? ) as models for declaratives (e.g., She laughing ). Method Twenty preschoolers with specific language impairment were randomly assigned to receive either a CSI-based intervention or a more traditional intervention that lacked the novel CSI features. The auxiliary is and the third-person singular suffix – s were directly treated over a 16-week period. Past tense – ed was monitored as a control. Results The CSI-based group exhibited greater improvements in use of is than did the traditional group ( d = 1.31), providing strong support for the CSI hypothesis. There were no significant between-groups differences in the production of the third-person singular suffix – s or the control ( –ed ), however. Conclusions The group differences in the effects on the 2 treated morphemes may be due to differences in their distribution in interrogatives and declaratives (e.g., Is he hiding / He is hiding vs. Does he hide/He hide s ). Refinements in the intervention could address this issue and lead to more general effects across morphemes.

Purpose Scholars have long noted that retention improves significantly when learners frequently test themselves on the new material rather than engage in continuous study with no intermittent testing. In this study, we apply the notion of repeated testing or retrieval to the process of word learning in preschool-age children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Method Novel words and their meanings were taught to 10 children with DLD and 10 typically developing (TD) children matched on age (DLD, M = 63.4 months; TD, M = 63.2 months). Recall was assessed immediately after the 2nd learning session and then again 1 week later. Results Both groups showed better retention when they had attempted to retrieve the words during the learning period than when they had simply listened to and studied the words paired with their referents. Relative to their TD peers, the children with DLD seemed to be weaker in their encoding, but these children's retention over a 1-week period was indistinguishable from that of their age mates. Conclusion Word learning activities that include opportunities for repeated retrieval appear to significantly benefit retention relative to more traditional word learning activities. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7927046

BACKGROUND: During grammatical treatment of children with developmental language disorder (DLD), it is natural for therapists to focus on the grammatical details of the target language that give the children special difficulty. However, along with the language-specific features of the target (e.g., for English, add –s to verbs in present tense, third person singular contexts), there are overarching factors that operate to render the children’s learning task more, or less challenging, depending on the particular target. AIMS: In this paper, we identify five such factors that can play a role in the grammatical learning of children with DLD. We use English as our example language, and provide supporting evidence from a variety of other languages. MAIN CONTRIBUTION: We show that the relative degree of English-speaking children’s difficulty with particular grammatical details can be affected by the extent to which these details involve: (1) bare stems; (2) opportunities for grammatical case confusion; (3) prosodic challenges; (4) grammatical and lexical aspect; and (5) canonical word order. CONCLUSIONS: During treatment, therapists will want to consider not only the English-specific features of grammatical targets but also how these more general factors can be taken into account to increase the children’s success.

Purpose This study was specifically designed to examine how verb variability and verb overlap in a morphosyntactic priming task affect typically developing children's use and generalization of auxiliary IS . Method Forty typically developing 2- to 3-year-old native English-speaking children with inconsistent auxiliary IS production were primed with 24 present progressive auxiliary IS sentences. Half of the children heard auxiliary IS primes with 24 unique verbs (high variability). The other half heard auxiliary IS primes with only 6 verbs, repeated 4 times each (low variability). In addition, half of the children heard prime–target pairs with overlapping verbs (lexical boost), whereas the other half heard prime–target pairs with nonoverlapping verbs (no lexical boost). To assess use and generalization of the targeted structure to untrained verbs, all children described probe items at baseline and 5 min and 24 hr after the priming task. Results Children in the high variability group demonstrated strong priming effects during the task and increased auxiliary IS production compared with baseline performance 5 min and 24 hr after the priming task, suggesting learning and generalization of the primed structure. Children in the low variability group showed no significant increases in auxiliary IS production and fell significantly below the high variability group in the 24-hr posttest. Verb overlap did not boost priming effects during the priming task or in posttest probes. Conclusions Typically developing children do indeed make use of lexical variability in their linguistic input to help them extract and generalize abstract grammatical rules. They can do this quite quickly, with relatively stable, robust learning occurring after a single optimally variable input session. With reduced variability, learning does not occur.

Purpose In this reply, we respond to comments on our article “Tracking the Growth of Tense and Agreement in Children With Specific Language Impairment: Differences Between Measures of Accuracy, Diversity, and Productivity.” Conclusion The finite verb morphology composite can be disproportionately affected by frequently occurring grammatical forms produced through direct activation. This assumption was one of the reasons we wished to compare this measure to the tense marker total and the tense/agreement productivity score. The latter two measures provide valuable developmental information that is not available from the finite morphology composite. Yet, the finite verb morphology composite shows good diagnostic accuracy and an interpretable pattern of growth and is relatively stable across different sample sizes.

Purpose Composite measures of children's use of tense and agreement morphology differ in their emphasis on accuracy, diversity, or productivity, yet little is known about how these different measures change over time. An understanding of these differences is especially important for the study of children with specific language impairment, given these children's extraordinary difficulty with this aspect of grammar. Method We computed 3 types of composite scores from spontaneous speech samples obtained from 17 preschoolers with specific language impairment before, during, and after their participation in a language intervention study. These measures were the Finite Verb Morphology Composite (a measure of accuracy), the Tense Marker Total (a measure of diversity), and the Productivity Score (a measure of productivity). Results The 3 measures differed in their growth trajectories. Sample size did not alter the linear or quadratic nature of growth of any composite, although it did affect the absolute values found for the Tense Marker Total and Productivity Score. Conclusion Even when sample size is controlled, early growth can be seen in tense and agreement accuracy with relatively limited diversity and productivity, whereas later growth in diversity and productivity can occur with very little change in accuracy.

For years, investigators have studied the use of tense by children with specific language impairment (SLI). This review article provides a summary of research on the use of other time-related grammatical forms by these children.The literature on children's use of grammatical and lexical aspect, modal verbs and temporal adverbs is reviewed. Findings from children with SLI acquiring a range of different languages are considered.Grammatical aspect and lexical aspect appear to be special weaknesses in children with SLI and problems with lexical aspect may also have an adverse effect on these children's ability to use past tense morphology. Although children with SLI are below age level in their use of modal verbs and temporal adverbs, the available evidence suggests that these weaknesses are no greater than these children's more general limitations with language.The evidence thus far indicates that time-related notions further on the morphosyntactic end of the language continuum (aspect) are more problematic for these children than those time-related notions (modals, temporal adverbs) that include a pragmatic and/or semantic component. In some languages, aspect may prove to be a useful clinical marker of this disorder.

Background Many children with specific language impairment (SLI) in sentence comprehension. These deficits are usually attributed to limitations in the children's understanding of syntax or the lexical items contained in the sentences. This study examines the role that extra-linguistic factors can play in these children's sentence comprehension. Aims Extra-linguistic demands on sentence comprehension are manipulated directly by varying the nature of the materials used. Methods & Procedures Forty-five Italian-speaking children participated: 15 with SLI (mean age = 4;5), 15 typically developing children matched for age (TD-A, mean age = 4;5), and 15 younger typically developing children matched according to language comprehension test scores (TD-Y, mean age = 3;9). The children responded to sentence comprehension items that varied in their length and/or the number and type of foils that competed with the target picture. Outcomes & Results The TD-A children were more accurate than the TD-Y children and the children with SLI, but, for all groups, accuracy declined when task demands increased. In particular, sentences containing superfluous adjectives (e.g., Il topo bello copre l'uccello allegro, ‘The nice mouse covers the happy bird’ where all depicted mice were nice and all birds were happy) yielded higher scores than similar sentences in which each adjective had to be associated with the proper character (e.g., Il cane giallo lava il maiale bianco, ‘The yellow dog washes the white pig’, where foils included a yellow dog washing a pink pig, and a brown dog washing a white pig). Many errors reflected recency effects, probably influenced by the fact that adjectives modifying the object appear at the end of the sentence in Italian. Conclusions & Implications Differences between conditions were observed even when lexical content, syntactic structure and sentence length were controlled. This finding suggests the need for great care when assessing children's comprehension of sentences. The same syntactic structure and lexical content can vary in difficulty depending on the number and types of foils used in combination with the target picture.

The purpose of this study was to examine factors promoting the use of third person singular -s by 23 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 21 children with typical development (TD). Relative proportions of third person singular -s forms in the input (input proportion) were calculated for 25 verbs based on data from an American English corpus of child-directed speech. Neighbourhood density values were also collected for these verbs. With previously collected probes of third person singular -s use for each of these verbs, we found with logistic regression that input proportion was positively associated with the likelihood of third person singular -s use for both groups. For neighbourhood density, we found that children with SLI were more likely to inflect sparse verbs than dense verbs; density was not significantly related to inflection use for TD children. We argue that as a result of their verbs' poorly encoded phonological representations, children with SLI were less able to inflect dense verbs than sparse verbs. We recommend that clinicians be aware of the effects of input proportion and neighbourhood density to ensure that assessments are representative and that treatment success is optimal.

Purpose The authors examined whether school-age children with a history of specific language impairment (H-SLI), their peers with typical development (TD), and adults differ in sensitivity to audiovisual temporal asynchrony and whether such difference stems from the sensory encoding of audiovisual information. Method Fifteen H-SLI children, 15 TD children, and 15 adults judged whether a flashed explosion-shaped figure and a 2-kHz pure tone occurred simultaneously. The stimuli were presented at 0-, 100-, 200-, 300-, 400-, and 500-ms temporal offsets. This task was combined with EEG recordings. Results H-SLI children were profoundly less sensitive to temporal separations between auditory and visual modalities compared with their TD peers. Those H-SLI children who performed better at simultaneity judgment also had higher language aptitude. TD children were less accurate than adults, revealing a remarkably prolonged developmental course of the audiovisual temporal discrimination. Analysis of early event-related potential components suggested that poor sensory encoding was not a key factor in H-SLI children's reduced sensitivity to audiovisual asynchrony. Conclusions Audiovisual temporal discrimination is impaired in H-SLI children and is still immature during mid-childhood in TD children. The present findings highlight the need for further evaluation of the role of atypical audiovisual processing in the development of SLI.

Background In many languages a weakness in non-word repetition serves as a useful clinical marker of specific language impairment (SLI) in children. However, recent work in Italian has shown that the repetition of real words may also have clinical utility. For young typically developing Italian children, real word repetition is more predictive of particular grammatical abilities than is non-word repetition. This finding is important because these particular grammatical abilities—the production of present-tense third-person plural inflections and direct-object clitic pronouns—are precisely those that are problematic for Italian-speaking children with SLI. Along with their grammatical requirements, these two morpheme types present a significant phonological/prosodic challenge for these children. Aims To replicate the findings with young typically developing Italian children and to determine whether real word repetition is also more predictive of the use of these two morpheme types than is non-word repetition in a group of Italian-speaking children with SLI. Methods & Procedures Seventeen Italian-speaking children with SLI and 17 younger typically developing children matched for mean length of utterance participated in tasks of real word and non-word repetition as well as tasks requiring the production of direct-object clitic pronouns and present-tense third-person plural inflections. Outcomes & Results Children with SLI were less accurate than their younger peers on all measures. Importantly, for the younger typically developing children, real word repetition explained a significant amount of variance in the use of third-person plural inflections and direct-object clitic pronouns. For the children with SLI, in contrast, non-word repetition was a significant predictor, whereas real word repetition was not a contributing factor. Conclusions & Implications It is argued that in Italian SLI, the grammatical details showing the greatest weakness present phonological/prosodic obstacles as well as grammatical challenges to these children. Consequently, non-word repetition emerges as a predictor of these grammatical weaknesses in SLI, unlike the profile observed in typically developing Italian children.

Purpose This study examined sentence comprehension in children with specific language impairment (SLI) in a manner designed to separate the contribution of cognitive capacity from the effects of syntactic structure. Method Nineteen children with SLI, 19 typically developing children matched for age (TD-A), and 19 younger typically developing children (TD-Y) matched according to sentence comprehension test scores responded to sentence comprehension items that varied in either length or their demands on cognitive capacity, based on the nature of the foils competing with the target picture. Results The TD-A children were accurate across all item types. The SLI and TD-Y groups were less accurate than the TD-A group on items with greater length and, especially, on items with the greatest demands on cognitive capacity. The types of errors were consistent with failure to retain details of the sentence apart from syntactic structure. Conclusions The difficulty in the more demanding conditions seemed attributable to interference. Specifically, the children with SLI and the TD-Y children appeared to have difficulty retaining details of the target sentence when the information reflected in the foils closely resembled the information in the target sentence.

Purpose Using 2 different scoring methods, the authors examined the diagnostic accuracy of both real-word and nonword repetition in identifying Italian-speaking children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Method A total of 34 children ages 3;11–5;8 (years;months) participated—17 children with SLI and 17 typically developing children matched for age (TD–A children). Children completed real-word and nonword repetition tasks. The capacity of real-word and nonword repetition tasks to discriminate children with SLI from TD–A was examined through binary logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic curves. Results Both real-word and nonword repetition showed good (or excellent) sensitivity and specificity in distinguishing children with SLI from their TD peers. Conclusions Nonword repetition appears to be a useful diagnostic indicator for Italian, as in other languages. In addition, real-word repetition also holds promise. The contributions of each type of measure are discussed.

Background: Although relationships among non-word repetition, real-word repetition and grammatical ability have been documented, it is important to study whether the specific nature of these relationships is tied to the characteristics of a given language. Aims: The aim of this study is to explore the potential cross-linguistic differences (Italian and English) in the relationship among non-word repetition, real-word repetition, and grammatical ability in three-and four-year-old children with typical language development. Methods & Procedures: To reach this goal, two repetition tasks (one real-word list and one non-word list for each language) were used. In Italian the grammatical categories were the third person plural inflection and the direct-object clitic pronouns, while in English they were the third person singular present tense inflection and the past tense in regular and irregular forms. Outcomes & Results: A cross-linguistic comparison showed that in both Italian and English, non-word repetition was a significant predictor of grammatical ability. However, performance on real-word repetition explained children's grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Conclusions & Implications: Abilities underlying non-word repetition performance (e.g., the processing and/or storage of phonological material) play an important role in the development of children's grammatical abilities in both languages. Lexical ability (indexed by real-word repetition) showed a close relationship to grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of cross-linguistic differences, genetic research, clinical intervention and methodological issues.

Among the grammatical limitations seen in English-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) is a prolonged period of using articles (e.g., a, the) inconsistently. Most studies documenting this difficulty have focused on article omission and have not made the distinction between definite and indefinite article contexts. In this study, there were 36 participants: 12 5-year-olds with SLI, 12 typically-developing children matched for age, and 12 younger, typically-developing children matched with participants in the SLI group according to mean length of utterance. All 36 children participated in a task requiring indefinite article use, and a task requiring use of the definite article, in which the referent of the noun had already been established in the discourse. The children with SLI showed less use of definite articles in particular, relative to both groups of typically-developing children. Substitutions as well as omissions were seen. The findings suggest that the article limitations of the children with SLI were attributable in part to an incomplete understanding of how definite articles are to be used.

Brief tonal stimuli and spoken sentences were utilized to examine whether adolescents (aged 14;3-18;1) with specific language impairments (SLI) exhibit atypical neural activity for rapid auditory processing of non-linguistic stimuli and linguistic processing of verb-agreement and semantic constraints. Further, we examined whether the behavioral and electrophysiological indices for rapid auditory processing were correlated with those for linguistic processing. Fifteen adolescents with SLI and 15 adolescents with normal language met strict criteria for displaying consistent diagnoses from kindergarten through the eighth grade. The findings provide evidence that auditory processing for non-linguistic stimuli is atypical in a significant number of adolescents with SLI compared to peers with normal language and indicate that reduced efficiency in auditory processing in SLI is more vulnerable to rapid rates (200 ms ISI) of stimuli presentation (indexed by reduced accuracy, a tendency for longer RTs, reduced N100 over right anterior sites, and reduced amplitude P300). Many adolescents with SLI displayed reduced behavioral accuracy for detecting verb-agreement violations and semantic anomalies, along with less robust P600s elicited by verb-agreement violations. The results indicate that ERPs elicited by morphosyntactic aspects of language processing are atypical in many adolescents with SLI. Additionally, correlational analyses between behavioral and electrophysiological indices of processing non-linguistic stimuli and verb-agreement violations suggest that the integrity of neural functions for auditory processing may only account for a small proportion of the variance in morphosyntactic processing in some adolescents.

Purpose To examine the role of linguistic input in how young, typically developing children use the 3rd person singular – s (3S) inflection. Method Novel verbs were presented to 16 young children in either 3S contexts (e.g., “The tiger heens”) or nonfinite (NF) contexts (e.g., “Will the tiger heen?”). The input was further manipulated for length such that half of the presentations in each context had adjectives modifying the subject. Children were then prompted to use the novel verbs in contexts requiring 3S and in contexts requiring an infinitive form. The children’s use of 3S with familiar verbs was also examined. Results Novel verbs heard only in 3S contexts were more likely to be produced with 3S in obligatory contexts and were more likely to be inappropriately applied to infinitive contexts than novel verbs heard only in NF contexts. Degree of 3S use in obligatory contexts was lower for familiar verbs than for novel verbs heard only in 3S contexts but higher than for novel verbs heard only in NF contexts. Length was not a significant factor. Conclusion Linguistic input appears to have a strong effect on how young children use the 3S inflection in newly encountered verbs.

Purpose Although conversational recasting has been a generally successful treatment approach, the precise factors that influence children’s learning through recasts are not yet understood. In this study, we examined details of the relationship between child utterance and clinician utterance that seemed likely to influence learning. Method Three measures were calculated from transcripts of recasting sessions with 17 preschoolers with specific language impairment. In all sessions, 3rd person singular – s served as the target. The measures of interest were the frequency of recasts following child utterances that were prompted by clinicians, the frequency of clinicians’ recasts of subjectless sentences, and the frequency of clinicians’ noncorrective recasts. We assessed the short-term and long-term predictive value of these measures through regression analyses. Results Noncorrective recasts proved to be a positive predictor of short- and long-term gains in the use of the target form. Recasts of subjectless sentences were associated with poorer outcomes, though their contribution was relatively small. Conclusions The nature of learning that takes place varies according to the relationship between child and clinician utterances during the recasting process. These variations have implications for clinical practice and for how learning through recasting is characterized.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to assess the diagnostic accuracy of the Nonword Repetition Test (NRT; Dollaghan & Campbell, 1998) using a sample of 4- and 5-year-olds with and without specific language impairment (SLI) and to evaluate its feasibility for use in universal screening. Method The NRT was administered to 29 children with SLI and 47 age-matched children with typical development. Diagnostic accuracy was computed using alternative scoring methods, which treated out-of-inventory phonemes either as errors or as unscorable. To estimate accuracy in a universal screening context, the probability of identifying a child at risk for language impairment was computed using the prevalence of SLI (7%) as the base rate. Results Diagnostic accuracy was acceptable using both scoring methods. The resulting likelihood ratios (LR+ = 22.66, 19.43; LR− = .05, .05) were similar to those reported for older children. The probability of accurate detection of children with SLI in the general population increased from 7% to 61%. However, this value suggests that many false positives could be expected. Conclusion The NRT yielded results similar to those reported for older children. However, despite its strengths, the NRT is not sufficient for screening the general population of 4- and 5-year-olds.

Purpose In this study, the authors examined the diagnostic accuracy of a composite clinical assessment measure based on mean length of utterance (MLU), lexical diversity (D), and age (Klee, Stokes, Wong, Fletcher, & Gavin, 2004) in a second, independent sample of 4-year-old Cantonese-speaking children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Method The composite measure was calculated from play-based, conversational language samples of 15 children with SLI and 14 children without SLI. Scores were dichotomized and compared to diagnostic outcomes using a reference standard based on clinical judgment supported by test scores. Results Eleven of 15 children with SLI and 8 of 14 children with typical language skills were correctly classified by the dichotomized composite measure. The measure’s sensitivity in this second sample was 73.3% (95% confidence interval [CI] 48%–89%); specificity was 57.1% (95% CI 33%–79%); positive likelihood ratio was 1.71 (95% CI 0.87–3.37); and negative likelihood ratio was 0.47 (95% CI 0.18–1.21). Conclusions The diagnostic accuracy of the composite measure was substantially lower than in the original study, suggesting that it is unlikely to be informative for clinical use in its present form. The value of replication studies is discussed.

Purpose Information-processing limitations have been associated with language problems in children with specific language impairment (SLI). These processing limitations may be associated with limitations in attentional capacity, even in the absence of clinically significant attention deficits. In this study, the authors examined the performance of 4- to 6-year-old children with SLI and their typically developing (TD) peers on a visual sustained attention task. It was predicted that the children with SLI would demonstrate lower levels of performance in the absence of clinically significant attention deficits. Method A visual continuous performance task (CPT) was used to assess sustained attention in 13 children with SLI ( M = 62.07 months) and 13 TD age-matched controls ( M = 62.92 months). All children were screened for normal vision, hearing, and attention. Accuracy ( d' ) and response time were analyzed to see if this sustained attention task could differentiate between the 2 groups. Results The children with SLI were significantly less accurate but not significantly slower than the TD children on this test of visual sustained attention. Conclusion Children with SLI may have reduced capacity for sustained attention in the absence of clinically significant attention deficits that, over time, could contribute to language learning difficulties.

Purpose To propose that the diagnostic category of “expressive language disorder” as distinct from a disorder of both expressive and receptive language might not be accurate. Method Evidence that casts doubt on a pure form of this disorder is reviewed from several sources, including the literature on genetic findings, theories of language impairments, and the outcomes of late talkers with expressive language delays. Areas of language that are problematic in production but not readily amenable to comprehension testing are also discussed. Conclusions The notion of expressive language disorder has been formalized in classification systems and is implicit if not explicit in the organization of many standardized tests. However, a close inspection of the evidence suggests that deficits in language expression are typically accompanied by limitations in language knowledge or difficulties processing language input. For this reason, the diagnostic category of expressive language disorder should be used with considerable caution. This view has implications for both research and clinical practice.

Existing evidence suggests that young children with specific language impairment have unusual difficulty in detecting omissions of obligatory tense-marking morphemes, but little is known about adolescents' sensitivity to such violations.The study investigated whether limitations in receptive morphosyntax (as measured by grammaticality judgements) were present at age 16 years, and, if so, whether participants' profiles showed less sensitivity to omissions of tense and agreement morphemes than to (1) inappropriate uses (intrusions) of these same morphemes, and (2) omissions of morphemes that do not encode tense and agreement. The study also compared adolescents with language impairment and non-verbal IQ more than 1 standard deviation (SD) below the mean (nonspecific language impairment) to adolescents with specific language impairment.Adolescents with specific language impairment (n = 48), adolescents with non-specific language impairment (n = 25), and adolescents with normal language development (n = 108) performed speeded grammaticality judgements of sentences presented over headphones. Half the sentences were ungrammatical. They included omissions of non-tense morphemes (-ing and possessive -s), omissions of tense morphemes (-ed and third-person singular present -s), and intrusions of the same tense morphemes. The A' statistic was used as the dependent variable for comparisons across groups and item types.Overall, the normal language development group was more sensitive to grammatical violations than the specific language impairment and non-specific language impairment groups, and there was no significant interaction of group and item type. Post-hoc analyses showed that the specific language impairment group was less sensitive to violations than the normal language development group on each item type, and the specific language impairment and non-specific language impairment groups did not differ. Across groups, performance on omission of past tense -ed was lowest, and properties of the items that may have contributed to this difference were explored.The adolescents with language impairment in this study showed evidence of reduced sensitivity to morphological errors, including both tense-marking and non-tense-marking morphemes, but no evidence of any extraordinary difficulty in detecting the omission of tense-marking morphemes, in contrast to results from other research on younger children with specific language impairment. Participants whose non-verbal IQ score was too low to meet the criteria for specific language impairment performed similarly to their peers with specific language impairment. Grammatical competence is compromised in these adolescents with specific language impairment and non-specific language impairment. Neither researchers nor clinicians can assume that adolescents with language impairment have fully mastered grammatical morphology.

Purpose Many typically developing children first use inflections such as – ed with verb predicates whose meanings are compatible with the functions of the inflection (e.g., using – ed when describing events of brief duration with clear end points, such as dropped ). This tendency is assumed to be beneficial for development. In this study, the authors examine whether preschool-aged children with specific language impairment (SLI) show a similar tendency. Method Sixteen children in each of three groups participated—children with SLI, typically developing children matched for age (TD–A), and younger typically developing children matched for mean length of utterance (TD–MLU). The children described actions in contexts that promoted either past tense – ed or progressive aspect – ing in past contexts. Half of the verb predicates referred to events of brief duration with distinct endpoints (e.g., drop ), and half referred to events of considerable duration with less distinct points of termination (e.g., play ). Results Both the TD–A children and the TD–MLU children used – ed with verb predicates of the first type more consistently than they did with verb predicates of the second type. They showed the reverse pattern for – ing . The children with SLI did not show any effects according to the verb predicate type. However, although the children with SLI made less overall use of – ed than did both groups of TD children, they differed only from the TD–A children in their overall use of – ing . Conclusion Difficulties with tense-related morphology may be compounded in children with SLI if they fail to make use of associations between the lexical aspect of verb predicates and the grammatical function of the accompanying inflections. The authors argue that the advantages of using these associations as a starting point in acquisition may be especially important in the case of – ed . Additional studies of children with SLI are clearly needed, including those that employ longitudinal, naturalistic data.

Purpose Children with language impairment (LI) often perform below the level of typically developing peers on measures of both processing speed and working memory. This study examined the relationship between these 2 types of measures and attempted to determine whether such measures can account for the LI itself. Method Fourteen-year-old children with LI and their typically developing peers participated in a wide range of processing speed and working memory tasks and were administered a comprehensive language test battery. Confirmatory factor analyses were used to compare 3 nested models designed to examine the dimensionality of the speed and working memory measures. A model that included a general speed factor was also evaluated. Results The models meeting our evaluation criteria treated speed and working memory as separable factors. Furthermore, nonverbal as well as verbal processing factors emerged from these analyses. Latent variable regression analyses showed that each of the appropriate models accounted for 62% of the variance in the children’s concurrent composite language test scores, with verbal working memory making the largest contribution. Conclusions These findings shed light on the relationship among different types of processing and suggest that processing factors can contribute to the understanding of language disorders.

Purpose Children with specific language impairment (SLI) often fail to produce past tense forms in obligatory contexts, although the factors affecting such inconsistency are not well understood. This study examined the influence of accompanying temporal adverbials (e.g., just, already ) on the past tense production of these children. Method Fifteen preschool-aged children with SLI, 15 typically developing children matched for age (TD–A) and 15 younger typically developing children matched for mean length of utterance (TD–MLU) participated in the study. The children responded to probes that obligated the use of past tense forms. The verbal context provided by the experimenter for half of the items included a temporal adverbial. Results Overall, the SLI and TD–MLU groups produced past tense less frequently than the children in the TD–A group, and there were no significant differences between the SLI and the TD–MLU groups. However, both the SLI and the TD–MLU participants produced past tense forms less frequently when temporal adverbials were included than when they were absent. Conclusions These findings suggest that the tendency to use past tense by the children with SLI and their younger MLU-matched peers may not have been independent of other types of temporal information.

A group of preschool-aged children with specific language impairment (SLI), a group of typically developing children matched for age (TD-A), and a group of younger typically developing children matched for mean length of utterance (TD-MLU) were presented with novel verbs in contexts that required them to inflect with past tense -ed. The novel verbs differed in their phonotactic probabilities. The children with SLI were less likely than the other two groups to produce the novel verbs with -ed. Furthermore, they were less likely to use -ed with novel verbs of low phonotactic probability than those of high probability; this difference was not seen in the other two groups of children. It appears that the phonotactic composition of verbs is one factor that can contribute to the variability of past tense use by children with SLI.

Surprisingly little is known about the use of modal auxiliaries by children with specific language impairment (SLI). These forms fall within the category of grammatical morphology, an area of morphosyntax that is purportedly very weak in children with SLI.Three studies were conducted to examine the use of modal auxiliaries by preschool-aged children with SLI.In each study, probe tasks were designed to create contexts that encouraged the use of modals to express the modality functions of ability and permission. In Studies 1 and 3, English-speaking children participated. In Study 2, the participants were Cantonese-speaking children. In each study, three groups of children participated: A group exhibiting SLI, a group of younger typically developing children (YTD), and a group of (older) typically developing children (OTD) matched with the SLI group according to age.In Study 1, English-speaking children with SLI were as proficient as YTD children, though less proficient than OTD children in the use of the modal can to express the modality functions of ability and permission. In Study 2, the same modality functions were studied in the speech of SLI, YTD and OTD groups who were speakers of Cantonese. In this language, tense is not employed, and therefore the modality function could be examined independent of formal tense. Results similar to those of Study 1 were obtained. Study 3 again studied SLI, YTD and OTD groups in English to determine whether the children's expression of ability differed across past (could) and non-past (can) contexts. The results for can replicated the findings from Study 1. However, the children with SLI were significantly more limited than both the YTD and OTD groups in their use of could.The results suggest that most children with SLI have access to modality functions such as ability and permission. However, the findings of Study 3 suggest that they may have a reduced inventory of modal forms or difficulty expressing the same function in both past and non-past contexts. These potential areas of difficulty suggest possible directions for intervention.

Several recent studies have suggested that the production errors of children with specific language impairment (SLI) such as The girl singing may be explained by a misinterpretation of grammatical adult input containing a similar structure (e.g., The boy hears the girl singing). Thirteen children with SLI and 13 younger typically developing children with comparable sentence comprehension test scores (TD-COMP) completed a comprehension task to assess their understanding of sentences involving a nonfinite subject-verb sequence in a subordinate clause such as The dad sees the boy running. TD-COMP children were more accurate on subordinate clause items than children with SLI despite similar performance on simple transitive (e.g., The horse sees the cow) and simple progressive (e.g., The cow is eating) items. However, no relationship was found between the SLI group’s specific subordinate clause comprehension level and their specific level of auxiliary is production, casting some doubt on this type of structure as a source for inconsistent use of auxiliary is. Learning outcomes The reader will learn that children with specific language impairment (SLI): (1) have difficulty understanding complex sentences that include nonfinite subject-verb sequences; (2) that this difficulty is apparent in comparison to younger typically developing peers who have similar scores not only on a sentence comprehension test, but also on simple sentences that correspond to the component parts of the complex sentences; and (3) that this weakness is concurrent with these children’s inconsistent use of auxiliary is in production. Although novel verb studies show a clear connection between how children with SLI hear new verbs and how they use them, we do not yet have evidence that this connection is tied to a poor understanding of the input sentences that house the verbs.

Purpose The goals of this investigation were to determine whether treatment assists children with specific language impairment (SLI) in the use of grammatical morphemes that mark tense and agreement and whether treatment gains influence the children’s use of other, untreated morphemes. Method Twenty-five children with SLI participated in 96 intervention sessions designed to facilitate the children’s use of third-person singular - s or auxiliary is/are/was . Results The children showed significantly larger gains on the target forms than on control forms (e.g., past tense - ed ) that were monitored but not included in intervention. Along with possible treatment-related generalization across morpheme types, there was also evidence of one morpheme type influencing another when neither was the target of intervention. Conclusions Although the results provide clear evidence for intervention effects, it appeared as if maturational factors also played a role. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for treatment and for characterizing development in SLI.

Purpose This study examined the extent to which children with specific language impairment (SLI) across Germanic languages differ from their typically developing (TD) peers in the use of past tense morphology. Method A systematic literature search identified empirical studies examining regular and/or irregular past tense production by English and non-English Germanic-speaking children with SLI and their TD peers. Data from qualifying studies were extracted and converted to Hedges's g effect sizes. Results Seventeen English and 8 non-English Germanic studies met inclusionary criteria. Comparing children with SLI and their TD age-matched (TDA) peers resulted in large combined effect sizes for English and non-English Germanic regular and irregular past tense production. Comparisons between children with SLI and their TD younger (TDY) peers also revealed large combined effect sizes for English and non-English Germanic regular past tense production. Effect sizes for studies comparing SLI and TDY irregular past tense production were large for non-English Germanic-speaking children and moderate for English-speaking children. Conclusions Results suggest that children with SLI across Germanic languages do indeed have more difficulty marking verbs for past tense than TDA and TDY peers. The findings suggest that the potential value of past tense production as a clinical marker of SLI may well extend beyond English.

Previous studies of verb morphology in children with specific language impairment (SLI) have been limited in the main to tense and agreement morphemes. Cantonese, which, like other Chinese languages, has no grammatical tense, presents an opportunity to investigate potential difficulties for children with SLI in other areas of verb morphology, via scrutiny of elements of its aspectual system. The performance of 3 groups of children ( n =15 in each group)—preschoolers with SLI, typically developing same-age peers, and younger, typically developing peers—was compared in procedures designed to elicit aspect forms. The children with SLI were less likely to produce both perfective and imperfective aspect markers. It is suggested that reasons for these findings are to be found in the sparse morphology of Cantonese and in the nonobligatory nature of these forms.

English-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) appear to have special difficulty in the use of who -object questions (e.g., Who is the girl chasing? ). It has been argued that problems related to grammatical movement may be responsible for this difficulty. However, it is also possible that the lower frequency of who -object questions relative to who -subject questions also plays a role. In this study, the use of who -object and who -subject questions by children with SLI who were acquiring Cantonese as their 1st language was examined. In Cantonese, the surface form of who -object questions (e.g., hung4zai2 sek3 bin1go3? [Bear kiss who?]) reflects the same subject, verb, object order typically used for declarative sentences, and a movement account provides no basis for expecting special difficulties with such questions. As in English, however, Cantonese who -object questions occur less frequently than do who -subject questions. A comparison of preschoolers with SLI, typically developing same-age peers, and younger, typically developing peers revealed that the children with SLI were less accurate in using who -object questions than either of the other participant groups yet showed no differences from these groups in the use of who -subject questions (e.g., bin1go3 sek3 zyu1zyu1? [Who kiss Piglet?]). The implications of these findings for current accounts of SLI are discussed, and the idea that input frequency and animacy may play a larger role than is often assumed is suggested.

Current theories of specific language impairment (SLI) in children fall into 2 general classes: those that attribute SLI to processing limitations and those that attribute the disorder to deficits in grammatical knowledge. In this study, the authors examined children's comprehension of subject and object Wh -questions because they offer the means of determining the relative contribution to performance of knowledge and of processing. Comprehension of subject and object Wh -questions presumably requires knowledge of grammatical movement. However, through manipulation of the length of the questions, it is also possible to vary the processing demands of the questions. If a simple deficit in knowledge of movement is involved, children should show poorer comprehension on object questions than on subject questions, regardless of sentence length. However, if processing limitations are involved, length should affect comprehension of object questions but not subject questions. Children with SLI and typically developing (TD) children matched on receptive vocabulary test scores participated in a comprehension task consisting of short and long subject and object Wh -questions. The two groups performed similarly on short questions, each showing high accuracy in both subject and object conditions. However, the children with SLI showed poorer performance on long object questions compared to long subject questions. They were also less accurate on long object questions than were children in the TD group. We argue that demands on linguistic processing abilities play an important role in the difficulties experienced by children with SLI.