Complexity markers in morphosyntactic productions in French-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI)

Abstract

The usage-based theory considers that the morphosyntactic productions of children with SLI are particularly dependent on input frequency. When producing complex syntax, the language of these children is, therefore, predicted to have a lower variability and to contain fewer infrequent morphosyntactic markers than that of younger children matched on morphosyntactic abilities. Using a spontaneous language task, the current study compared the complexity of the morphological and structural productions of 20 children with SLI and 20 language-matched peers (matched on both morphosyntactic comprehension and mean length of utterance). As expected, results showed that although basic structures were produced in the same way in both groups, several complex forms (i.e. tenses such as Imperfect, Future or Conditional and Conjunctions) were less frequent in the productions of children with SLI. Finally, we attempted to highlight complex linguistic forms that could be good clinical markers for these children.

Morphosyntactic Development and Severe Parental Neglect in 4-Year-Old French-Speaking Children: ELLAN study

“…More precisely, the calculation of the MLU in morphemes takes into account all the lexical and grammatical inflections produced by the child and, in this sense, draws a more complete portrait of language skills than does the MLU calculated in words (Bernicot & Bert-Erboul, 2009). Considering the morphosyntactic richness of French, it is strongly recommended to use other markers of development, such as the number of verbal inflections (tenses and moods) and errors, in order to highlight the variety of skills exhibited by children (Prigent, Parisse, Leclercq, & Maillart, 2015; Thordardottir, 2005). The analysis of these markers identifies precisely the morphosyntactic elements that contribute to the production of longer sentences among French-speaking children (Prigent et al, 2015).…”

Identifying Linguistic Markers of French-Speaking Teenagers With Developmental Language Disorder: Which Tasks Matter?

“…Only a few studies have detailed the morphosyntactic skills of older French-speaking children with DLD. Prigent et al (2015) examined the use of complex morphosyntactic structures in spontaneous speech by a group of French-speaking DLD (pre)teens aged 11;6, on average. They showed that participants with DLD produced fewer complex morphosyntactic structures when compared with a control group aged 7;8, on average, and matched on morphosyntactic comprehension skills with the DLD group, suggesting that avoidance of complex morphosyntactic structures is characteristic of Frenchspeaking (pre)teens with DLD.…”

“…An interpretation of the lack of consistent effects of number agreement as a reliable marker could be that, in French and some other languages, it is only a reliable marker in teenagers due to idiosyncratic properties of the morphological system. Furthermore, the different task types used in these studies could explain the discrepancies between them, that is, a comparison of spontaneous versus elicited production (Prigent et al, 2015) suggests that teens with DLD avoid using complex morphosyntactic structures in their spontaneous speech. Considering this, future studies in the Romance languages should focus on older populations and use elicited production tasks when investigating subject-verb number agreement in DLD.…”