Syntactic Development in Adolescents With a History of Language Impairments: A Follow-Up Investigation

Abstract

Speech-language pathologists may wish to employ the PCR task to examine syntactic development in adolescents as a supplement to standardized testing.

The complexity of narrative interferes in the use of conjunctions in children with specific language impairment

“…This predominance might be easily understood because coordinative conjunctions express, in language, simpler relations between events and sentences (9) . Our findings indicate that the use of conjunctions is still in evolution in 10-year-old children, showing that the upgrading of more refined aspects of oral language extends beyond the schooling stage (14,16) . The difference of performance between groups reinforces that narrative production of SLI children has simpler phrasal structures, lack of temporal markers and less cohesion elements (16,17) .…”

“…Our findings indicate that the use of conjunctions is still in evolution in 10-year-old children, showing that the upgrading of more refined aspects of oral language extends beyond the schooling stage (14,16) . The difference of performance between groups reinforces that narrative production of SLI children has simpler phrasal structures, lack of temporal markers and less cohesion elements (16,17) . This prejudice may be explained by the fact that cognitive and linguistic demands involved in the use of conjunctions is beyond their processing capacity (8,9,15) .…”

“…On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the scarcity of complex sentences such as subordinate, which require use of conjunctions, influences the expression of the character's mental state during narrative production, impairing discourse performance on daily situations (1,29) . Therefore, for the SLI group, complexity increase generates an overload on linguistic system that harms narratives' abilities and influences language comprehension, ideas organization and expressing temporal and causal relations difficulties (1,(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20) . We also notice that these difficulties persist with age, since SLI children's world perception is impaired by linguistic restriction.…”

“…Moreover, when compaired to chronological peers with typical language development, SLI children show a more proeminent morphosyntax impairment with discoursive ellaboration damage (1,8,11,14) . It happens because their narratives are characterized by less syntactically complex sentences, restricted use and errors associated to grammatical elements, low number of complete episodes, and cohesion failures (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20) . In preschool children, the word class that better distinguish those within typical language development from those with SLI is the conjunction, which independent of the type, is always scarce in children's speech (8) .…”

Relationships Between Narrative Language Samples and Norm-Referenced Test Scores in Language Assessments of School-Age Children

“…Numerous positive correlations were found between language sample measures such as MLU and NDW and norm-referenced test scores. Finally, Nippold, Mansfield, Billow, and Tomblin (2009) analyzed expository language sample measures in a large sample (N = 426) of 10th-grade students with and without language disorders. A composite norm-referenced score of syntax was significantly related to several measures of syntax from the language samples, including mean length of T-unit and clausal density.…”