Why pragmatic impairment? A case study in the comprehension of inferential meaning

Abstract

This paper discusses a case study of Sarah (aged 9;8-10;3) who is reported to have pragmatic difficulties. The focus is on her comprehension of questions, which are asked on the basis of pictures and heard stories. Particular focus is on the pragmatic (or inferential) demands of the input questions and their relationship to the (in)appropriacy of the answer. Data from 16 normally functioning 6-and 8-year-old children are also presented for comparative purposes. The study shows that Sarah has difficulty with questions which require her to go beyond visually presented or verbally stated information. On one set of tasks she was to answer questions on the basis of composite pictures: for some of the questions, the answer was obvious from the picture (descriptive questions) and for others information needed to be inferred beyond the picture (for example, by imagining what had happened before and what is likely to happen next). Sarah's performance was poorer on the inferential questions than the descriptive questions and poorer than the performance of 6-and 8-year-old normally functioning control children. Although the control children also found the inferential questions more difficult than the descriptive questions, this difficulty was not as pronounced as Sarah's. This trend was also apparent in a set of tasks which required the children to answer questions on the basis of verbally told stories. This study suggests that pragmatically impaired children may have difficulty going beyond explicitly presented information and this would manifest as pragmatic production and comprehension problems. In cognitive terms, this may indicate difficulty with the process of inferencing. ABSTRACT This paper discusses a case study of Sarah (aged 9;&10;3) who i s reported to have pragmatic difficulties. The focus is on her comprehension of questions, which are asked on the basis of pictures and heard stories. Particular focus is on the pragmatic (or inferential) demands of the input questions and their relationship to the (in)appropriacy of the answer. Data from 16 normally functioning 6-and 8-year-old children are also presented for comparative purposes. The study shows that

Inferential ability in children with cerebral palsy, spina bifida and pragmatic language impairment

“…Moreover, the PLIgroup was more prone to give answers suggesting they had not understood the question. Similar problems with inference ability in children with language impairment have later been found in numerous studies (Dodwell & Bavin, 2007;Ford & Milosky, 2008) as well as for children with PLI (Leinonen & Letts, 1997;Letts & Leinonen, 2001;Norbury & Bishop, 2002;Botting & Adams, 2005), even though it must be emphasized that these problems often were manifested as trends rather than being significant. In the study by Letts and Leinonen (2001) it is noticeable that literal questions did not constitute a problem for children with language impairment, mean age 8;1 years.…”

“…Another often suggested possible underlying cause for problems in story comprehension is the linguistic form of the question. For example is "why" questions customarily thought to be the most difficult question form, and open-ended questions to be more difficult than yes/no questions (Leinonen & Letts, 1997). "Why" and "how" questions involve the ability to predict future developments and an awareness of cause and effect, and appear later than "what´s that" questions (Leinonen & Letts, 1997).…”

“…For example is "why" questions customarily thought to be the most difficult question form, and open-ended questions to be more difficult than yes/no questions (Leinonen & Letts, 1997). "Why" and "how" questions involve the ability to predict future developments and an awareness of cause and effect, and appear later than "what´s that" questions (Leinonen & Letts, 1997). Ryder and Leinonen (2003) conclude that it is important to consider the contextual demands of the question when trying to understand how children answer questions.…”

Children with cerebral palsy, spina bifida and pragmatic language impairment: Differences and similarities in pragmatic ability

“…As would be apparent from the different pragmatic symptoms mentioned above, associated with CP, SBH and PLI respectively, children with different subsets of behaviours and different underlying causes may all be diagnosed as pragmatically impaired (Perkins, 2007;Leinonen & Letts, 1997). Similar surface behaviours can reflect various underlying causes, and different clinical populations may exhibit rather similar communicative behaviours (McTear & Conti-Ramsden, 1992).…”

Déficit Específico Da Linguagem De Ordem Pragmática (Del-Prag) E Dificuldades De Aprendizagem: Interface Gramática-Pragmática E Relevância No Uso Da Língua

“…Problemas de compreensão também são frequentemente relatados para esta população (Rapin & Allen, 1983;Bishop & Rosenbloom, 1987;Bishop, 1989;Bishop & Adams, 1992;ContiRamsden, Crutchley & Botting, 1997;Leinonen & Letts, 1997;Shields et al, 1996aShields et al, , 1996bBishop, 1998;Botting & Conti-Ramsden, 1999;Bishop, 2000;Adams, 2003;Botting & Conti-Ramsden, 2003).…”