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Dative prepositions in children with specific language impairment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2004

BERNARD GRELA ,
LULA RASHITI  and
MONICA SOARES
BERNARD GRELA
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
LULA RASHITI
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
MONICA SOARES
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their proficiency with the use of prepositions. Ten children with SLI were compared to 10 younger, normally developing children matched for mean length of utterance and 10 children matched for age. Each child was asked to produce 24 sentences containing locative (in, on) and dative (to) prepositions. Responses were coded for omission or word selection errors for the target prepositions. It was hypothesized that children with SLI would make more errors than the typically developing children. Omission errors would support a difficulty with syntax because of the role prepositions play in case marking. Word selection errors would support a deficit in the area of semantics. The results confirmed that children with SLI made more errors than the control group. The children with SLI made more errors in the selection of dative prepositions, indicating a difficulty linking the semantics of prepositions and verbs.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , October 2004 , pp. 467 - 480
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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