Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T01:58:38.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Verb inflections and noun phrase morphology in the spontaneous speech of Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2005

LISA M. BEDORE  and
LAURENCE B. LEONARD
LISA M. BEDORE
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin
LAURENCE B. LEONARD
Affiliation:
Purdue University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Spanish-speaking preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI) were compared to typically developing same-age peers (TD-A) and younger typically developing children matched for mean length of utterance (TD-MLU) in terms of their use of grammatical morphology in spontaneous speech. The children with SLI showed high levels of accuracy on present tense and past tense (preterite) verb inflections. However, their use of definite articles and direct object clitics was significantly more problematic than for either the TD-MLU or the TD-A children. Substitutions and omissions were observed, especially in contexts requiring plural articles and clitics. Many of the details of the observed Spanish SLI profile were predicted by Wexler's (Extended) Unique Checking Constraint (EUCC) proposal. Remaining details in the data could be accommodated by making additional assumptions within the same general linguistic framework as the EUCC. Some of the differences between the findings from Spanish and those from previous studies on related languages such as Italian suggest the need for clinical assessment and intervention procedures that are shaped as much by language-specific details as by the language's typology.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , April 2005 , pp. 195 - 225
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson R. 1996. Assessing the grammar of Spanish-speaking children: A comparison of two procedures. Speech, Language, and Hearing Services in the Schools, 27, 333– 344.Google Scholar
Bedore L., & Leonard L. 1998. Specific language impairment and grammatical morphology: A discriminant function analysis. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 41, 965– 1220.Google Scholar
Bedore L., & Leonard L. 2001. Grammatical morphology deficits in Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 44, 905– 924.
Bortolini U., Caselli M. C., & Leonard L. 1997. Grammatical deficits in Italian-speaking children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 40, 809– 820.Google Scholar
Bosch L., & Serra M. 1997. Grammatical morphology deficits of Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment. In A. Baker, M. Beers, G. Bol, J. de Jong, & G. Leemans (Eds.), Child language disorders in a cross-linguistic perspective: Proceedings of the Fourth Symposium of the European Group on Child Language Disorders (pp. 33–45). Amsterdam Series in Child Language Development. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, Institute for General Linguistics.
Bosque I., & Picallo C. 1996. Postnominal adjectives in Spanish DPs. Journal of Linguistics, 32, 349– 385.Google Scholar
Bottari P., Cipriani P., Chilosi A., & Pfanner L. 1998. The determiner system in a group of Italian children with SLI. Language Acquisition, 7, 285– 315.Google Scholar
Butt J., & Benjamin C. 1998. A new reference grammar of Spanish (2nd ed.). Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Publishing Group.
Carstens V. 2000. Concord in minimalist theory. Linguistic Inquiry, 31, 319– 355.Google Scholar
Chomsky N. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cohen J. 1988. Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Delattre P. 1966. A comparison of syllable length conditioning among languages. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 4, 183– 198.Google Scholar
D'Introno F. 2001. Sintaxis generativa del Español: Evolución y análisis [Generative syntax of Spanish: Evolution and analysis]. Madrid: Cátedra.
Duncan S. E., & DeAvila E. A. 1986. PRE-LAS English. San Rafael, CA: Linguametrics.
Eng N., & O'Connor B. 2000. Acquisition of definite article + noun agreement of Spanish–English bilingual children with specific language impairment. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 21, 114– 124.Google Scholar
Farnetani E., & Kori S. 1982. Lexical stress in spoken sentences: A study on duration and vowel formant pattern. Quaderni del Centro di Studio per le Ricerche di Fonetica, 1, 104– 133.Google Scholar
Gennari S., & Demuth K. 1997. Syllable omission in the acquisition of Spanish. In E. Hughes, M. Hughes, & A. Greenhill (Eds.), Proceedings of the 21st Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (Vol. 1, pp. 182–193). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Grabe E., & Low E. L. 2002. Durational variability in speech and the rhythm class hypothesis. In C. Gussenhoven & N. Warner (Eds.), Laboratory Phonology 7 (pp. 515– 546). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Jacobson P., & Schwartz R. 2002. Morphology in incipient bilingual Spanish-speaking preschool children with specific language impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 23– 41.Google Scholar
Leonard L. 1998. Children with specific language impairment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Leonard L., & Bortolini U. 1998. Grammatical morphology and the role of weak syllables in the speech of Italian-speaking children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 41, 1363– 1374.Google Scholar
Leonard L., Eyer J., Bedore L., & Grela B. 1997. Three accounts of the grammatical morpheme difficulties of English-speaking children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 40, 741– 753.Google Scholar
MacWhinney B. 2000. The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Munguía Zatarain I., Munguía Zatarain M. E., & Rocha Romero G. 1998. Gramática de la lengua Española [Grammar of the Spanish language]. Mexico City, Mexico: Larousse.
Paradis J., & Crago M. 2001. The morphosyntax of specific language impairment in French: An extended optional default account. Language Acquisition, 9, 269– 300.Google Scholar
Paradis J., Crago M., & Genesee F. 2003. Object clitics as a clinical marker of SLI in French: Evidence from French-English bilingual children. In B. Beachley, A. Brown, & F. Conlin (Eds.), Proceedings of the 27th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (Vol. 2, pp. 638–649). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Peña E. D., & Quinn R. 1997. Task familiarity: Effects on the test performance of Puerto Rican and African American children. Language Speech and Hearing Services in the Schools, 28, 323– 332.Google Scholar
Perozzi J. A., & Sanchez M. L. C. 1992. The effect of instruction in L1 on receptive acquisition of L2 for bilingual children with language delay. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 23, 348– 352.Google Scholar
Restrepo A. 1998. Identifiers of predominantly Spanish-speaking children with language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 41, 1398– 1411.Google Scholar
Restrepo M. A., & Gutierrez–Clellen V. 2001. Article use in Spanish-speaking children with SLI. Journal of Child Language, 28, 433– 452.Google Scholar
Rice M. 2003. A unified model of specific and general language delay: Grammatical tense as a clinical marker of unexpected variation. In Y. Levy & J. Schaeffer (Eds.), Language competence across populations: Toward a definition of specific language impairment (pp. 63– 95). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Rice M., & Oetting J. 1993. Morphological deficits in children with SLI: Evaluation of number marking and agreement. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 36, 1249– 1257.Google Scholar
Rice M., & Wexler K. 1996. Toward tense as a clinical marker of specific language impairment in English-speaking children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 39, 1239– 1257.Google Scholar
Rice M., Wexler K., & Hershberger S. 1998. Tense over time: The longitudinal course of tense acquisition in children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 41, 1412– 1431.Google Scholar
Roid G., & Miller L. 1996. Leiter International Performance Scale—Revised. Dale, IL: Stoelting.
Rubino R., & Pine J. 1998. Subject–verb agreement in Brazilian Portuguese: What low error rates hide. Journal of Child Language, 25, 35– 59.Google Scholar
Schütze C., & Wexler K. 1996. Subject case licensing and English root infinitives. In Stringfellow, D. Cahana–Amitay, E. Hughes, & A. Zukowski (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (Vol. 2, pp. 670–681). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Semel E., Wiig E., & Secord W. 1997. CELF—3 Spanish Edition. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
Toronto A., Leverman D., Hanna C., Rosenzweig P., & Maldonado A. 1975. The Del Rio Language Screening Test. Washington, DC: National Educational Laboratory.
Wexler K. 1994. Optional infinitives, head movement and the economy of derivations. In D. Lightfoot & N. Hornstein (Eds.), Verb movement (pp. 305– 350). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wexler K. 1998. Very early parameter setting and the unique checking constraint: A new explanation of the optional infinitive stage. Lingua, 106, 23– 79.Google Scholar
Wexler K. 2003. Lenneberg's dream: Learning, normal language development, and specific language impairment. In Y. Levy & J. Schaeffer (Eds.), Language competence across populations: Toward a definition of specific language impairment (pp. 11– 61). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Wexler K., Schütze C., & Rice M. 1998. Subject case in children with SLI and unaffected controls: Evidence for the Agr/Tns Omission Model. Language Acquisition, 7, 317– 344.Google Scholar
Zagona K. 2002. The syntax of Spanish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zimmerman I., Steiner V., & Pond R. 1992. Preschool Language Scale—3, Spanish edition. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
Zimmerman I., Steiner V., & Pond R. 2002. Preschool Language Scale—4, Spanish edition. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.