Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T02:04:31.189Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Language learnability and specific language impairment in children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Laurence B. Leonard
Laurence B. Leonard*
Affiliation:
Purdue University
*
Laurence B. Leonard, Audiology & Speech Sciences, Heavilon Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Theories of language learnability have focused on “normal” language development, but there is a group of children, termed “specifically language-impaired,” for whom these theories are also appropriate. These children present an interesting learnability problem because they develop language slowly, the intermediate points in their development differ in certain respects from the usual developmental stages, and they do not always achieve the adult level of language functioning. In this article, specifically language-impaired children are treated as normal learners dealing with an input that is distorted in principled ways. When the children are viewed from this perspective, Pinker's (1984) theory can account for many of the features of their language.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , June 1989 , pp. 179 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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

REFERENCES

Albertini, J. (1980). The acquisition of five grammatical morphemes: Deviance or delay? Proceedings from the Wisconsin Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders, 1, 94–111.Google Scholar
Baker, C. L. (1979). Syntactic theory and the projection problem. Linguistic Inquiry, 10, 533–581.Google Scholar
Beastrom, S., & Rice, M. (1986). Comprehension and production of the articles a and the. Paper presented at the Convention of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Detroit.Google Scholar
Bernstein, L., & Stark, R. (1985). Speech perception development in language-impaired children: A 4-year follow-up study. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 50, 21–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bernstein Ratner, N. (1984). Patterns of vowel modification in mother-child speech. Journal of Child Language, 11, 557–578.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braine, M. (1971). On two types of models of the internalization of grammars. In Slobin, D. (Ed.), The ontogenesis of grammar (pp. 153–186). New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Brown, R. (1973). A first language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R., & Hanlon, C. (1970). Derivational complexity and order of acquisition in child speech. In Hayes, J. (Ed.), Cognition and the development of language (pp. 11–53). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht, Holland: Foris.Google Scholar
Cousins, A. (1979). Grammatical morpheme development in an aphasic child: A longitudinal study. Paper presented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Dobie, R., & Berlin, C. (1979). Influence of otitis media on hearing and development. Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology, 88 (Suppl. 60), 48–53.Google ScholarPubMed
Freedman, P., & Carpenter, R. (1976). Semantic relations used by normal and language-impaired children at Stage I. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 19, 784–795.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garrett, M. (1975). The analysis of sentence production. In Bower, G. (Ed.), Psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 9). New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Gleitman, L., & Wanner, E. (1982). Language acquisition: The state of the state of the art. In Wanner, E. & Gleitman, L. (Eds.), Language acquisition: The state of the art (pp. 3–48). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, J. (1981). Form, function, and the language acquisition device. In Baker, C. L. & McCarthy, J. J. (Eds.), The logical problem of language acquisition (pp. 165–182). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Haynes, C. (1982). Vocabulary acquisition problems in language disordered children. Unpublished master's thesis, Guys Hospital Medical School, University of London.Google Scholar
Hirsh-Pasek, K., Treiman, R., & Schneiderman, M. (1984). Brown and Hanlon revisited: Mothers' sensitivity to ungrammatical forms. Journal of Child Language, 11, 81–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyams, N. (1986a). Core and peripheral grammar and the acquisition of inflection. Paper presented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Hyams, N. (1986b). Language acquisition and the theory of parameters. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyams, N. (1987). The setting of the null subject parameter: A reanalysis. Paper presented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Ingram, D. (1972). The acquisition of the English verbal auxiliary and copula in normal and linguistically deviant children. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 4, 79–92.Google Scholar
Ingram, D. (1981). Procedures for the phonological analysis of children's language. Baltimore: University Park Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, C., & Sutter, J. (1984). Past time language in expressively delayed children. Paper presented at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, San Francisco, CA.Google Scholar
Johnston, J. (1982). The language disordered child. In Lass, N., McReynolds, L., Northern, J., & Yoder, D. (Eds.), Speech, language and hearing: Vol. II (pp. 780–801). Philadelphia: Saunders.Google Scholar
Johnston, J., & Kamhi, A. (1984). Syntactic and semantic aspects of the utterances of language-impaired children: The same can be less. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 30, 65–85.Google Scholar
Johnston, J., & Schery, T. (1976). The use of grammatical morphemes by children with communicative disorders. In Morehead, D. & Morehead, A. (Eds.), Normal and deficient child language (pp. 239–258). Baltimore: University Park Press.Google Scholar
Kamhi, A., Catts, H., Mauer, D., Apel, K., & Gentry, B. (in press). Phonological and spatial processing abilities in language- and reading-impaired children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders.Google Scholar
Kaplan, R., & Bresnan, J. (1982). Lexical-functional grammar: A formal System for grammatical representation. In Bresnan, J. (Ed.), The mental representation of grammatical relations (pp. 173–281). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Khan, L., & James, S. (1983). Grammatical morpheme development in three language disordered children. Journal of Childhood Communication Disorders, 6, 85–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuczaj, S. (1981). More on children's initial failure to relate specific acquisitions. Journal of Child Language, 8, 485–487.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lapointe, S. (1983). Some issues in the linguistic description of agrammatism. Cognition, 14, 1–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lapointe, S. (1985). A theory of verb form use in the speech of agrammatic aphasies. Brain and Language, 24, 100–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leonard, L. (1979). Language impairment in children. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 25, 205–232.Google Scholar
Leonard, L. (1982a). Phonological deficits in children with developmental language impairment. Brain and Language, 16, 73–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leonard, L. (1982b). The nature of specific language impairment in children. In Rosenberg, S. (Ed.), Handbook of applied psycholinguistics (pp. 295–327). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Leonard, L. (1987). Is specific language impairment a useful construct? In Rosenberg, S. (Ed.), Advances in applied psycholinguistics: Vol. 1. Disorders of first-language development (pp. 1–39). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Leonard, L., Bolders, J., & Miller, J. (1976). An examination of the semantic relations reflected in the language usage of normal and language disordered children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 19, 371–392.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leonard, L., Camarata, S., Rowan, L., & Chapman, K. (1982a). The communicative functions of lexical usage by language impaired children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 3, 109–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leonard, L., Sabbadini, L., Leonard, J., & Volterra, V. (1987). Specific language impairment in children: A crosslinguistic study. Brain and Language, 32, 233–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leonard, L., Sabbadini, L., Volterra, V., & Leonard, J. (1988). Some influences on the grammar of English- and Italian-speaking children with specifie language impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics, 9, 39–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leonard, L., Schwartz, R., Chapman, K., Rowan, L., Prelock, P., Terrell, B., Weiss, A., & Messick, C. (1982b). Early lexical acquisition in children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 25, 554–564.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Loeb, D., & Leonard, L. (1988). Specific language impairment and parameter theory. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 2, 317–327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNeill, D. (1966). Developmental psycholinguistics. In Smith, F. & Miller, G. (Eds.), The genesis of language (pp. 15–84). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Menyuk, P., & Looney, P. (1972). A problem of language disorder: Length versus structure. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 15, 264–279.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morehead, D., & Ingram, D. (1973). The development of base syntax in normal and linguistically deviant children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 16, 330–352.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morgan, J. (1986). From simple input to complex grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Paul, R., & Shriberg, L. (1982). Associations between phonology and syntax in speech-delayed children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 25, 536–547.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pinker, S. (1979). Formal models of language learning. Cognition, 7, 217–283.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pinker, S. (1984). Language learnability and language development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pinker, S., Lebeaux, D., & Frost, L. (1987). Productivity and constraints in the acquisition of the passive. Cognition, 26, 195–267.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pye, C. (1983). Mayan telegraphese: Intonational determinants of inflectional development in Quiché Mayan. Language, 59, 583–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skarakis, E., & Greenfield, P. (1982). The role of new and old information in the verbal expression of language-disordered children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 25, 462–467.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Slobin, D. (1985). Crosslinguistic evidence for the language-making capacity. In Slobin, D. (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition: Volume 2. Theoretical issues (pp. 1157–1249). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Steckol, K., & Leonard, L. (1979). The use of grammatical morphemes by normal and language-impaired children. Journal of Communication Disorders, 12, 291–301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tallal, P., & Piercy, M. (1975). Developmental aphasia: The perception of brief vowels and extended stop consonants. Neuropsychologia, 13, 69–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tallal, P., & Stark, R. (1981). Speech acoustic-cue discrimination abilities of normally developing and language-impaired children. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 69, 568–574.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomblin, J. B., & Quinn, M. (1983). The contribution of perceptual learning to performance on the repetition task. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 26, 369–372.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tower, D. (1979). Forward. In Ludlow, C. & Doran-Quine, M. (Eds.), The neurological bases of language disorders in children: Methods and directions for research (pp. vii–viii). Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health.Google Scholar
Trantham, C., & Pedersen, J. (1976). Normal language development. Baltimore: Williams &Wilkins.Google Scholar
Weiner, P. (1974). A language-delayed child at adolescence. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 39, 202–212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weiner, P. (1985). The value of follow-up studies. Topics in Language Disorders, 5, 78–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wexler, K., & Culicover, P. W. (1980). Formal principles of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar