Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T15:03:55.306Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gender and agreement processing in children with Developmental Language Disorder*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2013

NATALIA RAKHLIN ,
SERGEY A. KORNILOV  and
ELENA L. GRIGORENKO
NATALIA RAKHLIN
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
SERGEY A. KORNILOV
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, Connecticut, USA Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
ELENA L. GRIGORENKO*
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, Connecticut, USA Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia Columbia University, New York, New York, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Elena L. Grigorenko, Child Study Center, 230 South Frontage Road, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06519-1124. tel: 203.737.2316; fax: 203.785.3002; e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Two experiments tested whether Russian-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) are sensitive to gender agreement when performing a gender decision task. In Experiment 1, the presence of overt gender agreement between verbs and/or adjectival modifiers and postverbal subject nouns memory was varied. In Experiment 2, agreement violations were introduced and the targets varied between words, pseudo-words, or pseudo-words with derivational suffixes. In both experiments, children with DLD did not differ from typically developing children in their reaction time or sensitivity to agreement features. In both groups, trials with feminine gender resulted in a higher error rate. Children with DLD displayed lower overall accuracy, which was related to differences in phonological memory in both experiments. Furthermore, in Experiment 1 group differences were not maintained after phonological memory was entered as a covariate. The results are discussed with respect to various processing and linguistic theories of DLD.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , March 2014 , pp. 241 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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.)

Footnotes

[*]

The first two authors have contributed equally to the writing of the manuscript. This research was supported by NIH grant R01 DC007665 to Elena L. Grigorenko. Grantees undertaking such projects are encouraged to express freely their professional judgment. This article, therefore, does not necessarily reflect the position or policies of the National Institutes of Health, and no official endorsement should be inferred. We thank the children who participated in the study and their families for their cooperation, and the local medical officials of the AZ community for their help with data collection.

References

REFERENCES

Alm, M., Behne, D. M., Wang, Y. & Eg, R. (2009). Audio-visual identification of place of articulation and voicing in white and babble noise. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 126(1), 377–87.Google Scholar
Anderson, R. T. & Lockowitz, A. (2009). How do children ascribe gender to nouns? A study of Spanish-speaking children with and without Specific Language Impairment. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 23(7), 489–506.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. H. (2012). Data sets and functions with “Analyzing Linguistic Data: A practical introduction to statistics” (package language R). R package version 1.4. Available at: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/languageR/index.html.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. H. & Milin, P. (2010). Analyzing reaction times. International Journal of Psychological Research 3(2), 12–28.Google Scholar
Babyonyshev, M. (1997). Structural connections in syntax and processing: studies of Russian and Japanese. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Bates, D. M. & Maechler, M. (2010). lme4: Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using S4 Classes. R package version 0.999375-36/r1083. Available at: http://R-Forge.R-project.org/projects/lme4/.Google Scholar
Bedore, L. M. & Leonard, L. B. (2001). Grammatical morphology deficits in Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 44(4), 905–924.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cantú-Sánchez, M. & Grinstead, J. (2004). Nominal number and gender agreement in child Spanish SLI. Poster presented at Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition in North America (GALANA), December 19, University of Hawaii at Manoa.Google Scholar
Caramazza, A. (1984). The logic of neuropsychological research and the problem of patient classification in aphasia. Brain and Language 21, 9–20.Google Scholar
Cattell, R. & Cattell, A. (1973). Measuring intelligence with the Culture Fair Tests: Manual for Scales 2 and 3. Champaign, IL: Institute for Personality and Ability Testing.Google Scholar
Clahsen, H. (1989). The grammatical characterization of developmental dysphasia. Linguistics 27(5), 897–920.Google Scholar
Clahsen, H. (1991). Child language and developmental dysphasia: linguistic studies of the acquisition of German. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Clahsen, H., Bartke, S. & Göllner, S. (1997). Formal features in impaired grammars: a comparison of English and German SLI children. Journal of Neurolinguistics 10, 151–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corbett, G. G. (1982). Gender in Russian: an account of gender specification and its relationship to declension. Russian Linguistics 6, 197–232.Google Scholar
Corbett, G. G. & Fraser, N. M. (2000). Default genders. In Unterbeck, B. (ed.), Gender in grammar and cognition, 55–91. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Dalalakis, J. E. (1999). Morphological representation in specific language impairment: evidence from Greek word formation. Folia Phoniatrica Et Logopaedica 51(1/2), 20–35.Google Scholar
Doleschal, U. (2000). Gender assignment revisited. In Unterbeck, B. (ed.), Gender in grammar and cognition, 117–66. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elias, L. J., Bryden, M. P. & Bulman-Fleming, M. B. (1998). Footedness is a better predictor than is handedness of emotional lateralization. Neuropsychologia 36(1), 37–43.Google Scholar
Estes, K. G., Evans, J. L. & Else-Quest, N. M. (2007). Differences in the nonword repetition performance of children with and without specific language impairment: a meta-analysis. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 50(1), 177–95.Google Scholar
Gathercole, S. E. & Baddeley, A. D. (1990). Phonological memory deficits in language disordered children – is there a causal connection. Journal of Memory and Language 29(3), 336–60.Google Scholar
Grela, B. G. & Leonard, L. B. (2000). The influence of argument-structure complexity on the use of auxiliary verbs by children with SLI. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 43(5), 1115–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Halle, M. (1959). The sound pattern of Russian. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Hamann, C., Ohayon, S., Dube, S., Frauenfelder, U. H., Rizzi, L., Starke, M. & Zesiger, P. (2003). Aspects of grammatical development in young French children with SLI. Developmental Science 6(2), 151–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansson, K. & Nettelbladt, U. (1995). Grammatical characteristics of Swedish children with SLI. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 38(3), 589–98.Google Scholar
Imai, K., King, G. & Lau, O. (2008). Toward a common framework for statistical analysis and development. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics 17(4), 892–913.Google Scholar
Ito, T., Fukuda, S. & Fukuda, S. E. (2009). Differences between grammatical and lexical development in Japanese Specific Language Impairment: a case study. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 45(2), 211–21.Google Scholar
Jaeger, T. D. (2008). Categorical data analysis: away from ANOVAs (transformation or not) and towards logit mixed models. Journal of Memory and Language 59, 434–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kail, R. (1994). A method for studying the generalized slowing hypothesis in children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 37(2), 418–21.Google Scholar
Kail, R. & Salthouse, T. A. (1994). Processing speed as a mental capacity. Acta Psychologica 86(2), 199–225.Google Scholar
Leonard, L. B. (1998). Children with Specific Language Impairment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Leonard, L. B. & Bortolini, U. (1998). Grammatical morphology and the role of weak syllables in the speech of Italian-speaking children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 41(6), 1363–74.Google Scholar
Leonard, L. B., Sabbadini, L., Leonard, J. S. & Volterra, V. (1987). Specific Language Impairment in children – a cross-linguistic study. Brain and Language 32(2), 233–52.Google Scholar
Marinis, T. (2011). On the nature and cause of Specific Language Impairment: a view from sentence processing and infant research. Lingua 121(3), 463–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, M. (1969). Frog, Where are You? New York: Dial Books for Young Readers.Google Scholar
Montgomery, J. W. (2000). Relation of working memory to off-line and real-time sentence processing in children with specific language impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics 21, 117–48.Google Scholar
Montgomery, J. W. & Leonard, L. B. (1998). Real-time inflectional processing by children with specific language impairment: effects of phonetic substance. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 41(6), 1432–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Montgomery, J. W., Scudder, R. & Moore, C. (1990). Language-impaired children's real-time comprehension of spoken language. Applied Psycholinguistics 11, 273–90.Google Scholar
Norbury, C. F., Bishop, D. V. M. & Briscoe, J. (2001). Production of English finite verb morphology: a comparison of SLI and mild–moderate hearing impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 44(1), 165–78.Google Scholar
Oetting, J. B. & Horohov, J. E. (1997). Past-tense marking by children with and without specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 40(1), 62–74.Google Scholar
Orgassa, A. & Weerman, F. (2008). Dutch gender in Specific Language Impairment and second language acquisition. Second Language Research 24(3), 333–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penke, M. (2011). Syntax and language disorders. In Kiss, T. & Alexiadou, A. (eds.), Syntax. An international handbook (2nd ed.), 1–38. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Pinker, S. (1997). Words and rules in the human brain. Nature 387(6633), 547–48.Google Scholar
Rakhlin, N., Kornilov, S. A., Palejev, D., Koposov, R., Chang, J. & Grigorenko, E. L. (2013). The language phenotype of a small geographically isolated Russian-speaking population: implications for genetic and clinical studies of developmental language disorder. Applied Psycholinguistics. Advance online publication. doi:10.1017/S0142716412000094.Google Scholar
Rice, M. L. & Wexler, K. (1996). Toward tense as a clinical marker of specific language impairment in English-speaking children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 39(6), 1239–57.Google Scholar
Rice, M. L., Wexler, K. & Cleave, P. L. (1995). Specific Language Impairment as a period of Extended Optional Infinitive. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 38(4), 850–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roulet-Amiot, L. & Jakubowicz, C. (2006). Production and perception of gender agreement in French SLI. Advances in Speech-Language Pathology 8(4), 335–46.Google Scholar
Seva, N., Kempe, V., Brooks, P. J., Mironova, N., Pershukova, A. & Fedorova, O. (2007). Crosslinguistic evidence for the diminutive advantage: gender agreement in Russian and Serbian children. Journal of Child Language 34(1), 111–31.Google Scholar
Sharoff, S. (2001). The frequency dictionary for Russian. Available at: http://bokrcorpora.narod.ru/frqlist/frqlist.html.Google Scholar
Silveira, M. (2006). A preliminary investigation of grammatical gender abilities in Portuguese-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment. Unpublished working paper, University College London, Department of Phonetics and Linguistics. Available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychlangsci/research/linguistics/publications/wpl/06papers/silveira.Google Scholar
Sorace, A. (2011). Pinning down the concept of ‘interface’ in bilingualism. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 1, 1–33.Google Scholar
Steriopolo, O. (2008). Form and function of expressive morphology: a case study of Russian. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of British Columbia. Available from http://www.zas.gwzberlin.de/fileadmin/mitarbeiter/steriopolo/FORM_AND_FUNCTION_ed.pdf.Google Scholar
Tallal, P., Miller, S. & Fitch, R. H. (1995). Neurobiological basis of speech: A case for the preeminence of temporal processing. Irish Journal of Psychology 16(3), 194–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsimpli, I. M. (2001). LF-interpretability and language development: a study of verbal and nominal features in Greek normally developing and SLI children. Brain and Language 77, 432–48.Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I. M. & Mastropavlou, M. (2007). Feature interpretability in L2 acquisition and SLI: Greek clitics and determiners. In Liceras, J., Zobl, H. & Goodluck, H. (eds.), The role of formal features in second language acquisition, 143–83. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ullman, M. T. & Pierpont, E. I. (2005). Specific Language Impairment is not specific to language: the procedural deficit hypothesis. Cortex 41, 399–433.Google Scholar
van der Lely, H. K. J., Jones, M. & Marshall, C. R. (2011). Who did Buzz see someone? Grammaticality judgements of wh-questions in typically developing children and children with Grammatical-SLI. Lingua 121(3), 408–422.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D. (1991). Manual for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (3rd ed.). San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Wiesner, D. (1997). Tuesday. New York: Sandpiper.Google Scholar
Wiesner, D. (2008). Free fall. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Windsor, J. & Hwang, M. (1999). Testing the Generalized Slowing Hypothesis in Specific Language Impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 42, 1205–218.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed