Work

Simulating SLI: General Cognitive Processing Stressors Can Produce a Specific Linguistic Profile

Year: 2004

Type: article

Abstract: This study attempted to model specific language impairment (SLI) in a group of 6-year-old children with typically developing language by introducing cognitive stress factors into a grammaticality judgment task. At normal speech rate, all children had near-perfect performance. When the speech signal was compressed to 50% of its original rate, to simulate reduced speed of processing, children displayed the same pattern of errors that is reported in SLI: good performance on noun morphology (plural -s) and very poor performance on verb morphology (past tense -ed and 3rd-person singular -s). A similar pattern was found when memory load was increased by adding redundant verbiage to sentence stimuli. The finding that an SLI-like pattern of performance can be induced in children with intact linguistic systems by increasing cognitive processing demands supports the idea that a processing deficit may underlie the profile of language difficulty that characterizes SLI.

Source: Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research

DOI: 10.1044/1092-4388(2004/101)

Authors: Marianna E. Hayiou-Thomas, Dorothy V. M. Bishop, Kim Plunkett

Institution: University of Oxford

Language: English

Topic: Language Development and Disorders

Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funder: University of Oxford