Bortolini Umberta, Arfé Barbara, Caselli Cristina M, Degasperi Luisa, Deevy Patricia, Leonard Laurence B
Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione del CNR, Padua, Italy.
Int J Lang Commun Disord. 2006 Nov-Dec;41(6):695-712. doi: 10.1080/13682820600570831.
The discovery of clinical markers for specific language impairment (SLI) in children can assist in the accurate identification of children with this disorder, and in a description of the disorder's phenotype for genetic study. One challenge to this type of research is the fact that languages vary in the most salient symptoms of SLI. This study focuses on Italian.
To determine whether three measures--the use of third-person plural inflections, the use of direct-object clitics and non-word repetition--are successful in distinguishing Italian-speaking children with SLI from their typically developing peers.
METHODS & PROCEDURES: Eleven preschool-aged children with SLI, 11 same-age typically developing peers and 11 younger typically developing children participated in the study. The third-person plural inflection and direct-object clitic tasks required the children to describe drawings in response to prompts provided by the examiner. In the non-word repetition task, the children repeated non-words ranging from one to four syllables in length.
OUTCOMES & RESULTS: All three measures proved successful either singly or in combination, with direct-object clitics and non-word repetition showing the highest sensitivity and specificity.
Additional research should be pursued to replicate and extend these findings. Along with the potential clinical value of the findings, the results suggest that difficulties with non-final weak syllables--a problem that would adversely affect all three measures--may be an important part of the SLI profile in Italian.
发现儿童特定语言障碍（SLI）的临床标志物有助于准确识别患有该障碍的儿童，并描述该障碍的表型以用于遗传学研究。这类研究面临的一个挑战是，不同语言中SLI的最显著症状存在差异。本研究聚焦于意大利语。
确定三项指标——第三人称复数词尾变化的使用、直接宾语代词的使用以及非词重复——能否成功区分讲意大利语的SLI儿童与其发育正常的同龄人。
11名患有SLI的学龄前儿童、11名同龄发育正常的儿童以及11名年龄较小发育正常的儿童参与了该研究。第三人称复数词尾变化和直接宾语代词任务要求儿童根据考官提供的提示描述图片。在非词重复任务中，儿童重复长度从一到四个音节的非词。
所有三项指标单独或联合使用均证明是成功的，直接宾语代词和非词重复显示出最高的敏感性和特异性。
应开展更多研究以复制和扩展这些发现。除了这些发现的潜在临床价值外，结果表明非词尾弱音节的困难——这一问题会对所有三项指标产生不利影响——可能是意大利语SLI特征的重要组成部分。
