Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA.
Int J Lang Commun Disord. 2009 May-Jun;44(3):271-86. doi: 10.1080/13682820902841385.
Many school-age children with specific language impairment produce sentences that appear to conform to the adult grammar. It may be premature to conclude from this, however, that their language formulation ability is age appropriate.
To determine whether a more subtle measure of language use, speech disruptions during sentence formulation, might serve to distinguish children with specific language impairment from their typically developing peers at an age when grammatical accuracy was high. We analysed the rate of speech disruptions in simple sentence production in school-age children with specific language impairment and typically developing age-matched peers. We predicted that: (1) the specific language impairment group would exhibit more speech disruptions than the typically developing group as a result of reduced language proficiency even when grammatical accuracy was high; and (2) the specific language impairment group would demonstrate greater reductions in disruption frequency as compared with the typically developing group when given sentences that model the target syntactic structures.
METHODS & PROCEDURES: Twenty-eight children (17 specific language impairment, 11 typically developing, mean = 8;10 years) with no history of stuttering were presented with a series of picture pairs. The examiner described the first picture using a simple sentence and asked the child to repeat the sentence; the child then described the second picture. There were two priming conditions: Matching Syntax condition (paired pictures requiring different syntactic structures) and Different Syntax condition (paired pictures requiring different syntax structures). All testing was audio-recorded and speech disruptions (repetitions, revisions, fillers, long silent pauses) were transcribed and tabulated for each target response. The data were analysed by analysis of variance (ANOVA).
OUTCOMES & RESULTS: The specific language impairment group demonstrated a significantly greater number of speech disruptions when compared with the typically developing group. There was no effect for priming.
CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: School-age children with specific language impairment appear to have difficulty with sentence formulation when compared with typically developing peers even when grammatical accuracy is high. We concluded that school-age children with specific language impairment may demonstrate subtle but persistent language formulation difficulties.
许多学龄期特定语言障碍儿童所产出的句子似乎符合成人语法。然而，就此得出他们的语言表达能力与年龄相符还为时尚早。
为了确定更微妙的语言使用衡量标准，即句子形成过程中的言语中断，是否可以区分特定语言障碍儿童与年龄匹配的正常发育同伴。我们分析了特定语言障碍儿童和正常发育同龄儿童在简单句生成中言语中断的速率。我们预测：（1）特定语言障碍组由于语言能力降低，即使语法准确性较高，也会比正常发育组表现出更多的言语中断；（2）与正常发育组相比，特定语言障碍组在呈现目标句法结构的句子时，言语中断频率的降低幅度更大。
28 名儿童（17 名特定语言障碍，11 名正常发育，平均年龄=8.10 岁）无口吃史，他们接受了一系列图片对。检查者使用简单句描述第一张图片，并要求孩子重复句子；然后孩子描述第二张图片。有两种启动条件：匹配语法条件（需要不同句法结构的配对图片）和不同语法条件（需要不同语法结构的配对图片）。所有测试均进行音频记录，并记录和制表每个目标反应的言语中断（重复、修改、填充、长时间沉默停顿）。数据通过方差分析（ANOVA）进行分析。
与正常发育组相比，特定语言障碍组的言语中断明显更多。启动没有效果。
与正常发育的同龄人相比，学龄期特定语言障碍儿童在句子形成方面似乎存在困难，即使语法准确性较高也是如此。我们得出的结论是，学龄期特定语言障碍儿童可能表现出微妙但持续的语言表达困难。
