Department of Communication Disorders, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA.
Int J Lang Commun Disord. 2012 Mar-Apr;47(2):197-207. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-6984.2011.00095.x.
Children who do not produce single words by the expected age have been described as 'late talkers' or as demonstrating 'late language emergence' (LLE). Although their short-term growth in vocabulary is often strong, longer-term consequences of LLE remain in dispute. It has been argued that the majority of school-age children who had LLE move into the average range for narrative production, though studies have not examined narrative comprehension. It has also been argued that school-age children with LLE score in the average range on standardized tests of syntax, though studies have not examined performance in conversational contexts.
This article compared school-age children with and without histories of LLE for performance on standardized narrative comprehension and production tasks, as well as the use of complex sentences and relative clauses in narration and conversation. Both complex syntax and relative clause use are reduced in children with specific language impairment (SLI), so these structures may be useful as indicators of linguistic weakness.
METHODS & PROCEDURES: The participants were twenty-two 8-year-old children, divided into two groups. Eleven children who had been diagnosed with LLE at 30 months were compared with a control group of 11 children with typical development (TD). All participants completed a standardized test of narrative comprehension and production and a 10-min conversational sample. Both narrative and conversational samples were analysed for the number of complex sentences and relative clauses.
OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Overall results indicated that children with a history of LLE did not have comprehension or production scores that were significantly different from the TD group on the standardized narrative test; nor did groups differ for production of complex sentences or relative clauses in narrative samples. However, a significant difference was found for the production of complex sentences in conversational samples, with the children diagnosed with LLE producing fewer complex sentences than the TD group. There was no difference between groups for relative clause use in conversation or in narratives.
CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: These data suggest that children with a history of LLE may exhibit age-appropriate performance on a standardized narrative test, but still lack the syntactic complexity of their TD peers in conversation. Assessments for school-age children with a history of language delay should include analysis of syntactic complexity in conversation to identify continuing weakness. Future research should examine use of other specific types of complex structures (e.g. infinitival and clausal complements) in this population, as well the feasibility of increasing complex sentence production through intervention. In addition, future studies should examine whether this decreased production of complex syntax in conversation is noted by naive listeners.
未能在预期年龄前说出单个单词的儿童被描述为“晚说话者”或表现出“语言迟发”（LLE）。尽管他们的词汇量短期增长通常很强，但 LLE 的长期后果仍存在争议。有人认为，大多数有 LLE 的学龄儿童的叙事创作能力会进入平均水平，尽管研究并未检查叙事理解能力。也有人认为，有 LLE 的学龄儿童在语法的标准化测试中得分处于平均水平，尽管研究并未检查在会话情境中的表现。
本文比较了有和无 LLE 病史的学龄儿童在标准化叙事理解和创作任务以及在叙事和会话中使用复杂句和关系从句方面的表现。特定语言障碍（SLI）儿童的复杂句法和关系从句使用均减少，因此这些结构可能是语言薄弱的有用指标。
参与者为 22 名 8 岁儿童，分为两组。11 名在 30 个月时被诊断出患有 LLE 的儿童与对照组 11 名具有典型发育的儿童进行比较。所有参与者都完成了标准化的叙事理解和创作测试以及 10 分钟的会话样本。对叙事样本中的复杂句和关系从句的数量进行了分析。
总体结果表明，在标准化叙事测试中，有 LLE 病史的儿童的理解或创作成绩与 TD 组没有显著差异；两组在叙事样本中复杂句和关系从句的使用上也没有差异。然而，在会话样本中复杂句的使用中发现了显著差异，被诊断出患有 LLE 的儿童比 TD 组产生的复杂句更少。两组在会话或叙事中的关系从句使用上没有差异。
这些数据表明，有 LLE 病史的儿童在标准化叙事测试中可能表现出与年龄相符的表现，但在会话中仍缺乏与 TD 同龄人相同的句法复杂性。对有语言延迟病史的学龄儿童的评估应包括会话中句法复杂性的分析，以确定持续的弱点。未来的研究应该检查在该人群中使用其他特定类型的复杂结构（例如，不定式和从句补语）的可行性，并通过干预增加复杂句的产生。此外，未来的研究应该检查这种会话中复杂句法产生减少是否被天真的听众注意到。
