Smolík Filip, Matiasovitsová Klára
Institute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic.
Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2021 Jan 14;64(1):105-120. doi: 10.1044/2020_JSLHR-20-00370. Epub 2020 Dec 7.
Purpose This study examined two markers of language impairment (LI) in a single experiment, testing sentence imitation and grammatical morphology production using an imitation task with masked morphemes. One goal was to test predictions of the morphological richness account of LI in Czech. We also tested the independent contributions of language and memory skills to sentence imitation performance. Method Seventeen children with LI (5;1-7;6 [years;months]) and 17 vocabulary-matched typically developing (TD) children (3;8-4;11) were administered a sentence imitation task where each sentence had one noun or verb ending replaced by a coughing sound. In addition, a receptive vocabulary and the digit span (backward and forward) tasks were administered. Results Children with LI were significantly less accurate than TD children in sentence imitation task. Both vocabulary and digit span had unique effects on sentence imitation scores. Children with LI were less successful in imitating the target words, especially verbs. However, if they succeeded, their completions of the masked morphemes were no less accurate than in TD children. The accuracy of completions was affected by the morpheme frequency and homophony, but these effects were similar in TD and affected children. Conclusions Sentence imitation is a measure of language skills and verbal memory. Results on morpheme completions are consistent with processing models of LI, but some predictions of the morphological richness model were not confirmed. The results suggest that children with LI might have a deficit in organizing morphosyntactic relations in sentences, rather than in morphological processing proper.
目的 本研究在一项单一实验中考察了语言障碍（LI）的两个指标，使用带有掩蔽语素的模仿任务测试句子模仿和语法形态生成。一个目标是检验对捷克语中语言障碍的形态丰富性解释的预测。我们还测试了语言和记忆技能对句子模仿表现的独立贡献。方法 对17名语言障碍儿童（5岁1个月至7岁6个月）和17名词汇匹配的发育正常（TD）儿童（3岁8个月至4岁11个月）进行句子模仿任务，每个句子中有一个名词或动词词尾被咳嗽声替代。此外，还进行了接受性词汇和数字广度（顺背和倒背）任务。结果 在句子模仿任务中，语言障碍儿童的准确性显著低于发育正常儿童。词汇和数字广度对句子模仿分数都有独特影响。语言障碍儿童在模仿目标词方面不太成功，尤其是动词。然而，如果他们成功了，他们对掩蔽语素的完成情况并不比发育正常儿童差。完成情况的准确性受语素频率和同音异形的影响，但这些影响在发育正常儿童和受影响儿童中相似。结论 句子模仿是语言技能和言语记忆的一种测量方法。语素完成情况的结果与语言障碍的加工模型一致，但形态丰富性模型的一些预测未得到证实。结果表明，语言障碍儿童可能在组织句子中的形态句法关系方面存在缺陷，而不是在形态加工本身。
