Department of Inclusive Education, University of Potsdam, Germany.
Department of Education and Psychology, Free University of Berlin, Germany.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2021 Mar 17;64(3):870-888. doi: 10.1044/2020_JSLHR-19-00305. Epub 2021 Feb 25.
Purpose This study examines the contribution of number morphology to language comprehension abilities among children with specific language impairment (SLI) and age-matched controls. It addresses the question of whether number agreement facilitates the comprehension accuracy of object-initial declarative sentences. According to the predictions of the structural intervention account for German, number agreement should assist the correct interpretation of object-initial sentences. Method This study examines German-speaking children with SLI and a control group of age-matched typically developing children on their sentence comprehension skills for auditory presented subject-verb-object and object-verb-subject (OVS) sentences. The sentences were manipulated with respect to the number properties of the noun phrases (e.g., one plural and one singular, or both singular) and the number agreement of the verb. Results The group of children with SLI demonstrated poorer comprehension accuracy in comparison to controls. Comprehension difficulty was limited to OVS sentences among children with SLI. In addition, children with SLI comprehended OVS sentences in which number agreement (with plural subject and verb inflection) indicated the noncanonical word order more accurately than OVS sentences with two singular noun phrases and therein did not differ from controls. Conclusion The study suggests that number agreement helps alleviate the difficulty with OVS sentences and enhances comprehension accuracy, despite the finding that children with SLI exhibit lower comprehension accuracy and more heterogeneous interindividual differences, relative to controls. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13718029.
目的 本研究考察了形态数对特定语言障碍（SLI）儿童和年龄匹配对照组语言理解能力的贡献。它解决了数一致是否有助于对象起始陈述句理解准确性的问题。根据德语结构干预理论的预测，数一致应该有助于正确解释对象起始句子。 方法 本研究考察了德语为母语的 SLI 儿童和年龄匹配的对照组儿童在听觉呈现的主语-动词-宾语（SVO）和宾语-动词-主语（OVS）句子的句子理解技能。这些句子在名词短语的数特征（例如，一个复数和一个单数，或都是单数）和动词的数一致方面进行了操纵。 结果 SLI 组儿童的理解准确性明显差于对照组。在 SLI 儿童中，理解困难仅限于 OVS 句子。此外，与具有两个单数名词短语和动词的 OVS 句子相比，具有数一致（复数主语和动词屈折）的 SLI 儿童更准确地理解了 OVS 句子，并且与对照组没有差异。 结论 该研究表明，数一致有助于减轻 OVS 句子的难度并提高理解准确性，尽管 SLI 儿童的理解准确性较低，个体间差异更大。
