A preliminary investigation of reduplication in children with specific language impairment.

The frequency of reduplication was examined in relation to syllable maintenance, final consonant production, and whole word repetitions in two preschool children with specific language impairment--one who reduplicated frequently and one who did so infrequently. Spontaneous speech was sampled for a period of 18 months. During the single-word utterance period, reduplication was associated with infrequent production of final consonants but frequent maintenance of multisyllabic structure. After the single-word utterance period the child who had frequently reduplicated during this period ceased reduplication but frequently produced whole word repetitions. Infrequent production of final consonants continued, but syllable maintenance decreased. The data are discussed in relation to hypotheses about the function of reduplication and the function of whole word repetitions in language development.