Kiernan B, Snow D, Swisher L, Vance R
Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson 85721-0071, USA.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 1997 Feb;40(1):75-82. doi: 10.1044/jslhr.4001.75.
This study focuses on the ability of preschool children with specific language impairment (SLI) to extract target regularities from recurring nonverbal stimuli. As a step beyond previous methodologies, we also assessed their ability to shift and extract other regularities after feedback indicated that their choices were no longer correct. This step was motivated by Connell and Stone's (1994) hypothesis that difficulties manifested by children with SLI in extracting nonverbal "rules" from multiple problem sets may reflect difficulties in "flexible reconceptualization," that is, in the ability to flexibility shift across regularities. Thirty 4- and 5-year-olds with SLI and 30 age-matched children developing language normally participated in a discrimination learning-shift paradigm. Findings indicated that both language groups were successful in extracting regularities and making shifts. In fact, language groups did not differ in number of regularities extracted, number of shifts completed, or trials to criterion. As a consequence, findings failed to provide evidence that children with SLI are limited in either the ability to extract nonverbal regularities or to flexibly reconceptualize them. From a larger theoretical perspective, the findings fail to support theories positing that generalized "rule-induction" deficits underlie the verbal and nonverbal impairments of SLI.
本研究聚焦于患有特定语言障碍（SLI）的学龄前儿童从反复出现的非语言刺激中提取目标规律的能力。作为超越以往方法的一步，我们还评估了在反馈表明他们的选择不再正确后，他们转移并提取其他规律的能力。这一步骤是受康奈尔和斯通（1994）的假设所推动，即患有SLI的儿童在从多个问题集中提取非语言“规则”时表现出的困难可能反映了“灵活重新概念化”方面的困难，也就是说，在跨规律灵活转移的能力方面。30名4岁和5岁患有SLI的儿童以及30名年龄匹配的语言发展正常的儿童参与了一项辨别学习转移范式。研究结果表明，两个语言组在提取规律和进行转移方面都取得了成功。事实上，两个语言组在提取的规律数量、完成的转移数量或达到标准的试验次数上没有差异。因此，研究结果未能提供证据表明患有SLI的儿童在提取非语言规律或灵活重新概念化这些规律的能力方面受到限制。从更广泛的理论角度来看，这些发现不支持那些认为广义的“规则归纳”缺陷是SLI语言和非语言障碍基础的理论。
