The perception and expression of verb morphology in bilinguals with specific language impairment
,
Abstract
Background and Aim: Most of the researches are about bilingual children with specific language impairment and importance of it in recognition and treatment. This study aimed to assess verb morphology in bilinguals with specific language impairment (SLI) and compare them with normal bilinguals.
Methods: Six bilingual (Azeri and Persian) children with specific language impairment at the age of 7-8 years were collected from clinics of Tehran, Iran. They were evaluated about verb morphology using narrative speech and specific language impairment test and then, compared with six age-matched and six other language-matched children as control group. Children with specific language impairment were diagnosed by exhibiting a significant delay (more than one year) in language that can not be explained by intelligence deficits, hearing loss or visual impairment. We used Man-Whitney test for comparing the groups.
Results: Bilingual children with specific language impairment had delay in comparison with their age-matched group in subject-verb agreement (p=0.020) and articulating tense morphemes (p=0.019). They also had meaningful delay in using proper tense of verbs (past, present, and future) in comparison with languagematched control group (p=0.029).
Conclusion: Comparison of typical development of bilingual children and bilinguals with specific language impairment shows that verb morphology is a good clinical marker for diagnosing and treatment of these
children.
2. Nation K, Snowling MJ, Clarke P. Production of English past tense by children with language comprehension impairment. J Child Lang. 2005;32(1)117-37.
3. Leonard LB, Ellis Weismer S, Miller CA, Francis DJ, Tomblin JB, Kail RV. Speed of processing, working memory and language impairment in children. J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2007;50(2):408-28.
4. Gutierrez-Clellen VF, Simon-Cereijido G. A cross- linguistic and bilingual evaluation of interdependence between lexical and grammatical domain. Appl Psycholinguistics. 2009;30(2):315-37.
5. Kohnert K, Windsor J, Ebert KD. Primary or "specific" language impairment and children learning a second language. Brain Lang. 2009;109(2-3):101-11.
6. Rice ML, Wexler K, Cleave PL. Specific language impairment as a period of extended optional infinitive. J Speech Hear Res. 1995;38(4):850-63.
7. Paradis J. Grammatical morphology in children learning English as a second language: implication and similarities with specific language impairment. Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch. 2005;36(3):172-87.
8. Maleki shahmahmood T, Soleimani Z, Faghihzade S. The study of language performances of Persian children with special language impairment. Audiol. 2011;20(2):11-21. Persian.
9. Hansson K, Nettelbaladt U. Assessment of specific language impairment in Swedish. Logoped Phoniatr Vocol. 2002;27(4):146-54.
10. Dromi E, Leonard LB, Adam G, Zadunaisky-Ehrlich S. Verb agreement morphology in Hebrew-speaking children with specific language impairment. J Speech Lang Hear Res. 1999;42(6):1414-31.
11. Polite EJ, Leonard LB. Finite verb morphology and phonological length in the speech of children with specific language impairment. Clin Linguist Phon. 2006;20(10):751-60.
12. Hakansson G, Hansson K. Comprehension and production of relative clauses: a comparison between Swedish impaired and unimpaired children. J Child Lang. 2000;27(2):313-33.
| Issue | Vol 23 No 1 (2014) | |
| Section | Research Article(s) | |
| Keywords | ||
| Specific language impairment bilingualism verb morphology | ||
| Rights and permissions | |
|
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |
