CAREER: The Relationship among Phonology, Syntax & the Lexicon in Specific Language Impairment

9875168

Stromswold

Some apparently normal children inexplicably have difficulty acquiring

language. Specific language impairment (SLI) is the term for severe

developmental delays in the production and/or comprehension of

language that do not seem to be due to hearing loss, mental

retardation, motor deficits, neurological or psychiatric disorders, or

lack of exposure to language. In this project, three types of studies

will be conducted on normally-developing and SLI children: 1) analyses

of longitudinal spontaneous speech samples; 2) analyses of

cross-sectional elicited speech samples; and 3) analyses of imitated

sentences that systematically vary in phonological, syntactic and

lexical complexity. Through careful analyses of these data, we will

address the following questions:

* What is the nature of the linguistic deficit(s) in SLI?

* To what extent are some components of language (e.g., syntax, phonology,

lexicon) spared relative to others in SLI?

* To what extent do performance factors play a role in SLI children's

deficits? To what extent does SLI and normal children's performance

on language tasks degrade as performance load increases?

* Do SLI and normal children have a single (limited) pool of performance

resources for all language tasks, or does each subcomponent of

language have its own dedicated resources? Does increased performance

load in one area of language lead to decreased performance in just

that area or in other areas of language as well?