Impaired Recognition of Metrical and Syntactic Boundaries in Children with Developmental Language Disorders.

Susan Richards,Usha Goswami

doi:10.3390/brainsci9020033

Abstract

In oral language, syntactic structure is cued in part by phrasal metrical hierarchies of acoustic stress patterns. For example, many children’s texts use prosodic phrasing comprising tightly integrated hierarchies of metre and syntax to highlight the phonological and syntactic structure of language. Children with developmental language disorders (DLDs) are relatively insensitive to acoustic stress. Here, we disrupted the coincidence of metrical and syntactic boundaries as cued by stress patterns in children’s texts so that metrical and/or syntactic phrasing conflicted. We tested three groups of children: children with DLD, age-matched typically developing controls (AMC) and younger language-matched controls (YLC). Children with DLDs and younger, language-matched controls were poor at spotting both metrical and syntactic disruptions. The data are interpreted within a prosodic phrasing hypothesis of DLD based on impaired acoustic processing of speech rhythm.

Highlights

Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have persistent difficulties with learning language that are not associated with a known condition, such as sensori-neural hearing loss or AutismSpectrum Disorder [1]
Children were divided into three groups: 13 had developmental language disorder (DLD group) Mean (M) age 102 months, range 77–140; 24 were age-matched typically developing controls (AMC group) M 107 months, range 77–132; and 22 were younger, language-matched controls (YLC group) M 66 months, range 57–74
If children are able to detect metrical patterns but are unable to relate these to the overall prosodic-syntactic structure, phrases in the condition in which there is an acoustic metrical rhythmic structure that does not coincide with the syntax should prove more difficult to reject than phrases in the condition in which there is no consistent metrical acoustic pattern

Summary

Introduction

Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have persistent difficulties with learning language that are not associated with a known condition, such as sensori-neural hearing loss or AutismSpectrum Disorder [1]. Children with DLD typically have difficulty with the accurate processing and production of grammatical structures in speech [5,6,7]. Regarding the rhythm of spoken English, syllable prominence can be thought of in terms of strong or stressed syllables (the more prominent) and weak or unstressed syllables (the less prominent). In the word baNAna, the second syllable ‘NA’ is more prominent than the first syllable ‘ba’ and third syllable‘na’. This word has a weak-strong-weak rhythmic structure, with the second syllable ‘NA’ carrying the primary stress. The patterning of strong and weak syllables across words, phrases and sentences contributes to the perception of language

Methods

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Discussion

Conclusion