Monitoring of Inadequate Instructions by Language-Impaired Children and Normal Controls

Abstract

Metacommunicative skills serve an important role in the regulation of conversations. Previous studies have reported deficiencies in metalinguistic and metacommunicative abilities among language-impaired children. Given this background, we hypothesized a deficiency in the ability of language-impaired children for accomplishing the present task. Subjects included 15 school-age children with language impairments and two normal control groups: age-mates and younger language-mates. Subjects attempted to construct block buildings following adequate and inadequate instructions. Two behaviours were observed: judgments of adequacy or inadequacy and delays in building following the instructions. The results support a notion of emerging comprehension monitoring skills for some language-impaired children. Language-impaired children demonstrated skills in advance of language-mates and less advanced than normal age-mates. Intervention considerations are discussed.