Phonology and syntax in specific language impairment: Evidence from a connectionist model

Abstract

Difficulties in resolving pronominal anaphora have been taken as evidence that Specific Language Impairment (SLI) involves a grammar-specific impairment. The present study explores an alternative view, that grammatical deficits in SLI are sequelae of impaired speech perception. This perceptual deficit specifically affects the use of phonological information in working memory, which in turn leads to poorer than expected syntactic comprehension. This hypothesis was explored using a connectionist model of sentence processing that learned to map sequences of words to their meanings. Anaphoric resolution was represented in this model by recognizing the semantics of the correct antecedent when a bound pronoun was input. When the model was trained on distorted phonological inputs—simulating a perceptual deficit—it exhibited marked difficulty resolving bound anaphors. However, many other aspects of sentence comprehension were intact; most importantly, the model could still resolve pronouns using gender information. In addition, the model’s deficit was graded rather than categorical, as it was able to resolve pronouns in some sentences, but not in others. These results are consistent with behavioral data concerning syntactic deficits in SLI. The model provides a causal demonstration of how a perceptual deficit could give rise to grammatical deficits in SLI.