Sentence production in students with dyslexia

Abstract

While spoken language deficits have been identified in children with developmental dyslexia, microanalysis of sentence production proficiency in these children is a largely unexplored area. The current study examines proficiency of syntactic production in children and young adults with dyslexia and typically developing age-matched controls on a constrained sentence production task targeting two advanced argument structures, theme-experiencer verbs and irregular past participles. Participants aged between 8 and 22 years produced sentences that included three stimulus words, a proper name, an inanimate noun and a verb from one of three categories: control verbs (agent-patient verbs with regular morphology); theme-experiencer verbs, which require an inanimate subject in active sentences (e.g. The book bored Sarah); and irregular past participles, which require awareness of the syntactic requirements associated with the -en past participle ending, i.e. that this verb form cannot be used as a simple past tense (e.g. *Mary ___ hidden the candy). Students with dyslexia produced more dysfluent, ungrammatical and incomplete responses than normal readers; however, the developmental trajectories of the verb types varied between groups. Normal readers performed similarly with both experimental verb types, but those with dyslexia were particularly impaired using irregular past participles in sentences. The findings support a model of lexical representation in which development of grammar hinges on the acquisition of lexical knowledge. Furthermore, the data suggest that individuals with dyslexia may have difficulties with sentence formulation that persist into adulthood.