Abstract
The clinical significance of sentence repetition tasks (SRTs) for assessing children's language ability is well-recognized. SRT has been identified as a good clinical marker for children with (specific) language impairment as it shows high diagnostic accuracy levels. Furthermore, qualitative analysis of repetition samples can provide information to be used for intervention protocols. Despite the fact that SRT is a familiar task in assessment batteries across several languages, it has not yet been measured and validated in bilectal settings, such as Cypriot Greek, where the need for an accurate screening tool is urgent. The aims of the current study are three-fold. First, the performance of a group of (Cypriot) Greek-speaking children identified with SLI is evaluated using a SRT that elicits complex morphosyntactic structures. Second, the accuracy level of the SRT for the identification of SLI is explored. Third, a broad error analysis is carried out to examine and compare the morphosyntactic abilities of the participating children. A total of 38 children aged 5–9 years participated in this study: a clinical group of children with SLI (n = 16) and a chronological age-matched control group (n = 22). The ability of the children to repeat complex morphosyntactic structures was assessed using a SRT consisting of 24 sentences. The results showed that the SRT yielded significant differences in terms of poorer performance of children with SLI compared to typically developing peers. The diagnostic accuracy of the task was validated, since regression analysis showed that the task is sensitive and specific enough to identify children with SLI. Finally, qualitative differences between children with SLI and those with TLD regarding morphosyntactic abilities were detected. This study showed that a SRT that elicits morphosyntactically complex structures could be a potential clinical indicator for SLI in Cypriot Greek. The task has the potential to be used as a referral criterion in order to identify children whose language needs to be evaluated further. Implications for speech–language therapists and policy-makers are discussed.
Highlights
Identifying and diagnosing children with specific language impairment (SLI) is characterized internationally by both clinicians and researchers as an exceptional challenge
We acknowledge that there is no consensus regarding the criteria for classification and the related terminology (Bishop et al, 2016), but an in-depth discussion on this matter is beyond the scope of this paper; we will subsequently employ the term SLI, noting that the “S” part may be debatable
This study addresses the question whether a sentence repetition tasks (SRTs) that elicits complex syntactic structures can serve as an accurate screening task for the identification of children who need further language assessment
Summary
Identifying and diagnosing children with specific language impairment (SLI) is characterized internationally by both clinicians and researchers as an exceptional challenge. The study aims to examine whether sentence repetition can yield differences between groups of language-impaired vs non-impaired participants in terms of morphosyntactic errors. The term SLI is applied to children that exhibit a significant deficit in language ability and yet, display normal hearing, have non-verbal intelligence in the broad range of normal with no obvious signs of neurological damage or social-emotional deprivation (Leonard, 1998; Bishop, 2014). There is increasing evidence to suggest that children with SLI can present with different patterns of impairment based on which modules of the language system are impaired or spared, the absence of homogeneity in the disorder (e.g., Leonard, 1998; van der Lely, 2003; Friedmann and Novogrodsky, 2008)
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