Studying some elicited verbal prosodic patterns in Egyptian specific language impaired children

Abstract

BackgroundProsody is the aspect of language that conveys emotion by changes in tone, rhythm, and emphasis during speech and the term specific language impairment (SLI) refers to children whose language development is substantially below their chronological age, despite a normal nonverbal intelligence and no obvious neurological or physiological impairments, or emotional and/or social difficulties that could impact language use. PurposeTo assess prosodic skills in Arabic speaking children with specific language impairment, in order to answer the question “Are SLI children dysprosodic?” And to be put in consideration while choosing and applying the training procedure hence, qualifies the rehabilitation program. MethodsThirty Egyptian normal children and 30 Egyptian children with specific language impairment (SLI) aged between 4 and 6 years were included in this study and were subjected to psychometric evaluation, audio logical assessment, Arabic language test, articulation test, and assessment protocol of prosody. ResultsEgyptian specific language impaired children have lower prosodic skills scores than control group with positive significant correlation between total language ages of specific language impaired children and total prosodic scores. ConclusionEgyptian specific language impaired children have dysprosodic skills and the intervention program must include prosodic rehabilitation program in order to achieve higher improvement level.