Deficits In Specific Language Impairment Research Articles

Neural patterns elicited by lexical processing in adolescents with specific language impairment: support for the procedural deficit hypothesis?

BackgroundDeficits in procedural memory have been proposed to account for the language deficits in specific language impairment (SLI). A key aspect of the procedural deficit hypothesis (PDH) account of SLI is that declarative memory is intact and functions as a compensatory mechanism in the acquisition of language in individuals with SLI. The current study examined the neural correlates of lexical-phonological and lexical-semantic processing with respect to these predictions in a group of adolescents with SLI with procedural memory impairment and a group of chronologically age-matched (CA) normal controls.MethodsParticipants completed tasks designed to measure procedural and declarative memory and two ERP tasks designed to assess lexical-semantic and lexical-phonological processing in the auditory modality. Procedural memory was assessed using a statistical learning task. Lexical-semantic processing was assessed using a sentence judgment task modulating semantic congruency and lexical-phonological processing was assessed using a word/nonword decision task modulating word frequency. Behavioral performance on the tasks, mean amplitude of the cortical response, and animated topographs were examined.ResultsPerformance on the statistical word-learning task was at chance for the adolescents with SLI, whereas declarative memory was no different from the CA controls. Behavioral accuracy on the lexical-semantic task was the same for the adolescents with SLI and CA controls but accuracy on the lexical-phonological task was significantly poorer for the adolescents with SLI as compared to the CA controls. An N400 component was elicited in response to semantic congruency on the lexical-semantic task for both groups but differences were noted in both the location and time course of the cortical response for the SLI and CA groups. An N400 component was elicited by word frequency on the lexical-phonological task for the CA controls not for the adolescents with SLI. In contrast, post hoc analysis revealed a cortical response based on imageability for the adolescents with SLI, but not CA controls. Statistical word learning was significantly correlated with speed of processing on the lexical decision task for the CA controls but not for the adolescents with SLI. In contrast, statistical word learning ability was not correlated with the modulation of the N400 on either task for either group.ConclusionThe behavioral data suggests intact semantic conceptual knowledge, but impaired lexical phonological processing for the adolescents with SLI, consistent with the PDH. The pattern of cortical activation in response to semantic congruency and word frequency suggests, however, that the processing of lexical-semantic and lexical-phonological information by adolescents with a history of SLI may be supported by both overlapping and nonoverlapping neural generators to those of CA controls, and a greater reliance on declarative memory strategies. Taken together, the findings from this study suggest that the underlying representations of words in the lexicons of adolescents with a history of SLI may differ qualitatively from those of their typical peers, but these differences may only be evident when behavioral data and neural cortical patterns of activation are examined together.

Μελέτη της παραγωγής κλιτικών αντωνυμιών σε μονόγλωσσα και δίγλωσσα παιδιά με Ειδική Γλωσσική Διαταραχή

In this study, we tested the predictions of two opposing perspectives on the nature of the deficit in Specific Language Impairment (SLI): the language delay approach, and the view that the language development of SLI children is qualitatively different from typically developing children populations. Data consisted of the elicited production of pronominal object clitics from monolingual and bilingual SLI children with various language pairs (Greek always being the children’s second language); younger, typically developing, bilingual language peers, and monolingual Greek-speaking comparison groups. We analyzed the children’s accurate responses and error-types in clitic production. Both SLI groups had more difficulty with clitics in comparison to typically-developing, chronological age-matched peers, while SLI children performed similarly with their younger, unaffected monolingual and bilingual peers. We argue that these findings provide support to the language delay approach and present challenges to the role of bilingualism in SLI.

Language deficits and motor asymmetry in children with SLI

The present study aims at investigating whether a link between language deficits and upper and lower limb motor asymmetry can be established. We assessed language skills, handedness, and footedness in a group of 13 children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and two control groups matched on language age (LA) and chronological age(CA) respectively. Specifically, we tested the production of object wh questions, object relative clauses and sigmatic past tense production for novel non-rhyming verbs, and administered hand and foot preferencequestionnaires. While significant between group differences were found in the language tasks, as participants with SLI performed significantly below CA controls, the same level of performance was shown for hand and foot preference. Further analysis revealed no correlation between foot and hand preference for the SLI group in contrast to typically developing children. Additional regression analysis showed that the non-right foot preference could predict participation in the SLI group. These results may be indicative of poor hand-foot coordination in the SLI group and increased chance for SLI individuals to be grouped as non-right footed. We interpret these findings as showing immature motor development in SLI and pointing to a weak correlation between motor laterality and language deficits. We discuss the implications of our findings for the characterisation of the deficit in SLI.

Διερευνώντας τη σχέση μεταξύ της Ειδικής Γλωσσικής Διαταραχής και της Δυσλεξίας: θεωρητικές και κλινικές προεκτάσεις

In this study, we tested the predictions of two opposing perspectives on the nature of the deficit in Specific Language Impairment (SLI): the language delay approach, and the view that the language development of SLI children is qualitatively different from typically developing children populations. Data consisted of the elicited production of pronominal object clitics from monolingual and bilingual SLI children with various language pairs (Greek always being the children’s second language); younger, typically developing, bilingual language peers, and monolingual Greek-speaking comparison groups. We analyzed the children’s accurate responses and error-types in clitic production. Both SLI groups had more difficulty with clitics in comparison to typically-developing, chronological age-matched peers, while SLI children performed similarly with their younger, unaffected monolingual and bilingual peers. We argue that these findings provide support to the language delay approach and present challenges to the role of bilingualism in SLI.

Language deficits in specific language impairment, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and autism spectrum disorder: An analysis of polygenic risk.

Language is one of the cognitive domains often impaired across many neurodevelopmental disorders. While for some disorders the linguistic deficit is the primary impairment (e.g., specific language impairment, SLI), for others it may accompany broader behavioral problems (e.g., autism). The precise nature of this phenotypic overlap has been the subject of debate. Moreover, several studies have found genetic overlaps across neurodevelopmental disorders. This raises the question of whether these genetic overlaps may correlate with phenotypic overlaps and, if so, in what manner. Here, we apply a genome‐wide approach to the study of the linguistic deficit in SLI, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Using a discovery genome‐wide association study of SLI, we generate polygenic risk scores (PRS) in an independent sample which includes children with language impairment, SLI, ASD or ADHD and age‐matched controls and perform regression analyses across groups. The SLI‐trained PRS significantly predicted risk in the SLI case–control group (adjusted R 2 = 6.24%; P = 0.024) but not in the ASD or ADHD case‐control groups (adjusted R 2 = 0.0004%, 0.01%; P = 0.984, 0.889, respectively) nor for height, used as a negative control (R 2 = 0.2%; P = 0.452). Additionally, there was a significant difference in the normalized PRS between children with SLI and children with ASD (common language effect size = 0.66; P = 0.044). Our study suggests no additive common‐variant genetic overlap between SLI and ASD and ADHD. This is discussed in the context of phenotypic studies of SLI and related disorders. Autism Res 2020, 13: 369–381. © 2019 The Authors. Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Lay SummaryLanguage deficits are characteristic of specific language impairment (SLI), but may also be found in other neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Many studies examined the overlaps and differences across the language deficits in these disorders, but few studies have examined the genetic aspect thereof. In this study, we use a genome‐wide approach to evaluate whether common genetic variants increasing risk of SLI may also be associated with ASD and ADHD in the same manner. Our results suggest that this is not the case, and we discuss this finding in the context of theories concerning the etiologies of these disorders.

Characterizing the Motor Skills in Children with Specific Language Impairment

Background/Aims: Specific language impairment (SLI) is characterized by deficits in language ability. However, studies have also reported motor impairments in SLI. It has been proposed that the language and motor impairments in SLI share common origins. This exploratory study compared the gross, fine, oral, and speech motor skills of children with SLI and children with typical development (TD) to determine whether children with SLI would exhibit difficulties on particular motor tasks and to inform us about the underlying cognitive deficits in SLI. Methods: A total of 13 children with SLI (aged 8–12 years) and 14 age-matched children with TD were administered the Movement Assessment Battery for Children – Second Edition and the Verbal Motor Production Assessment for Children to examine gross and fine motor skills and oral and speech motor skills, respectively. Results: Children with SLI scored significantly lower on gross, fine, and speech motor tasks relative to children with TD. In particular, children with SLI found movements organized into sequences and movement modifications challenging. On oral motor tasks, however, children with SLI were comparable to children with TD. Conclusion: Impairment of the motor sequencing and adaptation processes may explain the performance of children with SLI on these tasks, which may be suggestive of a procedural memory deficit in SLI.

Morphophonology and compensation in Specific Language Impairment: Evidence from Standard Modern Greek and Cypriot Greek

ABSTRACT The current study investigates the role of the morphophonological realisation of grammatical features as a compensatory mechanism for morphosyntactic deficits in specific language impairment (SLI). The phenomenon examined is past tense formation in Standard Modern Greek (SMG) and Cypriot Greek (CG) as it manifests a distinction in morphophonological salience realisation in the two linguistic varieties via differential use of a stress shift and stressed syllabic augment [é] required for past tense rule formation. Participants were pre-schoolers with typical language development (TD) and children with SLI. Subjects produced real verb (RV) and pseudo-verb stimuli (PV) in sentence completion tasks. Results indicated that morphophonological properties of past tense formation affected SLI but not TD performance. We attribute the results to the difference in the status of the augment in each variety and the effects it has on its realisation at the phonetic interface. Furthermore, verb contractibility appeared to pose particular difficulties in the performance of all groups.

Nonword repetition depends on the frequency of sublexical representations at different grain sizes: Evidence from a multi-factorial analysis

The nonword repetition task (NWR) has been widely used in basic cognitive and clinical research, as well as in clinical assessment, and has been proposed as a clinical marker for Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Yet the mechanisms underlying performance on this task are not clear. This study offers insights into these mechanisms through a comprehensive examination of item-related variables identified in previous research as possibly contributing to NWR scores and through testing the predictive power of each in relation to the others. A unique feature of the study is that all factors are considered simultaneously. Fifty-seven typically developing children were tested with a NWR task containing 150 nonwords differing in length, phonotactic probability, lexical neighbourhood and phonological complexity. The results indicate that phonological processing of novel words draws on sublexical representations at all grain sizes and that these representations are phonological, unstructured and insensitive to morphemehood. We propose a novel index – mean ngram frequency of all phonemes – that best captures the extent to which a nonword draws on sublexical representations. The study demonstrates the primacy of sublexical representations in NWR performance with implications for the nature of the deficit in SLI.

The mass-count distinction in Dutch-speaking children with specific language impairment

This study reports experimental data on the acquisition of the mass-count distinction by Dutch-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI). While verbal morphosyntax is known to be impaired in SLI, nominal morphosyntax has received less attention. The mass-count distinction provides an interesting test ground: count can have a plural morpheme: bal-en (‘balls’), but mass cannot: *deeg-en (‘doughs’). Flexible nouns can easily occur in either mass or count syntax (pizza/pizza-s). Finally, object-mass nouns (e.g. furniture) are syntactically mass, but quantify over individuals, and are hypothesized to have a lexical [+individual] feature (Bale & Barner 2004). Typically developing (TD) Dutch-acquiring children become sensitive to the mass-count distinction around age 6 (van Witteloostuijn 2013).Hypothesizing that the primary impairment of SLI is in morphosyntax, and not in lexical-semantics, we predict that Dutch-speaking children with SLI older than 6 have most problems with the interpretation of flexible nouns (relying solely on morphosyntax), some problems interpreting classical count and mass nouns (supported by convention/world knowledge), and least problems interpreting object–mass nouns (relying solely on their lexical [+individual] feature). Quantity judgments based on count and mass nouns were collected from 28 Dutch children with SLI aged between 6 and 14 years old and 28 individually age-matched TD children. Confirming our predictions, the children with SLI scored significantly lower than their TD controls on flexible nouns, and, albeit to a lesser extent, on classical nouns. This underscores the (nominal) morphological deficit in SLI. In contrast, no difference between groups was found on object-mass nouns.

Procedural Motor Learning in Children With Specific Language Impairment.

Specific language impairment (SLI) is a developmental disorder that affects language and motor development in the absence of a clear cause. An explanation for these impairments is offered by the procedural deficit hypothesis (PDH), which argues that motor difficulties in SLI are due to deficits in procedural memory. The aim of this study was to test the PDH by examining the procedural motor learning abilities of children with and without SLI. Thirteen children with SLI and 14 age-matched typically developing children completed the following procedural measures: (a) a knot-tying task as a measure of motor sequencing and (2) a mirror-drawing task as a measure of visual-motor adaptation. Although children with SLI produced significantly more errors on certain knot-tying tasks, they performed comparably on others. Also, children with SLI performed comparably with typically developing children on the mirror-drawing task. The PDH requires reframing. The sequence learning deficits in SLI are modest and specific to more difficult tasks. Visual-motor adaptation, on the other hand, appears to be unaffected in SLI.

Lipreading Ability and Its Cognitive Correlates in Typically Developing Children and Children With Specific Language Impairment

Lipreading and its cognitive correlates were studied in school-age children with typical language development and delayed language development due to specific language impairment (SLI). Forty-two children with typical language development and 20 children with SLI were tested by using a word-level lipreading test and an extensive battery of standardized cognitive and linguistic tests. Children with SLI were poorer lipreaders than their typically developing peers. Good phonological skills were associated with skilled lipreading in both typically developing children and in children with SLI. Lipreading was also found to correlate with several cognitive skills, for example, short-term memory capacity and verbal motor skills. Speech processing deficits in SLI extend also to the perception of visual speech. Lipreading performance was associated with phonological skills. Poor lipreading in children with SLI may be, thus, related to problems in phonological processing.

Grammatical morphology is not a sensitive marker of language impairment in Icelandic in children aged 4–14 years

PurposeGrammatical morphology continues to be widely regarded as an area of extraordinary difficulty in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). A main argument for this view is the purported high diagnostic accuracy of morphological errors for the identification of SLI. However, findings are inconsistent across age groups and across languages. Studies show morphological difficulty to be far less pronounced in more highly inflected languages and the diagnostic accuracy of morphology in such languages is largely unknown. This study examines the morphological use of Icelandic children with and without SLI in a cross-sectional sample of children ranging from preschool age to adolescence and assesses the usefulness of morphology as a clinical marker to identify SLI. MethodsParticipants were 57 monolingual Icelandic-speaking children age 4–14 years; 31 with SLI and 26 with typical language development (TD). Spontaneous language samples were coded for correct and incorrect use of grammatical morphology. The diversity of use of grammatical morphemes was documented for each group at different age and MLU levels. Individual accuracy scores were plotted against age as well as MLU and diagnostic accuracy was calculated. ResultsMLU and morphological accuracy increased with age for both children with SLI and TD, with the two groups gradually approaching each other. Morphological diversity and sequence of acquisition was similar across TD and SLI groups compared based on age or MLU. Morphological accuracy was overall high, but was somewhat lower in the SLI group, in particular at ages below 12 years and MLU levels below 6.0. However, overlap between the groups was important in all age groups, involving a greater tendency for errors in both groups at young ages and scores close to or at ceiling at older ages. Sensitivity rates as well as likelihood ratios for each morpheme were all below the range considered acceptable for clinical application, whereas better specificity rates in some age groups for some morphemes indicated that very low scores are indicative of SLI whereas high scores are uninformative. Age effects were evident in that the morphemes varied in the age at which they separate the groups most accurately. ConclusionsThe findings of this study show that Icelandic children with SLI are somewhat more prone to making morphological errors than their TD counterparts. However, great overlap exists between the groups. The findings call into question the view that grammatical morphology is a central area of deficit in SLI.

Phonological processing in children with specific language impairment with and without reading difficulties.

Specific language impairment (SLI) is heterogeneous and identifying subgroups within it may help explain the aetiology of the condition. Phonological processing abilities distinguish between children with SLI who do and do not have reading decoding impairments (RDIs). To probe different levels of phonological processing in children with SLI with and without RDI to investigate the cognitive basis of these differences. A total of 64 children aged 5-17 years were classified using the results of standardized language and single-word reading tests into those with no SLI and no RDI (No SLI/No RDI) (N = 18), no SLI but with RDI (No SLI/RDI) (N = 4, not included in analyses because of the small number), SLI/No RDI (N = 20), and SLI/RDI (N = 22). The groups were compared on a range of tasks engaging different levels of phonological processing (input and output processing and phonological awareness). The SLI/RDI group was distinguished from the SLI/No RDI and No SLI/No RDI groups by more errors in the longer items in non-word repetition and by poorer phonological awareness. Non-word discrimination scores indicated a gradient of performance across groups that was not associated with a qualitatively different pattern of performance. This is the first study contrasting input and output processes associated with phonological processing. The results suggest that deficits in SLI plus RDI may be associated with impairment in actively maintaining phonological representations for phonological processing, which is not present in those without RDI and which leads to reading decoding difficulties.

Declarative capacity does not trade-off with procedural capacity in children with specific language impairment

Background and aimsThe procedural deficit hypothesis attributes the language phenotype in children with specific language impairment to an impaired procedural and relatively intact declarative memory system. The declarative compensatory hypothesis is an extension of the procedural deficit hypothesis which claims that the declarative system in specific language impairment compensates for the procedural deficit. The present study’s aim was to examine the claims of the procedural deficit hypothesis and declarative compensatory hypothesis by examining these memory systems and relation between them in specific language impairment.MethodsParticipants were children aged 8–13 years, 30 with specific language impairment and 30 typically developing controls, who spoke Kannada (an agglutinating language of the Dravidian family). Procedural learning was assessed using a serial reaction time task. Declarative memory was assessed using two non-verbal tasks that differed at the level of encoding and retrieval: a recognition memory task after incidental encoding using real and novel object images and a recall task after intentional encoding using visual paired associates. Retrieval was examined after short (10 min) and long (60 min) delays after encoding on both declarative tasks.ResultsFindings confirmed that children with specific language impairment (SLI) have impaired procedural memory on a non-verbal serial reaction time task. On recognition memory task after incidental encoding though children with specific language impairment encoded less well, they recognized items as well as typically developing controls. Both the groups retrieved more at short compared to long intervals and retrieved real (verbalizable) objects better than novel objects. On visual paired associates (recall task with intentional encoding) children with specific language impairment retrieved less than typically developing children (even after controlling for non-verbal ability and age). Furthermore, across retrieval types of declarative tasks, although children with specific language impairment did less well than typically developing, their pattern of performance was comparable to typically developing children. Finally, the correlation between memory systems did not support a trade-off between memory systems in children with SLI as predicted by the compensatory wing of procedural deficit hypothesis.ConclusionsThe findings supported the major claim of the procedural deficit hypothesis – a procedural learning deficit in specific language impairment and an intact declarative system, however, only if measured on task that was designed to be undemanding. Furthermore, there was no evidence for a trade-off between these systems.Implications and future directionsSome interventions with specific language impairment use explicit teaching of grammar, an approach that uses the declarative rather than the procedural system. Our findings cast doubt on whether this is likely to be the most effective strategy.

What can errors tell us about specific language impairment deficits? Semantic and morphological cuing in a sentence completion task

The lexical retrieval ability of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children with typical language development was compared. Fifty Hebrew-speaking children participated: 15 school-age with SLI, 20 typically developing, matched on age to the SLI group and 15 younger, typically developing matched on naming performance to the SLI group. Participants were tested in a sentence completion task with semantic cuing and with morphological cuing. SLI children performed poorer than the chronological-age group and similarly to the naming-matched group. Error patterns showed a qualitative difference between the SLI and naming-matched groups. The results suggest that lexical retrieval of children with SLI is delayed and qualitatively different from that of typically developing children.

Executive Function in SLI: Recent Advances and Future Directions.

This paper provides a review of recent research on executive function abilities in children with specific language impairment (SLI). Across several studies, children with SLI are reported to perform worse than typically developing peers on measures of sustained attention, working memory, inhibition, and attention shifting. However, few studies have considered multiple executive function components simultaneously and even fewer have examined the underlying relationship between executive function deficits and impaired language acquisition. We argue that in order to fully understand the nature of executive function deficits in SLI, the field must move past simply identifying weaknesses to instead test models of executive function development and explore the nature of the relationship between executive function and language. Future research directions are recommended in order to achieve these goals.

At the intersection of cognition and grammar: deficits comprehending counterfactuals in Turkish children with specific language impairment.

This study investigated the comprehension of counterfactual conditionals in monolingual Turkish children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing (TD) children. Comprehending counterfactuals requires a well-developed cognitive system (Beck, Riggs, & Gorniak, 2009). Children with SLI have impaired cognitive functioning (Im-Bolter, Johnston, & Pascual-Leone, 2006), which affects their ability to comprehend counterfactuals. The sample consisted of 13 children (9 boys, 4 girls) with SLI who were matched in age and nonverbal intelligence with 13 TD children (8 boys, 5 girls; mean age 6;9 [years; months] for both groups). Each group completed a sentence comprehension and repetition task with 3 sentence conditions: nonconditional, factual, and counterfactual. Nonconditionals did not have if-embedding, whereas factual and counterfactual conditionals were morphosyntactically equivalent if-clauses, but only the latter was cognitively complex. Conditionals were more difficult to comprehend than nonconditionals for both groups. Counterfactuals were more difficult to comprehend than the morphosyntactically equivalent factual counterparts for the SLI group. There was no discrepancy between the groups for repetition of counterfactuals and factuals. Children with SLI have difficulty processing counterfactuals due to morphosyntactic complexity (if-embedding) and the cognitive processes involved in comprehending counterfactuals. This indicates that cognitive complexity adds to sentence comprehension deficits in SLI.

Domain-general sequence learning deficit in specific language impairment.

Grammar-specific accounts of specific language impairment (SLI) have been challenged by recent claims that language problems are a consequence of impairments in domain-general mechanisms of learning that also play a key role in the process of language acquisition. Our studies were designed to test the generality and nature of this learning deficit by focusing on both sequential and nonsequential, and on verbal and nonverbal, domains. Twenty-nine children with SLI were compared with age-matched typically developing (TD) control children using (a) a serial reaction time task (SRT), testing the learning of motor sequences; (b) an artificial grammar learning (AGL) task, testing the extraction of regularities from auditory sequences; and (c) a weather prediction task (WP), testing probabilistic category learning in a nonsequential task. For the 2 sequence learning tasks, a significantly smaller proportion of children showed evidence of learning in the SLI than in the TD group (χ2 tests, p < .001 for the SRT task, p < .05 for the AGL task), whereas the proportion of learners on the WP task was the same in the 2 groups. The level of learning for SLI learners was comparable with that of TD children on all tasks (with great individual variation). Taken together, these findings suggest that domain-general processes of implicit sequence learning tend to be impaired in SLI. Further research is needed to clarify the relationship of deficits in implicit learning and language.

Lexical activation during sentence comprehension in adolescents with history of Specific Language Impairment

One remarkable characteristic of speech comprehension in typically developing (TD) children and adults is the speed with which the listener can integrate information across multiple lexical items to anticipate upcoming referents. Although children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) show lexical deficits (Sheng & McGregor, 2010) and slower speed of processing (Leonard et al., 2007), relatively little is known about how these deficits manifest in real-time sentence comprehension. In this study, we examine lexical activation in the comprehension of simple transitive sentences in adolescents with a history of SLI and age-matched, TD peers. Participants listened to sentences that consisted of the form, Article-Agent-Action-Article-Theme, (e.g., The pirate chases the ship) while viewing pictures of four objects that varied in their relationship to the Agent and Action of the sentence (e.g., Target, Agent-Related, Action-Related, and Unrelated). Adolescents with SLI were as fast as their TD peers to fixate on the sentence's final item (the Target) but differed in their post-action onset visual fixations to the Action-Related item. Additional exploratory analyses of the spatial distribution of their visual fixations revealed that the SLI group had a qualitatively different pattern of fixations to object images than did the control group. The findings indicate that adolescents with SLI integrate lexical information across words to anticipate likely or expected meanings with the same relative fluency and speed as do their TD peers. However, the failure of the SLI group to show increased fixations to Action-Related items after the onset of the action suggests lexical integration deficits that result in failure to consider alternate sentence interpretations.Learning outcomes: As a result of this paper, the reader will be able to describe several benefits of using eye-tracking methods to study populations with language disorders. They should also recognize several potential explanations for lexical deficits in SLI, including possible reduced speed of processing, and degraded lexical representations. Finally, they should recall the main outcomes of this study, including that adolescents with SLI show different timing and location of eye-fixations while interpreting sentences than their age-matched peers.

Using Ratings to Gain Insight Into Conceptual Development

The authors explored a novel technique with potential for assessing conceptual development. Participants rated how "normal" to "really weird" an image was in order to determine whether (a) participants would rate images by amount of variation (slight/significant) from the standard image, (b) participants would treat variation related to different concepts equally, or (c) there would be developmental differences in these ratings. Then, authors asked whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) would demonstrate weaker conceptual skills based on their ratings. Adults and school-age children (with and without SLI) used a 9-point equal-appearing interval scale to rate photographic images of animals. These included standard images and images that altered the animals' shape, pattern, color, and facial morphometry. Significant differences in ratings were obtained for adults compared with typically developing children and children with SLI compared with their age-matched peers. This is in line with the expectation that adults have stronger representations than children, as do typical children compared with those with SLI. Participants differentially rated images that varied from the standard image (slight/significant) for all parameters except shape. Probing conceptual representations without the need for verbal response has the potential for exploring conceptual deficits in SLI.