Sentence Imitation Research Articles

China English Accent or Errors?

This paper reports a pilot study upon segmental and super-segmental deviations of 40 Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ sentence imitation task. The researchers annotated all substitute phonemes and tones for each observed phoneme and tone in the imitation task to describe some phonetic features of the norm of China English Accent (CEA), and probe for the dividing line between CEA and errors. Some carriers of CEA have been observed on the base of the data analysis to describe parts of the norm of CEA upon which a tentative dividing line was drawn between CEA and errors. Some pedagogical reflections were made to cast upon English teaching. Teacher’s stance towards CEA was discussed.

Pattern-Based Target Selection for Treatment of Irregular Past Tense: A Single-Case Experimental Design for Children With Developmental Language Disorder.

Many children with developmental language disorder (DLD) demonstrate difficulty inflecting irregular past tense verbs. We evaluated using phonological-based patterns (i.e., schemas) to select targets for treatment of irregular verb inflection for children with DLD. We hypothesized this approach would result in acquisition of treated verbs, generalization to untreated verbs within the same phonological schema, and increased use of correct irregular verbs in naturalistic contexts. Treatment was provided to three 7-year-old participants with DLD in the context of multiple baseline designs across behaviors and participants. Phonological schemas included vowel change, final alveolar, and dual change irregular verbs. Treatment was provided using established therapeutic approaches, including narrative generation, sentence imitation, and naturalistic play activities. Acquisition of treated and untreated targets was assessed at the beginning of sessions, and use of verbs in naturalistic contexts was observed throughout treatment sessions. Positive acquisition effects were noted for two of three participants. Generalization to untreated items occurred within and across treatment sets for two participants, whereas increases in accurate irregular verb production in naturalistic contexts were not observed. Outcomes demonstrated support for a pattern-based approach to target selection for treatment of irregular past tense verbs. One participant, who demonstrated general difficulty with the probe and treatment tasks, showed no treatment effect, suggesting that the treatment may be effective for some children with DLD. Further research is warranted to determine what factors might have influenced these variable outcomes across participants. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23671500.

Five Additional Evidence-Based Principles to Facilitate Grammar Development for Children With Developmental Language Disorder.

Because the development of grammatical forms is difficult for many children with developmental language disorder (DLD), language interventions often focus on supporting children's use of grammatical language. This article proposes five additional principles to those suggested by Fey et al. (2003) to facilitate the development of grammatical forms by children with DLD. Three of the five additional principles address the selection and presentation of linguistic contexts to be used with target grammatical forms (Principles 11-13); two principles encourage the incorporation of additional intervention components: auditory bombardment and explicit instruction (Principles 14 and 15, respectively). We present empirical evidence and, when available, describe the theoretical motivations to support each of the five additional principles. We then describe how we have integrated the five principles into 20- to 30-min intervention sessions that target regular past tense -ed, third-person singular -s, present progressive is/are verb+ing, or do/does questions for 4- to 8-year-olds with DLD. Each session includes four activities: sentence imitation, story retell, structured play, and auditory bombardment. We provide details of each activity, relevant materials, and illustrative examples that highlight the incorporation of each of the principles. When targeting the development of grammatical forms in intervention, current evidence supports the use of a high degree of linguistic variability (Principle 11), the presentation of target forms in contexts that vary in difficulty (Principle 12), the presentation of target forms in sentences that vary in syntactic structure (Principle 13), the use of auditory bombardment (Principle 14), and the incorporation of explicit instruction (Principle 15). Clinicians can use these principles when targeting a range of grammatical forms in relatively short intervention sessions comprising a variety of activities. This article encourages the employment of five additional principles into grammatical language intervention. Descriptions, materials, and examples demonstrate how the principles can all be addressed within a single intervention session.

Complex Syntax Methods of Assessment: Relative Clauses

Relative clauses are a type of complex syntax in which a clause modifies a noun (e.g., “the dog that runs in the house”). Some children struggle to produce relative clauses and their difficulties may impact their academic performance. Assessments that measure children’s relative clause skill are thus needed to assess and monitor progress of intervention in children’s relative clause skill to increase these children’s communication and in turn, academic performance. The aim of this study was to compare commonly used assessments in the research literature, two sentence imitation tasks (a straight imitation task and a delayed imitation task) and one elicitation task (a toy elicitation task), to identify the most efficient measure that captures child skill. An age effect was found for the straight imitation task which suggests that this task can capture growth over time. There were no statistically significant differences between the straight imitation and toy elicitation tasks. This lack of statistical significance indicates that the straight imitation task, which appeared to yield similar results to the elicitation task and is more efficient to administer, may provide an equally valid measure of relative clause production skills. The use of a straight imitation task is suggested to provide speech-language pathologists and researchers with a relative clause assessment tool that will aid in relative clause intervention that is efficient, captures growth, and truly captures relative clause skill.

Underpinnings of explicit phonetic imitation: perception, production, and variability

This work tests the relative role of perception- and production-based predictors, and the relationship between them, in imitation of artificial accents varying in voice onset time (VOT), using a paradigm designed to target distinct sub-processes of imitation. We examined how explicit imitation of sentences differing systematically in voice onset time (VOT) was influenced by the type of VOT manipulation (lengthened vs. shortened) and by the presence vs. absence of voice-related variability in exposure. In contrast to previous work, participants imitated shortened as well as lengthened VOT, albeit with both qualitative and quantitative differences across the two manipulation types. The presence of voice-related variability inhibited imitation, but this inhibition was mitigated by a preceding session with no voice-related variability (i.e., sentences were acoustically identical except for VOT). We then tested the extent to which individual performance on the accent imitation task was related to performance on three other tasks: 1) discrimination of the target accents, 2) imitation of words in isolation drawn from a VOT continuum, and 3) discrimination of these same words. Performance on the accent discrimination task and the word-level imitation task, but not the word-level discrimination task, were independently predictive of accent imitation. Results are consistent with a conceptualization of explicit imitation as the sum of automatic phonetic convergence processes overlaid with distinct, controlled perceptual and articulatory factors that pattern differently across individuals. Phonetic imitation should not be considered as a monolithic skill, and models predicting variation in imitative ability must consider not only the potential sources of individual variability, but also at what level these sources of variability exert their influence. 

The effectiveness of embodied prosodic training in L2 accentedness and vowel accuracy

This study explores the effects of embodied prosodic training on the production of non-native French front rounded vowels (i.e. /y, ø, œ/) and the overall pronunciation proficiency. Fifty-seven Catalan learners of French practiced pronunciation in one of two conditions: one group observed hand gestures embodying prosodic features of the sentences they were listening to, while the other group did not see any such gestures. The learning outcome was assessed in a pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest through a dialogue-reading task and a sentence imitation task in terms of accentedness, comprehensibility and fluency scores, and through formant analysis of participant-produced target vowels. The results showed that compared to non-embodied training, embodied prosodic training yielded continuous improvement in accentedness in both tasks and improved the F2 values of French front rounded vowels (more fronted). As for comprehensibility and fluency scores, both groups showed similar levels of significant improvement. This study highlights the interaction between prosodic and segmental features of speech by showing that training with embodied prosodic features benefitted accentedness and the production accuracy of non-native vowels.

Voice Onset Time Imitation in Teens Versus Adults.

We compare teens' and adults' imitation of sentences with shortened and lengthened voice onset time (VOT), in order to test whether purported age-based advantages in phonetic acquisition may be due to differences in imitative ability. Teens (M age = 13, n = 39) and adults (n = 31) completed an explicit imitation and discrimination task on pairs of sentences characterized by canonical and manipulated (shortened or lengthened) VOT. We assessed extent of imitation using two acoustic metrics (ΔVOT and Proximity), accuracy on the discrimination task, and correlations between imitation and perception. Both age groups modified VOT when imitating stimuli with both lengthened and shortened VOT. Adults, however, showed significantly more lengthening than teens (i.e., higher ΔVOT), as well as VOT values that were slightly but significantly closer to the target stimulus values (i.e., lower proximity). Both age groups showed above-chance discrimination accuracy, and a significant relationship between individual perception and production performance was found for lengthened-VOT sentences. We found no evidence that teens have a greater imitative ability than adults; in fact, adults showed significantly more imitation based on both acoustic metrics. Both age groups showed robust imitation of VOT manipulations in both directions, in contrast to previous work showing lack of imitation for shortened VOT. Extent of imitation was predicted by individual perceptual performance, but only to a limited degree, underscoring the importance of other factors in explaining individual variation in imitative ability.

The Association of Sentence Imitation with Other Language Domains in Bilingual Children

AbstractThe association of sentence imitation with other language domains has been of interest to researchers and clinicians for decades. Sentence imitation taps both working memory and linguistic competence. Working memory refers to the ability to recall and manipulate linguistic information making sentence imitation a clinical marker for language ability. Meanwhile, research on the application of sentence imitation with bilingual language pairs is still emerging. This article reports a study on a large sample of Maltese children brought up in an early bilingual language acquisition context. It analyses correlations between a sentence imitation task, verbal comprehension, narrative (story retelling), phonological awareness, and two measures of a phonology test: percentage consonants correct and the inconsistency score. Data were collected from a total of 241 children, aged 24 to 72 months, who were selected randomly from the public birth register. The subtests administered were part of a test battery, namely, the Maltese–English Speech Assessment (MESA) and the Language Assessment for Maltese Children (LAMC). Correlations were calculated for the sentence imitation scores with specific language subtest scores; significant correlations were identified as well as with chronological age. Regression analysis indicated that the sentence imitation subtest of LAMC is a predictor for verbal comprehension and even stronger predictor for phonological awareness. It was concluded that performance on a sentence imitation task is a valid and reliable indication of Maltese bilingual children's language ability.

Computerized cognitive training for improving cochlear-implanted children's working memory and language skills.

Sensory deprivation, including hearing loss, can affect different aspects of a person's life. Studies on children with hearing impairment have shown that such patients, especially those with cochlear implants (CIs), suffer from cognitive impairments, such as working memory problems and poor language skills. The present study aimed to examine the efficacy of cognitive computer training in improving working memory and language skills in children with a CI. This research was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test design and a control group. Fifty-one children with a CI aged 6-12 years were recruited through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to the control and treatment groups. The Wechsler Working Memory Subtest and the Test of Language Development (TOLD) were used to evaluate children's working memory and language skills pre- and post-treatment. The treatment group attended twenty 50-60-minute cognitive computer training sessions three times a week. Sina-Working Memory Training was used to provide the treatment group with working memory training, whereas no intervention was provided to the control group. Univariate and multivariate analyses of covariance were used to analyze data. The results demonstrated the efficacy of cognitive computer training in improving the performance of cochlear-implanted children's working memory (auditory and visual-spatial) (P < 0.01). The results also pointed to improved performance in sentence imitation (P < 0.01), word discrimination (P < 0.01), and phonemic analysis subtests (P < 0.01). Overall, the findings indicated that cognitive computer training might improve working memory and language skills for children with CI. Therefore, the development and execution of such programs for children with CIs seem to improve their cognitive functions, such as working memory and language skills.

Recognising the SAE language learning needs of Indigenous primary school students who speak contact languages

Most Indigenous peoples live in urban and regional locations across Australia and no longer speak their traditional languages fluently. Instead contact languages, creoles and dialects, are widely spoken. In many educational settings, educators may know little about the first languages of the Indigenous children they teach, and not recognise these as different languages or dialects. Consequently, these students may not be treated as second language learners of Standard Australian English (SAE) and their language learning requirements are not considered. From a sociocultural perspective, language is crucial to students’ learning. In this paper, we quantitatively analyse the SAE learning needs of Indigenous primary school aged children in Far North Queensland using oral elicited imitation of simple sentences in SAE as a research method. Using one-way ANOVA, the results are compared with native monolingual SAE speakers showing significant differences between the two. This finding has important implications for classroom teaching practices and educational policies.

Language Decline Characterizes Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment Independent of Cognitive Decline.

Purpose This research investigated the nature of cognitive decline in prodromal Alzheimer's disease (AD), particularly in mild cognitive impairment, amnestic type (aMCI). We assessed language in aMCI as compared with healthy aging (HA) and healthy young (HY) with new psycholinguistic assessment of complex sentences, and we tested the degree to which deficits on this language measure relate to performance in other general cognitive domains such as memory. Method Sixty-one individuals with aMCI were compared with 24 HA and 10 HY adults on a psycholinguistic measure of complex sentence production (relative clauses). In addition, HA, HY, and a subset of the aMCI participants (n = 22) were also tested on a multidomain cognitive screen, the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination-Revised (ACE-R), and on a verbal working memory Brown-Peterson (BP) test. General and generalized linear mixed models were used to test psycholinguistic results and to test whether ACE-R and BP performance predicted performance on the psycholinguistic test similarly in the aMCI and HA groups. Results On the psycholinguistic measure, sentence imitation was significantly deficited in aMCI in comparison with that in HA and HY. Experimental factorial designs revealed that individuals with aMCI had particular difficulty repeating sentences that especially challenged syntax-semantics integration. As expected, the aMCI group also performed significantly below the HY and HA groups on the ACE-R. Neither the ACE-R Memory subtest nor the BP total scores predicted performance on the psycholinguistic task for either the aMCI or the HA group. However, the ACE-R total score significantly predicted psycholinguistic task performance, with increased ACE-R performance predicting increased psycholinguistic task performance only for the HA group, not for the aMCI group. Conclusions Results suggest a selective deterioration in language in aMCI, specifically a weakening of syntax-semantics integration in complex sentence processing, and a general independence of this language deficit and memory decline. Results cohere with previous assessments of the nature of difficulty in complex sentence formation in aMCI. We argue that clinical screening for prodromal AD can be strengthened by supplementary testing of language, as well as memory, and extended evaluation of strength of their relation.

Preschoolers’ imitation of sentential complement sentences: Does the nature of the matrix clause matter?

Preschoolers’ earliest productions of sentential complement sentences have matrix clauses that are limited in form. Diessel proposed that matrix clauses in these early productions are propositionally empty fixed phrases that lack semantic and syntactic integration with the clausal complement. By 4 years of age, however, preschoolers produce sentential complement sentences with matrix clauses that are more varied. Diessel proposed that the matrix clauses in these later productions semantically and syntactically embed the complement clause. We refer to these matrix clauses as formulaic and true, respectively. Diessel’s hypothesis about the development of sentential complement sentences was based on an analysis of spontaneous language. The purpose of this study was to evaluate Diessel’s hypothesis with an experimental sentence imitation task wherein stimuli varied in the nature of the matrix clause. Thirty children with typical language development participated; 10 children in each age group (3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) imitated 50 sentential complement sentences that included either a true or a formulaic matrix clause; the structure of the dependent clauses did not vary. Dependent variables were percent sentence imitation and percent matrix clause imitation. There was a significant main effect for matrix clause type on imitation of sentences and matrix clauses. There was also a significant main effect for age on imitation of sentences and matrix clauses. Significant matrix clause type-by-age interactions were such that percent sentence imitation and percent matrix clause imitation varied by age. Three- and 4-year-olds were less proficient than 5-year-olds on imitation of sentences with true matrix clauses and on imitations of true matrix clauses. Only 3- and 4-year-olds were less proficient imitating true matrix clauses than formulaic matrix clauses. Experimental findings support Diessel’s hypothesis that there is a developmental progression in the nature of preschoolers’ production of sentential complement sentences.

African American English and Early Literacy: A Comparison of Approaches to Quantifying Nonmainstream Dialect Use.

Purpose Many studies have found a correlation between overall usage rates of nonmainstream forms and reading scores, but less is known about which dialect differences are most predictive. Here, we consider different methods of characterizing African American English use from existing assessments and examine which methods best predict literacy achievement. Method Kindergarten and first-grade students who speak African American English received two assessments of dialect use and two assessments of decoding at the beginning and end of the school year. Item-level analyses of the dialect-use assessments were used to compute measures of dialect usage: (a) an overall feature rate measure based on the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Screening Test, (b) a subscore analysis of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Screening Test based on items that pattern together, (c) an alternative assessment where children repeat and translate sentences, and (d) "repertoire" measures based on a categorical distinction of whether a child used a particular feature of mainstream American English. Results Models using feature rate measures provided better data-model fit than those with repertoire measures, and baseline performance on a sentence repetition task was a positive predictor of reading score at the end of the school year. For phonological subscores, change from the beginning to end of the school year predicted reading at the end of the school year, whereas baseline scores were most predictive for grammatical subscores. Conclusions The addition of a sentence imitation task is useful for understanding a child's dialect and anticipating potential areas for support in early literacy. We observed some support for the idea that morphological dialect differences (i.e., irregular verb morphology) have a particularly close tie to later literacy, but future work will be necessary to confirm this finding. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13425968.

Sentence Imitation With Masked Morphemes in Czech: Memory, Morpheme Frequency, and Morphological Richness.

Purpose This study examined two markers of language impairment (LI) in a single experiment, testing sentence imitation and grammatical morphology production using an imitation task with masked morphemes. One goal was to test predictions of the morphological richness account of LI in Czech. We also tested the independent contributions of language and memory skills to sentence imitation performance. Method Seventeen children with LI (5;1-7;6 [years;months]) and 17 vocabulary-matched typically developing (TD) children (3;8-4;11) were administered a sentence imitation task where each sentence had one noun or verb ending replaced by a coughing sound. In addition, a receptive vocabulary and the digit span (backward and forward) tasks were administered. Results Children with LI were significantly less accurate than TD children in sentence imitation task. Both vocabulary and digit span had unique effects on sentence imitation scores. Children with LI were less successful in imitating the target words, especially verbs. However, if they succeeded, their completions of the masked morphemes were no less accurate than in TD children. The accuracy of completions was affected by the morpheme frequency and homophony, but these effects were similar in TD and affected children. Conclusions Sentence imitation is a measure of language skills and verbal memory. Results on morpheme completions are consistent with processing models of LI, but some predictions of the morphological richness model were not confirmed. The results suggest that children with LI might have a deficit in organizing morphosyntactic relations in sentences, rather than in morphological processing proper.

Narrative Language Markers of Arabic Language Development and Impairment.

Purpose We examined indices of narrative microstructure as metrics of language development and impairment in Arabic-speaking children. We examined their age sensitivity, correlations with standardized measures, and ability to differentiate children with average language and language impairment. Method We collected story narratives from 177 children (54.2% boys) between 3.08 and 10.92 years old (M = 6.25, SD = 1.67) divided into six age bands. Each child also received standardized measures of spoken language (Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary, Sentence Imitation, and Pseudoword Repetition). Several narrative indices of microstructure were examined in each age band. Children were divided into (suspected) developmental language disorder and typical language groups using the standardized test scores and compared on the narrative indicators. Sensitivity and specificity of the narrative indicators that showed group differences were calculated. Results The measures that showed age sensitivity included subject omission error rate, number of object clitics, correct use of subject-verb agreement, and mean length of utterance in words. The developmental language disorder group scored higher on subject omission errors (Cohen's d = 0.55) and lower on correct use of subject-verb agreement (Cohen's d = 0.48) than the typical language group. The threshold for impaired performance with the highest combination of specificity and sensitivity was 35th percentile. Conclusions Several indices of narrative microstructure appear to be valid metrics for documenting language development in children acquiring Gulf Arabic. Subject omission errors and correct use of subject-verb agreement differentiate children with typical and atypical levels of language development.

Sentence imitations in monolingual and early second language learners and the implications for grammar teaching

Abstract In the present article I investigated whether data obtained from 7-year-old German L1 and German-Turkish eL2 children by means of an elicited imitation task including grammatical and ungrammatical sentences mirrored current findings in acquisition research concerning case marking, adjective inflection, V2 position and finiteness. The results show that L1 children have full mastery of all four phenomena, as they revealed a greater tendency to correct ungrammatical sentences than to introduce errors into grammatical sentences. On the other hand, eL2 children differed from L1 children in terms of how they dealt with the noun-related phenomena, as they did not reveal a clear preference for either changing grammatical items or correcting ungrammatical items. In the discussion, I propose how to minimise the likelihood that participants simply repeat ungrammatical items verbatim in further imitation studies and be thus able to collect more reliable data on their grammatical knowledge. The article ends with a proposal for a primary school exercise on case marking that involves correcting errors on case marking. The suggestion is that ungrammatical sentences can be used in grammar teaching to assess pupils’ linguistic knowledge and also to guide their attention to specific regularities of the language, thus stimulating language reflection.

Children’s and adults’ initial phonological acquisition of a foreign language

Abstract This study compared children’s and adults’ L2 perception and production in the first hours of exposure to a foreign language. A total of 10 German children and 19 German adults performed a phoneme discrimination task and a sentence imitation task in Polish at two testing times. Exposed to a comparable input, the adult learners were found to perceive Polish sibilant contrasts more accurately than their child counterparts and to maintain this advantage over a two-week-long instruction. However, the two groups did not differ in their developing ability to produce the tested sibilants. A great deal of inter- and intra-individual differences in both learner groups was also attested. Our findings suggest that young L2 instructed learners are not necessarily better and/or faster perceivers and producers of novel language sounds than adult L2 instructed learners, who are able to discriminate a range of novel sibilant pairs even after very limited L2 exposure.

The role of foreign language anxiety on L2 utterance fluency during a final exam

This study examines how foreign language anxiety (FLA) and proficiency relate to second language (L2) utterance fluency during a final oral exam. Thirty-eight learners of Spanish (L1 English) completed unplanned narratives that were coded for ratio and length of pauses between and within Analysis of Speech Units, mean length of run, phonation-time ratio, and articulation rate. Learners’ oral proficiency was measured with an aural/oral sentence imitation task. Multiple regression analyses showed that anxiety is a strong predictor for certain temporal features associated with subjective ratings of fluency. Overall oral proficiency, however, was not a significant predictor in any case. The findings confirm the interference of FLA with cognitive processing and contribute to our understanding of the challenges faced by anxious learners during classroom-based language assessment.

Grammar in Boys With Idiopathic Autism Spectrum Disorder and Boys With Fragile X Syndrome Plus Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Some boys with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and boys with fragile X syndrome and a codiagnosis of ASD (FXS+ASD) have impairments in expressive grammatical abilities. The current study compared grammatical performance in these 2 groups of school-age boys. Thirty-seven boys similar on mean length of utterance participated in the current study (FXS: n = 19, ASD: n = 18). Participants completed an ASD assessment, nonverbal IQ testing, and conversation language samples. Convergent validity of a sentence imitation task with a norm-referenced assessment of grammar was examined in addition to divergent validity of the measures with nonverbal IQ and vocabulary comprehension and production. The boys with ASD outperformed the boys with FXS+ASD on the norm-referenced assessment of "be," and effect sizes indicate that the boys with ASD had better performance on past tense probes on the sentence imitation task and "do" on the norm-referenced assessment. The two measures of grammar had good convergent validity except for copula and auxiliary "be" and "do." Grammatical performance was not correlated with nonverbal IQ, and trends indicate a relationship between vocabulary and grammar. Despite being similar on mean length of utterance, there were group differences on grammatical performance. The sentence imitation task had good convergent validity with a norm-referenced assessment of grammar for the third-person singular and past tense probes and therefore could be an inexpensive and valid tool to use clinically for these populations. Future research should continue to refine this task, particularly for the probes with high rates of unscorable responses (i.e., "be" and "do").

A Sentence Repetition Task for Catalan-Speaking Typically-Developing Children and Children with Specific Language Impairment.

It is common to find that so-called minority languages enjoy fewer (if any) diagnostic tools than the so-called majority languages. This has repercussions for the detection and proper assessment of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) brought up in these languages. With a view to remedy this situation for Catalan, I developed a sentence repetition task to assess grammatical maturity in school-age children; in current practice, Catalan-speaking children are assessed with tests translated from Spanish, with disregard of the fact that the markers of SLI may differ substantially from one language to another, even between closely related languages. The test proposed here is inspired by SASIT [School-Age Sentence Imitation Test – English], designed for English by Marinis et al. (2011); some of the constructions targeted are challenging in a subset of languages, but not others, and are included because they are indeed affected in Catalan SLI; other constructions appear to be disrupted universally. The test involves canonical SVO sentences, sentences with third person accusative clitics (known to be problematic in Catalan SLI, but not in Spanish), passives, wh- interrogatives, subordinate clauses, subject and object relatives and conditionals. The test was administered to thirty typically developing 6- and 7-year-olds (as reported in Gavarró et al., 2012b), and five children diagnosed with SLI (mean age 10;7). The results of the task were scored under two systems: (i) identical vs. non-identical repetition and (ii) identical, grammatical and ungrammatical repetition, with detail regarding the error type. The results for typically developing and SLI children showed differences between the groups: identical repetition was found in 88.9% of cases for typically developing children but only 48% for SLI children. Ungrammatical productions were higher for the SLI group, and so were grammatical but different repetitions, a trend which was found in every child individually. The results are compared to those available in the literature for similar languages and I discuss the impact of grammatical variation in language performance, in both typical and impaired development.