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Lookup NU author(s): Juliane Hasselaar, Dr Carolyn Letts, Professor Cristina McKeanORCiD
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Taylor & Francis, 2019.
For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
Identification of children with specific language impairment (SLI, now known as DevelopmentalLanguage Disorder) remains challenging. Morphosyntax difficulties have been proposed aspotential linguistic ‘markers’ for SLI across a number of languages. This study investigates theexistence of such a clinical marker in German-speaking children with SLI, looking in particular atGerman case marking, and makes comparisons with matched typically developing groups and agroup with isolated phonological impairment (PI).A case-control study was completed with 66 pre-school children in four groups (1) SLI, (2) PI, (3)age matched typically developing children (TD-A) (4) language matched typically developingchildren (TD-L). Errors in nominative, accusative and dative marking were analysed from theproduction of articles in elicitation tasks and spontaneous language samples. The performanceof the SLI group was poorer than the TD-A group across all three grammatical casesinvestigated, but there was little supportive evidence for this being a diagnostic marker. It ishowever suggested that poor case marking may alert clinicians to the need for further linguisticassessment. No significant differences were found between the SLI and PI groups; rather scoresfor the PI group suggested they fell on a gradient between the SLI TD-A groups. Findings arediscussed in relation to the proposed new diagnostic category of developmental languagedisorder.
Author(s): Hasselaar J, Letts C, McKean C
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics
Year: 2019
Volume: 33
Issue: 1-2
Pages: 117-134
Print publication date: 01/02/2019
Online publication date: 05/09/2018
Acceptance date: 23/07/2018
Date deposited: 30/07/2018
ISSN (print): 0269-9206
ISSN (electronic): 1464-5076
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2018.1505955
DOI: 10.1080/02699206.2018.1505955
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