title: [Pragmatic abilities in the discourse of children with and without specific language impairment].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  to investigate the pragmatic difficulties presented by children with specific language impairment and to verify how these deficits influence their discourse performance.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  to analyze the request-response sequences in the discourse of normal and Specific Language Impairment Children (SLI) during a 20-minute free-play situation with an adult.
  
  
  METHODS
  subjects of this study were 29 children, male and female, with ages ranging from 2:0 to 4:11 years. Data was collected during a free-play situation with an adult.
  
  
  RESULTS
  SLI children frequently ignored the questions made by the adult and responded innappropriately more often.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  qualitative and quantitative differences in the pattern of responses and in the use of pragmatic abilities were found for the SLI children.
authors.affiliation: Fonoaudiológica, Livre-Docente em Fonoaudiologia pela Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo. dmblopes@usp.br
authors.forename: Débora Maria
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Befi-Lopes
authors.forename: Amalia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rodrigues
authors.forename: Lidiane Cristina
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Rocha
mesh_terms: D016022:Case-Control Studies; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D012919:Social Behavior; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014705:Verbal Behavior