[Pragmatic abilities in the discourse of children with and without specific language impairment].
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.
Befi-Lopes
Débora Maria
DM
Fonoaudiológica, Livre-Docente em Fonoaudiologia pela Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo. dmblopes@usp.br
Rodrigues
Amalia
A
Rocha
Lidiane Cristina
LC
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