title: Sentence comprehension in specific language impairment: a task designed to distinguish between cognitive capacity and syntactic complexity.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study examined sentence comprehension in children with specific language impairment (SLI) in a manner designed to separate the contribution of cognitive capacity from the effects of syntactic structure.
  
  
  METHODS
  Nineteen children with SLI, 19 typically developing children matched for age (TD-A), and 19 younger typically developing children (TD-Y) matched according to sentence comprehension test scores responded to sentence comprehension items that varied in either length or their demands on cognitive capacity, based on the nature of the foils competing with the target picture.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The TD-A children were accurate across all item types. The SLI and TD-Y groups were less accurate than the TD-A group on items with greater length and, especially, on items with the greatest demands on cognitive capacity. The types of errors were consistent with failure to retain details of the sentence apart from syntactic structure.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The difficulty in the more demanding conditions seemed attributable to interference. Specifically, the children with SLI and the TD-Y children appeared to have difficulty retaining details of the target sentence when the information reflected in the foils closely resembled the information in the target sentence.
authors.affiliation: Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. xdxl@purdue.edu
authors.forename: Laurence B
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Leonard
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Deevy
authors.forename: Marc E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Fey
authors.forename: Shelley L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Bredin-Oja
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D007807:Language Tests; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D012660:Semantics; D014825:Vocabulary