title: Non-word repetition: the relationship between weak syllables and the omission of grammatical morphemes in children with specific language impairment.
abstract: Non-word (NW) repetition in children with specific language impairment (SLI) is a skill related to, but genetically separate from, grammatical ability. Prosodic structure of the syllables may bridge the gap between these two abilities. A NW repetition task was compared in a group of 15 preschool Italian children with SLI (ranged in age from 3;11 to 5;8) and 15 younger typically developing children (aged from 2;11 to 3;7) matched for mean length of utterance (TD-MLU). Grammatical ability was tested through a probe for direct-object clitic pronouns which is one of the most useful clinical markers in the Italian language. In NW repetition, children with SLI deleted more syllables than the TD-MLU children. The omission of weak syllables in a pre-stress position was a significant predictor of the omission of clitic pronouns. The present study shows that the link between grammar and NW is due to a prosodic characteristic that is more universally challenging in children with SLI.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università degli Studi di Padova , Padova , Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dispaldro
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D001184:Articulation Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D012660:Semantics; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement
keywords: Direct-object clitic pronouns; Italian language; language disorders; phonological storage; prosody