title: Word Detection in Sung and Spoken Sentences in Children With Typical Language Development or With Specific Language Impairment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Previous studies have reported that children score better in language tasks using sung rather than spoken stimuli. We examined word detection ease in sung and spoken sentences that were equated for phoneme duration and pitch variations in children aged 7 to 12 years with typical language development (TLD) as well as in children with specific language impairment (SLI ), and hypothesized that the facilitation effect would vary with language abilities.
  
  
  METHODS
  In Experiment 1, 69 children with TLD (7-10 years old) detected words in sentences that were spoken, sung on pitches extracted from speech, and sung on original scores. In Experiment 2, we added a natural speech rate condition and tested 68 children with TLD (7-12 years old). In Experiment 3, 16 children with SLI and 16 age-matched children with TLD were tested in all four conditions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In both TLD groups, older children scored better than the younger ones. The matched TLD group scored higher than the SLI group who scored at the level of the younger children with TLD . None of the experiments showed a facilitation effect of sung over spoken stimuli.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Word detection abilities improved with age in both TLD and SLI groups. Our findings are compatible with the hypothesis of delayed language abilities in children with SLI , and are discussed in light of the role of durational prosodic cues in words detection.
authors.affiliation: Pediatric Neurology Unit, American Memorial Hospital, University Hospital of Reims, France.
authors.forename: Clément
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Planchou
authors.affiliation: Neuropsychology: Audition, Cognition, Action, PSITEC Laboratory (EA 4072), Department of Psychology, University of Lille, France.
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Clément
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech Therapy and Audiology, University of Montreal, Canada.
authors.forename: Renée
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Béland
authors.affiliation: Neuropsychology: Audition, Cognition, Action, PSITEC Laboratory (EA 4072), Department of Psychology, University of Lille, France.
authors.forename: Nia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Cason
authors.affiliation: Pediatric Neurology Unit, American Memorial Hospital, University Hospital of Reims, France.
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Motte
authors.affiliation: Neuropsychology: Audition, Cognition, Action, PSITEC Laboratory (EA 4072), Department of Psychology, University of Lille, France.
authors.forename: Séverine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Samson
keywords: Specific Language Impairment; language development; sung sentences; word detection