The Use of Syntactic Cues in Lexical Acquisition by Children With SLI

This study investigated the syntactic bootstrapping abilities of children who differed by language abilities and age. In the first study, the performance of 5-year-old children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) was compared to that of two groups of typically developing children-one of equivalent language levels, as indexed by mean length of utterance (MLU), and the other of equivalent chronological age. In the second study, two groups of 7-year-old children, one whose language was developing typically and one with SLI, were involved. The count/mass distinction was used as the basis for the experimental tasks. A videotaped story was used to present the novel count and mass words, with syntactic cues in one condition and with neutral syntax in another. Results from the first study revealed that only the 5-year-old nonaffected control children showed evidence of using the syntactic cues. The 5-year-old SLI group and 3-year-old control group achieved comparable scores. However, error analyses suggested that different factors were operative in the two groups. The second study revealed that there was continued growth into the early school years for children with SLI and children whose language was developing typically.