OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between processing speed and sensitivity to inflectional morphology in children with DLD, focusing on their real-time processing abilities in response to regular past tense, third person singular, and regular plural inflections at different rates of sentence articulation.
METHODS: Eighteen children with DLD and 18 age-matched controls underwent word monitoring tasks that assessed sensitivity to grammaticality of inflections in sentences presented at normal and slow rates of articulation.
RESULTS: At a normal rate of articulation, children with DLD demonstrated slower response times and reduced sensitivity to grammaticality across all inflections compared to controls. When the articulation rate was slowed, children with DLD showed improved sensitivity, particularly to regular plural and third person singular inflections, although deficits in processing the regular past tense persisted.
CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest a significant relationship between processing speed and inflectional morphology sensitivity in children with DLD. Slower articulation rates improved grammatical sensitivity for certain inflections, highlighting the potential of tailored interventions that consider processing speed limitations. Persistent difficulties with the regular past tense inflection indicate the need for targeted support for children with DLD in this area.
CONCLUSIONS: What is already known on this subject Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have a wide range of language difficulties, but deficits in inflectional morphology are regarded as a \'hallmark\' of the disorder. Children with DLD are also very likely to show deficits in speed of processing, although it is not known if a \'slowness to process\' can causally explain the language difficulties these children experience. What this study adds to existing knowledge When grammatical sensitivity was measured using an online real-time task, children with DLD showed widespread inflectional deficits when sentences were spoken at a normal conversational rate. When sentence articulation rate was slowed down, children with DLD were faster, more accurate and more sensitive to the grammaticality of constructions. However, deficits in the regular past tense remained persistent, even in this slow-rate condition. What are the clinical implications of this work? This study has implications for clinical and educational practices that work with children with DLD to improve their language skills. The findings of this study show that when children with DLD are given more time to process incoming information, their grammatical skills significantly improve. This study also shows that deficits in the regular past tense are persistent, and children are likely need extensive and intensive support with this particular grammatical feature.
目的:本研究旨在探讨DLD患儿的处理速度与屈折形态敏感性之间的关系,专注于他们对常规过去式的实时处理能力,第三人称单数,以及以不同的句子发音速度有规律的复数词形变化。
方法:18名患有DLD的儿童和18名年龄匹配的对照者接受了单词监测任务,该任务评估了以正常和缓慢的发音速度出现的句子中词形变化的语法敏感性。
结果:以正常的关节速度,与对照组相比,患有DLD的儿童在所有屈折中表现出更慢的反应时间和降低的语法敏感性.当关节速度减慢时,患有DLD的儿童表现出改善的敏感性,特别是规则的复数和第三人称单数变形,尽管处理常规过去时的缺陷仍然存在。
结论:这些发现表明DLD患儿的处理速度与屈折形态敏感性之间存在显著关系。较低的衔接率提高了某些语调的语法敏感性,强调考虑处理速度限制的量身定制干预措施的潜力。常规过去时语调的持续困难表明,需要在这一领域为DLD儿童提供有针对性的支持。
结论:在这个问题上已经知道的发育性语言障碍(DLD)儿童有广泛的语言困难,但屈折形态学缺陷被视为该疾病的“标志”。患有DLD的儿童也很可能在处理速度方面表现出缺陷,虽然不知道“处理速度缓慢”是否可以解释这些孩子经历的语言困难。当使用在线实时任务测量语法敏感性时,这项研究增加了现有知识,当以正常的会话率说出句子时,患有DLD的儿童表现出广泛的屈折缺陷。当句子衔接速度减慢时,有DLD的孩子更快,对结构的语法性更准确、更敏感。然而,常规过去式的赤字仍然持续存在,即使在这种缓慢的条件下。这项工作的临床意义是什么?这项研究对与DLD儿童一起提高语言技能的临床和教育实践具有启示意义。这项研究的结果表明,当患有DLD的儿童有更多的时间来处理传入的信息时,他们的语法能力显著提高。这项研究还表明,常规过去时的缺陷是持续的,和孩子们可能需要广泛和密集的支持与这个特殊的语法特征。