ERIC Number: EJ1103774
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Jun
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-7237
EISSN: N/A
Subject-Verb Agreement and Verbal Short-Term Memory: A Perspective from Greek Children with Specific Language Impairment
Lalioti, Marina; Stavrakaki, Stavroula; Manouilidou, Christina; Talli, Ioanna
First Language, v36 n3 p279-294 Jun 2016
This study investigated the performance of school age Greek-speaking children with SLI on verbal short-term memory (VSTM) and Subject-Verb (S-V) agreement in comparison to chronological age controls and younger typically developing children. VSTM abilities were assessed by means of a non-word repetition task (NRT) and an elicited production task, an off-line grammaticality judgment (GJ) task, and an on-line self-paced listening task were employed to examine S-V agreement abilities. The study found significant between-group differences in the NRT and the off-line GJ task. No significant between-group differences were found for the S-V agreement production task and for reaction times of the on-line task. The authors argue that the children with SLI showed increased grammatical sensitivity in S-V agreement and relate their lower performance on the off-line GJ task to the task's metalinguistic demands. The findings suggest that deficits in VSTM constitute a robust marker for SLI and claim that S-V agreement can be acquired by SLI individuals with apparent limitations in VSTM.
Descriptors: Verbs, Grammar, Language Acquisition, Form Classes (Languages), Greek, Short Term Memory, Control Groups, Comparative Analysis, Task Analysis, Reaction Time, Metalinguistics, Language Impairments, Verbal Ability, Foreign Countries, Diagnostic Tests, Intelligence Tests, Preschool Children, Syntax, Morphology (Languages), Statistical Analysis, Listening Skills, Oral Language, Nonparametric Statistics
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Greece
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A