ERIC Number: EJ969154
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Jan
Pages: 24
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-7164
EISSN: N/A
Specific Language Impairment at Adolescence: Avoiding Complexity
Tuller, Laurice; Henry, Celia; Sizaret, Eva; Barthez, Marie-Anne
Applied Psycholinguistics, v33 n1 p161-184 Jan 2012
This study explores complex language in adolescents with specific language impairment (SLI) with the aim of finding out how aspects of language characteristic of typical syntactic development after childhood fare and, in particular, whether there is evidence that individuals with SLI avoid using structures whose syntactic derivation involves greater computational complexity. An analysis of spontaneous language samples of 18 French-speaking adolescents with SLI, compared to groups of typically developing speakers, showed that whereas complexity increases with age in the latter, behaviors of avoidance are clear in the former, in the form of low frequencies of complex structures, but also frequency of failed attempts and alternative strategies. Whereas increasing complexity is the hallmark of syntactic development after childhood, avoidance of complexity appears to characterize SLI after childhood.
Descriptors: Evidence, Language Impairments, Adolescents, Syntax, Computational Linguistics, French, Speech Communication, Discourse Analysis, Native Speakers, Comparative Analysis, Psycholinguistics
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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
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A