Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T19:59:41.289Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dative prepositions in children with specific language impairment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2004

BERNARD GRELA ,
LULA RASHITI  and
MONICA SOARES
BERNARD GRELA
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
LULA RASHITI
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
MONICA SOARES
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their proficiency with the use of prepositions. Ten children with SLI were compared to 10 younger, normally developing children matched for mean length of utterance and 10 children matched for age. Each child was asked to produce 24 sentences containing locative (in, on) and dative (to) prepositions. Responses were coded for omission or word selection errors for the target prepositions. It was hypothesized that children with SLI would make more errors than the typically developing children. Omission errors would support a difficulty with syntax because of the role prepositions play in case marking. Word selection errors would support a deficit in the area of semantics. The results confirmed that children with SLI made more errors than the control group. The children with SLI made more errors in the selection of dative prepositions, indicating a difficulty linking the semantics of prepositions and verbs.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , October 2004 , pp. 467 - 480
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bloom L., Tackeff J., & Lahey M. 1984. Learning to in complement constructions. Journal of Child Language, 11, 391– 406.Google Scholar
Burgemeister B. B., Blum L. H., & Lorge I. 1972. Columbia Assessment of Nonverbal Abilities (3rd ed.). New York: Psychological Corporation.
Carrow–Woolfolk E. 1985. Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.
Crystal D. 1991. A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics (3rd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Eyer J., & Leonard L. B. 1995. Functional categories and specific language impairment: A case study. Language Acquisition, 4, 177– 203.Google Scholar
Grela B. G. 2003. The omission of subject arguments in children with specific language impairment. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 17, 153– 169.Google Scholar
Grela B. G., & Leonard L. B. 1997. The use of subject arguments by children with specific language impairment. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 11, 443– 453.Google Scholar
Landua B. (Ed.). 1994. Where's what and what's where: The language of objects in space. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Le Normand M. T., & Chevrie–Muller C. 1991. Individual differences in the production of word classes in eight specific language-impaired preschoolers. Journal of Communication Disorders, 24, 331– 351.Google Scholar
Leonard L. B. 1998. Children with specific language impairment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Leonard L. B., Eyer J. A., Bedore L. M., & Grela B. G. 1997. Three accounts of the grammatical morpheme difficulties of English-speaking children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 40, 741– 753.Google Scholar
Levine M. N. 1982. Leiter International Performance Scale. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services.
Napoli D. J. 1993. Syntax: Theory and problems. New York: Oxford University Press.
Radford A. 1997. Syntactic theory and the structure of English: A minimalist approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Reynell J. K., & Gruber C. P. 1990. Reynell Developmental Language Scales. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Service.
Rice M. L., & Bode J. V. 1993. Gaps in the verb lexicons of children with specific language impairment. First Language, 13, 113– 131.Google Scholar
Rice M. L., & Wexler K. 1996. Toward tense as a clinical marker of specific language impairment in English-speaking children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 39, 1239– 1257.Google Scholar
Rice M. L., Wexler K., & Cleave P. L. 1995. Specific language impairment as a period of extended optional infinitive. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 38, 850– 863.Google Scholar
Rice S. 1999. Patterns of acquisition in the emerging mental lexicon: The case of to and for in English. Brain and Language, 68, 268– 276.Google Scholar
Schuele C. M., & Nicholls L. M. 2001. Relative clauses: Evidence of continued linguistic vulnerability in children with specific language impairment. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 14, 563– 585.Google Scholar
Schuele C. M., & Tolbert L. 2001. Omission of obligatory relative markers in children with specific language impairment. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 15, 257– 274.Google Scholar
Stark R., & Tallal P. 1981. Selection of children with specific language deficits. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 46, 114– 122.Google Scholar
St. Louis K. O., & Ruscello D. M. 1981. Oral Speech Mechanism Screening Evaluation—R. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.
Tomasello M. 1987. Learning to use prepositions: A case study. Journal of Child Language, 14, 79– 98.Google Scholar
Wanska S. 1984. The relationship of spatial concept development to the acquisition of locative understanding. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 145, 11– 21.Google Scholar
Washington D. S., & Naremore R. C. 1978. Children's use of spatial prepositions in two- and three-dimentional tasks. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 21, 151– 165.Google Scholar
Watkins R. V., & Rice M. L. 1991. Verb particle and preposition acquisition in language-impaired preschoolers. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 34, 1130– 1141.Google Scholar
Weist R. M. 2002. Temporal and spatial concepts in child language: Conventional and configurational. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 31, 195– 210.Google Scholar