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Plural noun inflection in Kuwaiti Arabic-speaking children with and without Specific Language Impairment*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2012

FAUZIA ABDALLA ,
KHAWLA ALJENAIE  and
ABDESSATAR MAHFOUDHI
FAUZIA ABDALLA*
Affiliation:
Department of Communication Science, Kuwait University
KHAWLA ALJENAIE
Affiliation:
Department of Communication Science, Kuwait University
ABDESSATAR MAHFOUDHI
Affiliation:
Department of Communication Science, Kuwait University
*
Address for correspondence: Fauzia Abdalla, PhD, CCC-SLP, Department of Communication Science, College for Women, Kuwait University, PO Box 5969, Safat 13060, Kuwait. e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study examined the production of three types of noun plural inflections, feminine sound plural (FSP), masculine sound plural (MSP), and broken plural (BP) in Kuwaiti Arabic-speaking children with and without language impairment. A total of thirty-six Kuwaiti participants – twelve adults, twelve children with specific language impairment (SLI), and twelve typically developing age-matched controls (TD) were presented with twenty-seven pictured stimuli of real and nonsense words. The results showed that the TD children were significantly more accurate in using the required noun plural inflections than the SLI group. The TD children's preferred overgeneralization strategy was to substitute FSP for the regular MSP and irregular BP contexts much more than their peers with SLI. The performance of the SLI group also differed from that of their age-matched counterparts in the number of errors and their distribution across categories. The results are discussed in the light of relevant theories of atypical language development.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 40 , Special Issue 1: Atypical development , January 2013 , pp. 139 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

[*]

A special word of gratitude goes to the adults and children who participated in this study, and their parents who provided permission and supported this research. We wish to thank CSL students (Sara Al-Subaie, Hissa Ali, Nuwayer Al-Mutairi, Maryam Al-Oraifan, and Maryam Al-Ghaith) for their extraordinary help in data collection and rendering. We also express our appreciation to the clinicians in Sheikh Salem Al Ali Centre for assistance in recruiting participants with language impairment.

References

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