An assessment of the comprehension of highly costly syntactic structures by school age children

An evaluation of Spanish-speaking schoolchildren’s ability to comprehend highly-costly sentences is provided, which aimed to identify children at risk of Specific Language Impairment/Developmental Language Disorder. The investigation was guided by linguistic/psycholinguistic hypotheses concerning se...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dotti, Horacio Miguel, Correa, Leticia Maria, Rivera, Gabriela, Benassi, Julia, Formichelli, María Clara
Format: Online
Language:spa
Published: Universidad Nacional de Córdoba 2018
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Online Access:https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/racc/article/view/19772
Description
Summary:An evaluation of Spanish-speaking schoolchildren’s ability to comprehend highly-costly sentences is provided, which aimed to identify children at risk of Specific Language Impairment/Developmental Language Disorder. The investigation was guided by linguistic/psycholinguistic hypotheses concerning sentence processing cost. A battery of tests was used, which included passive sentences, relative clauses, WH/WH+N questions in different conditions. Reversible passives, and object relative and WH Questions were predicted to be more demanding. 390 children (6-12 years of age) from 2 elementary schools were tested. The schools were distinguished as a function of social/economical factors. The results are compatible with the predictions. Social-economical factors are shown to influence children’s overall performance. Children whose scores were 2SD below the mean of correct responses of the age group (8.7%) were considered to be at risk of syntactic impairment.