The production of wh-questions in Italian-speaking children with SLI.
We aim at determining whether 7-year-old Italian-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI): (1) have problems with the production of wh- questions; (2) display a subject/object asymmetry in producing which- and who questions; (3) attempt to simplify questions, especially which- quest...
| Publicado en: | Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics Vol. 33; no. 4; pp. 349 - 376 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Taylor & Francis Ltd
2019
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| Sumario: | We aim at determining whether 7-year-old Italian-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI): (1) have problems with the production of wh- questions; (2) display a subject/object asymmetry in producing which- and who questions; (3) attempt to simplify questions, especially which- questions; (4) have difficulties with movement and verbal agreement in wh- questions. We elicited subject and object who and which NP questions in 10 children with SLI (M = 7;2), in 10 chronological age (CA)-matched controls (M = 7;2) and 10 language-matched controls (M = 5;2). Results showed that (1) children with SLI produced fewer questions than both control groups; (2) a subject/object asymmetry was observed in who questions but not in which NP questions; (3) which NP questions were more problematic than who questions; (4) children with SLI produced more agreement errors and resorted to simplification strategies to avoid wh- question production. Results point to a grammatical deficit due to the computation of complex grammatical relations and suggest that there is a misalignment among pieces of linguistic competence needed to form Italian wh- questions (wh- movement and agreement computation). Outcomes have implications for clinical assessment recommending the production of wh- questions to be considered in the evaluation of SLI in Italian. |
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