Profiles of grammatical morphology and sentence imitation in children with specific language impairment and down syndrome

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine the grammatical morphology and sentence imitation performance of two different groups of children with language impairment and to compare their performance with that of children learning language typically. Expressive use of tense-bearing and non-tense-related grammatical morphemes was explored. Children with specific language impairment (SLI), with Down syndrome (DS), and with typical language development (TL) were matched on mean length of utterance (MLU). Performance was compared primarily on composite measures of tense, tense inflections, and nontense morphemes, as well as on the Sentences subtest of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale..