FORMAL FEATURES IN IMPAIRED GRAMMARS: A CAMPARISON OF ENGLISH AND GERMAN SLI CHILDREN
Writen by: Harlad Clahsen, Susanne Bartket, and Sandra Gollner
Writen by: Harlad Clahsen, Susanne Bartket, and Sandra Gollner
SLI stands for specific language impairment.
Introduction
SLI is a developmental language disorder that can affect both expressive and receptive language, it is not related to or caused by other developmental disorders. For example hearing loss or a brain injury that has accured. SLI researchers are trying to set the language problems or SLI kids in the categories of Grammatical theories and theories of grammatical development. It is difficult for SLI kids to know the difference between the elements of a phrase and a clause.
SLI grammar is not the same as impaired childrens grammar. Data has been collected for 9 English and 6 German SLI children. Some of the symptoms that come with SLI are the use of short sentences, and issues making complex sentences. SLI can also be linked with impoverished vocabulary, difficulty learning new words, and complex word finding problems. SLI does continue into adult hood.
SLI GERMAN Children
German SLI children use root infinitives, these are the same grammars as unimpaired children. These children also tend to score low on verb exams, as do SLI English kids. Still with this knowledge SLI children are not incapabale or memorizing irregular verb forms. These children do not have a general idea of the subject verb placement.
SLI English Children
SLI involves a specific impairment of TENSE marking. English SLI students sometimes experience difficulty using the past tense -ed forms. For example SLI English students would confuse a sentence that's in the past tense, and they might say "they was" instead of "they were" or "he don't know" instead of "he doesn't know".
CONCLUSIONS
SLI children tend to have problems with the agreement features of verbs, while the TENSE verbs are far less affected. Alternative explanations have been explored to explain the oddness of SLI, but none that seem realistic.
12 comments:
I think it is interesting that the English speakers versus the German speakers have different aspects that are effected by SLI. It does make sense though considering all languages have different grammar words. I have never heard of SLI. In order to make sure children continue with a proper development of language into adulthood, more studies and tests should be done to help them. It will only help them better themselves as individuals.
I did not know that there was such a thing as SLI. Since I have grown up with different languages, I know how to learn the different verb forms. It comes natural to me. Maybe it just depends on someone's environment. More tests should probably be conducted to learn more about this fascinating topic.
I personally do not think that correct grammar should be "expected" from SLI children. They do not need to use certain helping words as long as the interpreter can comprehend the intended message. I have never really heard of SLI until now, but I don't think that it is completely necessary. They should understand proper grammar for schooling, but for other purposes it is almost pointless in my opinion.
It's remarkable that some basic function of the brain and how it comprehends words s can effect two different languages so uniquely. I assume that the differences originate from the different language structures between the German and English languages. It would also be interesting to learn how SLI children function with other languages.
It's interesting to me that different languages are affected in different ways by SLI. I don't entirely understand it. I think that in order to help those children with SLI, more studies should be done to show the similiarities between different languages. Since SLI affects each language differently, it is expected that the results will not be the same.
It’s amazing that between German and English speakers SLI affects them in different ways. You would think it would be the same for both, but SLI stands for Specific Language Impairment and German and English language are very different. I can imagine that it would be tough at first to try and teach someone with SLI, but out of all the disabilities we have read about so far I think this one might be a little less frustrating in the long run.
I had never heard of SLI. I think it is strange that two different gropups from different languages struggled with different aspects. I also wonder why they only did two language. If they had compared more language there results could have very different.
I have never head of SLI before. I find it interesting that the problem that experience is with different verb forms. After studying German in high school i can understand how they would have a difficulty with the different verb forms, because i had some trouble with verb forms as well. I dont think it should be a language but something that just needs to be studied, more to help solve the problem.
I have never heard of SLI before. After reading this article I can think of some people who do have this problem with speaking; not using ed. I believe in order for people to understand SLI there needs to be more studies done and so people can have facts!
Though I had never heard this called SLI, I was aware of impairments caused by injuries. I don't think people affected by SLI should be held to the normal grammar standards, simply because they are not able to remember and use the rules. As long as they can communicate with others, I think what language skills they are able to use are fine.
Though I had never heard this called SLI, I was aware of impairments caused by injuries. I don't think people affected by SLI should be held to the normal grammar standards, simply because they are not able to remember and use the rules. As long as they can communicate with others, I think what language skills they are able to use are fine.
SLI is a very interesting condition it seems. I never heard of this condition before. It seems to me that SLI could very easily be confused with other problems a child might have such as maybe mild mental retardation. I also find it interesting that SLI affects children that speak different languages differently since the languages are sturctured differently.
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