The production of direct object clitics in pre-school- and primary school-aged children with specific language impairments.

The production of direct object clitics in pre-school- and primary school-aged children with specific language impairments. Clin Linguist Phon. 2016 Jun 10;:1-16 Authors: Guasti MT, Palma S, Genovese E, Stagi P, Saladini G, Arosio F Abstract Third-person direct object (DO) clitic pronoun production is examined through an elicited production method in pre-school- and primary school-aged groups of Italian children with specific language impairment (SLI) to establish whether there is an improvement from age 5 years to age 7 years and whether there are qualitative differences in the two groups' responses. It was found that 5- and 7-year-old Italian children with SLI produce fewer third-person DO clitics than same-age peers. The kind of responses they provide changes: at 5 years, children with SLI tend to omit clitics, while at 7 years, they use a full noun. Production of third-person DO clitics is a persistent challenge for children with SLI and is confirmed to be a good clinical marker both at 5 and 7 years of age. PMID: 27285056 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics - Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Tags: Clin Linguist Phon Source Type: research