Changes in English Past Tense Use by Bilingual School-Age Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder

Discussion Contrary to an earlier report (Jacobson& Schwartz, 2005), the relative greater difficulty with regular and novel verbs was replaced by greater difficulty for irregular past tense, a pattern consistent with monolingual impairment. Age was a contributing factor, particularly for younger children with DLD who produced more stem + ing errors in the novel verb condition. For all children, and particularly for those with DLD, an extended period for irregular past tense learning was evident. The results support a usage-based theory of language acquisition and impairment.
Source: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research