Cover not available
Part of
Sources of Variation in First Language Acquisition: Languages, contexts, and learners
Edited by Maya Hickmann †, Edy Veneziano and Harriet Jisa
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 22] 2018
► pp. 409–426

Chapter 19
Spoken and written narratives from French- and English-speaking children with Language Impairment\

| Department of Psychology, San Diego State University | Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition et l’Apprentissage, Université de Poitiers & CNRS
| Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition et l’Apprentissage, Université de Poitiers & CNRS
| San Diego State University | Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego
| Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition et l’Apprentissage, Université de Poitiers & CNRS
| Unité de Recherche Clinique, Centre Hospitalier Henri Laborit de Poitiers
| Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences, San Diego State University
| Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition et l’Apprentissage, Université de Poitiers & CNRS
| Laboratoire Bases, Corpus, Langage, Université Nice Sophia Antipolis & CNRS
| Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego
Children with Language Impairment (LI) show significant delays in spoken language development with persistent problems in morphology. In this chapter, we compare spoken and written narratives from children with LI and their typically developing peers (TD) in French and English. We investigate the role of modality (spoken and written language), and the contribution of language-specific factors (French and English) to the LI phenotype. We found that both French and English LI groups exhibit problems with morphology; however, they use complex syntax strategically to bring coherence to their stories. Moreover, both LI and TD children are sensitive to the pragmatic and rhetorical conventions of their linguistic communities. Our findings increase our understanding of the nature of LI, and how language-specific features and culture might affect this profile.
Keywords: language impairment, narrative, French, English, spoken and written language, morphology, complex syntax, cross-linguistic comparison
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The narrative study
  • 3.Analysis and results
    • 3.1Length
    • 3.2Morphology
    • 3.3Complex syntax
    • 3.4Syntactic depth
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Language, modality, and Language Impairment
  • Note
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 22 February 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.22.20rei
References

References

Appelbaum, M. I. & Cramer, E. M.
1974 Some problems in the non-orthogonal analysis of variance. Psychological Bulletin 81(6): 335–343. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bishop, D. V. M.
1997 Uncommon Understanding: Development and Disorders of Language Comprehension in Children. Hove: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Bishop, D. V. M. & Edmundson, A.
1987 Language-impaired 4-year-olds: Distinguishing transient from persistent impairment. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 52: 156–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Broc, J., Bernicot, J., Olive, T., Favart, M., Uzé, J. & Reilly, J.
2013 Spelling in children and adolescents with specific language impairment: Variations in different writing situations. Research in Developmental Disabilities 34: 3253–3266. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chafe, W.
1964 Discourse, Consciousness, and Time: The Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Colozzo, P., Gillam, R. B., Wood, M., Schnell, R. D. & Johnston, J. R.
2011 Content and form in the narratives of children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 54(6): 1609–1627. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Conti-Ramsden, G. & Botting, N.
1999 Classification of children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 42: 1195–1204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crystal, D.
2003 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
de Weck, G. & Rosat, M. -C.
2003 Troubles Dysphasiques. Comment Raconter, Relater, Faire Agir à l'Age Préscolaire. Paris: Masson.Google Scholar
Dockrell, J. E., Lindsay, G. Connelly, V. & Mackie, C.
2007 Constraints in the production of written texts in children with specific language impairment. Exceptional Children 73(2): 147–164. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duncan, L., Colé, P. & Casalis, S.
2009 Early metalinguistic awareness of derivational morphology: Observations from a comparison of English and French. Applied Psycholinguistics 30: 405–440. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, J., Saffran, J. & Robe-Torres, K.
2009 Statistical learning in children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 52: 321–335. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fey, M. E., Catts, H. W., Proctor-Williams, K., Tomblin, J. B. & Zhang, X.
2004 Oral and written story composition skills of children with language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 47: 1301–1318. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frizelle, P. & Fletcher, P.
2014 Relative clause constructions in children with specific language impairment. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 49(2): 255–264. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gillam, R. B. & Johnston, J.
1992 Spoken and written language relationships in language/learning-impaired and normally achieving school age children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 35(6): 1303–1315. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leonard, L.
1998 Children with Specific Language Impairment. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Marchman V. A., Wulfeck B. & Ellis Weismer S. E.
1999 Morphological productivity in children with normal language and specific language impairment: A study of the English past tense. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 42: 206–219. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nagy, W. E. & Anderson, R.
1984 How many words are there in printed English schoolbooks? Reading Research Quarterly 19(3): 304–330. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nir, B. & Berman, R.
2010 Complex syntax as a window on contrastive rhetoric Journal of Pragmatics 42: 744–765. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reilly, J., Bernicot, J., Olive, T., Favart, M., Wulfeck, B. & Appelbaum, A.
2014 Written narratives from French and English speaking children with language impairment. In Handbook of Writing Development and Instruction in Children with Hearing, Speech and Oral Language Difficulties, B. Arfé, J. Dockrell, & V. Berninger (eds), 176–187. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Reilly, J., Losh, M., Bellugi, U. & Wulfeck, B.
2004 Frog, where are you? Narratives in children with specific language impairment, early focal brain injury and Williams Syndrome. Brain & Language 88: 229–247. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reilly, J., Wasserman, S. & Appelbaum, M.
2012 Later language development in narratives in children with perinatal stroke. Developmental Science 2012: 1–17.Google Scholar
Rey-Debove, J.
1984 Le domaine de la morphologie lexicale. Cahiers de Lexicologie 45: 3–19.Google Scholar
Rice, M., Wexler, K. & Cleave, P.
1995 Specific language impairment as a period of extended optional infinitive. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 38: 850–863. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scott, C. M. & Windsor, J.
2000 General language performance measures in spoken and written narrative and expository discourse of school-age children with language learning disabilities. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 43: 324–339. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tolchinsky, L.
2003 The Cradle of Culture. New York NY: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Ullman, M. & Pierpont, E.
2005 Specific language impairment is not specific to language: The procedural deficit hypothesis. Cortex 41: 399–433. DOI logoGoogle Scholar