ABSTRACT
This study compared a sample of children with primary language impairment (PLI) and typically developing age-matched children using the crosslinguistic lexical tasks (CLT-SK). We also compared the PLI children with typically developing language-matched younger children who were matched on the basis of receptive vocabulary. Overall, statistical testing showed that the vocabulary of the PLI children was significantly different from the vocabulary of the age-matched children, but not statistically different from the younger children who were matched on the basis of their receptive vocabulary size. Qualitative analysis of the correct answers revealed that the PLI children showed higher rigidity compared to the younger language-matched children who are able to use more synonyms or derivations across word class in naming tasks. Similarly, an examination of the children’s naming errors indicated that the language-matched children exhibited more semantic errors, whereas PLI children showed more associative errors.
Declaration of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Funding
This study is the result of the project implementation: COST IS0804 Language Impairment in a Multilingual Society: Linguistic Patterns and the Road to Assessment (www.bi-sli.org) and Retrofitting and Extension of the Center of Excellence for Linguoculturology, Translation and Interpreting supported by the Research & Development Operational Programme funded by the ERDF.