Spontaneous productions of infinitive clauses by English-speaking children with and without specific language impairment

ABSTRACT

As a group, children with specific language impairment (SLI) have presented with lower levels of proficiency with infinitive clauses relative to comparison groups with typical language (TL). The presence of considerable individual variability within those affected by SLI, however, remains unexplained. Furthermore, the status of infinitive clause productions in children with language impairments that do not meet criteria for SLI, because of either low nonverbal abilities or other concomitant conditions, is unknown. Previous studies focused on children with SLI and have not included children who would fit into a broader developmental language disorder (DLD) designation. In this study, spontaneous language samples were collected on 30 children with DLD and 30 children with typical language skills, including those with low nonverbal abilities or other neurodevelopmental disorders (age range: 5;1–7;7). Samples were analyzed to examine potential predictors of children’s infinitive clause use and their infinitive TO omission rates. Significant group differences were found for the number and accuracy of infinitive clauses produced. Consistent with previous reports examining children with SLI, considerable variability was found across cases of DLD. Maternal education and mean length of utterance (MLU) were significant predictors for children’s infinitive clause use. Finite verb morphology composite scores and MLU were significant predictors of children’s infinitive TO omission rates.

KEYWORDS:

• Complex syntax
• infinitives
• specific language impairment
• developmental language disorder

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the children who participated in this study and their families. We acknowledge the contributions of Andrea Ash, Kathy Chapman, and Edward Rubin to the planning of this study. We appreciate the contributions to data collection of the following graduate research assistants: Faith Denzer, Elizabeth Hafen, Kirsten Hannig, Lyssandra Harker, Haylee Krutsch, Theresa Pfaff, Cloey Roper, and Tina Whitehead; as well as student volunteers: Madison Burgon, Celeste Hook, Susan Petersen, and Noel Pollard.

Disclosure Statement

Amy Wilder is a doctoral student at the University of Utah and receives funding through Sean Redmond’s NIDCD projects. Sean Redmond is a professor at the University of Utah. This study was supported by Grant R01DC011023 from The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders awarded to Sean M. Redmond. This article is based upon the first author’s master’s thesis, completed as a graduate student at the University of Utah. Some of the data in this article were presented at the 2018 Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders [R01DC011023].