EVALUATING GRAMMATICAL ASYNCHRONY IN CHILDREN WITH SLI

该项目的总体目的是改善对有特殊语言障碍风险的幼儿的早期识别。 这一领域研究的主要挑战是准确区分那些表现出语言正常化的晚说话儿童（即，大器晚成者），这些儿童将继续显示与SLI诊断一致的特征。 虽然几个变量已被确定为描述SLI“风险”的重要因素（参见Olswang，Rodriguez，and Timler，1998），一个早期的语法指标SLI在蹒跚学步的几年还没有成为一个主要的研究重点。 这是相当令人惊讶的，因为学龄前SLI的主要临床标志是语法时态标记的不掌握（Rice和Wexler，1996）。在此之前，Hadley和她的同事已经确定了一个值得进一步研究的早期语法指示符（Hadley，1998; Hadley，Reed，and埃尔南德斯，1998）。 具体来说，动词短语结构的语法发展平台与典型的甚至加速的名词短语增长模式共存，似乎可以区分这两组幼儿。目前的项目有两个具体的目标：（a）复制语法发展的异步模式在一个新的样本的幼儿在SLI的风险，和（B），以确定是否有系统的语法增长模式的差异与语言的结果状态。

The overall purpose of this project is to improve the early identification of toddlers at-risk for Specific Language Impairment (SLI). The primary challenge for research in this area is the accurate differentiation of late-talking children who will demonstrate language normalization (i.e., late bloomers) from those children who will continue to show profiles consistent with a diagnosis of SLI. Although several variables have been identified as important factors in profiling "risk" for SLI (cf. Olswang, Rodriguez, and Timler, 1998), an early grammatical indicator of SLI during the toddler years has yet to be a primary focus of investigation. This is rather surprising given that a primary clinical marker of SLI in the preschool years is the non- mastery of grammatical tense marking (Rice and Wexler, 1996). Previously, Hadley and her colleagues have identified an early grammatical indicator worthy of further exploration (Hadley, 1998; Hadley, Reed, and Hernandez, 1998). Specifically, a plateau in grammatical development for verb-phrase structures co- occuring with typical or even accelerated patterns of noun phrase growth appears to differentiate these two groups of toddlers. The current project has two specific aims: (a) to replicate the asynchronous pattern of grammatical development in a new sample of toddlers at-risk for SLI, and (b) to determine if differential patterns of syntactic growth are systematically related to language outcomes status.