EVALUATING GRAMMATICAL ASYNCHRONY IN CHILDREN WITH SLI

本项目的总体目的是提高对有特殊语言障碍风险的幼儿的早期识别。这一领域的研究面临的主要挑战是如何准确区分说话晚的儿童（即发育晚的儿童）和那些继续表现出与特殊语言障碍诊断相一致的特征的儿童。虽然有几个变量被认为是分析特殊语言障碍“风险”的重要因素（参见Olswang， Rodriguez, and Timler, 1998），但幼儿时期的特殊语言障碍早期语法指标尚未成为研究的主要焦点。这是相当令人惊讶的，因为学龄前特殊语言障碍的主要临床标志是不掌握语法时态标记（Rice and Wexler, 1996）。此前，Hadley和她的同事已经发现了一个值得进一步探索的早期语法指示符（Hadley, 1998; Hadley, Reed, and Hernandez, 1998）。具体来说，动词-短语结构的语法发展停滞不前与名词短语的典型甚至加速增长模式共同出现，这似乎是两组幼儿的区别。目前的项目有两个具体目标：(a)在一个新的有特殊语言障碍风险的幼儿样本中复制语法发展的异步模式；(b)确定语法发展的差异模式是否与语言结果状态有系统的关系。

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.