Sentence processing factors in specific language impairment (SLI)

涉及句子的理解和模仿的任务可靠地将具有特定语言障碍（SLI）的儿童和成人与他们的典型语言同龄人区分开来（Conti-Ramsden，Botting，& Faragher，2001; Tomblin，Freese，& Records，1992），并广泛用于语言障碍的临床评估（Hammill，Brown，Larsen，& Wiederholt，1994; Semel，Wiig，& Secord，2003）。尽管令人信服的发现句子模仿作为一种诊断工具的有效性，很少有人知道的因素，在这个任务上的个人与SLI的性能差异。本研究的目的是指定的三个因素假设发挥作用的句子模仿性能的作用，导致更好地理解为什么任务有效地诊断SLI，以及SLI如何影响年轻人。 该研究计划将涉及一组SLI的年轻人与具有典型语言的年轻人的比较。实验任务将测量工作记忆和语言处理速度。在句子理解任务中，将评估作为论点（例如“Bob hit the ball”中的“the ball”）或论点（例如“Bob hit the ball over the fence”中的“over the fence”）的短语的处理难度程度。参与者还将模仿不同的记忆需求和使用的附加，或阐述，成分的句子。对结果的分析将为SLI患者是否具有相对完整的词汇系统和相对受损的句法加工系统提供证据，正如最近关于SLI原因的理论所预测的那样（Ullman & Pierpont，2005）。本研究还将表明，如果工作记忆，语言处理速度和附属处理困难，每个有助于句子模仿性能，以及在何种程度上，每个因素与其他因素相结合，有助于性能。

Tasks involving the comprehension and imitation of sentences have reliably distinguished children and adults with specific language impairment (SLI) from their typical language peers (Conti-Ramsden, Botting, & Faragher, 2001; Tomblin, Freese, & Records, 1992) and are widely used in clinical evaluations for language disorders (Hammill, Brown, Larsen, & Wiederholt, 1994; Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2003). Despite compelling findings on the effectiveness of sentence imitation as a diagnostic tool, little is known about the factors that underlie performance differences on this task for individuals with SLI. The aim of this research is to specify the role of three factors hypothesized to play a role in sentence imitation performance, leading to a better understanding of why the task effectively diagnoses SLI, and how SLI affects young adults. The research program will involve the comparison of a group of young adults with SLI to young adults with typical language. Experimental tasks will measure working memory and language processing speed. In a sentence comprehension task, the degree of processing difficulty for phrases that are either arguments (such as "the ball" in "Bob hit the ball") or adjuncts (such as "over the fence" in "Bob hit the ball over the fence") will be assessed. Participants will also imitate sentences that vary in memory demands and the use of adjunct, or elaborating, constituents. Analyses of the results will provide evidence on whether adults with SLI have relatively intact lexical systems and relatively impaired syntactic processing systems, as predicted by a recent theory on the causes of SLI (Ullman & Pierpont, 2005). The study will also indicate if working memory, language processing speed, and adjunct processing difficulties each contribute to sentence imitation performance, and the extent to which each factor contributes to performance in combination with the others.