Sentence processing factors in specific language impairment (SLI)

涉及句子理解和模仿的任务已经可靠地将患有特定语言障碍(SLI)的儿童和成人与他们的典型语言同龄人区分开来(Conti-Ramsden，Boting，&Faragher，2001；Tomblin，Freese，&Records，1992)，并被广泛用于语言障碍的临床评估(Hamill，Brown，Larsen，&Wiederholt，1994；Semel，Wiig，&Secord，2003)。尽管句子模仿作为一种诊断工具的有效性得到了令人信服的发现，但人们对SLI患者在这项任务上表现差异的因素知之甚少。本研究的目的是明确假设的三个因素在句子模仿中的作用，从而更好地理解为什么该任务有效地诊断SLI，以及SLI是如何影响年轻人的。 这项研究计划将对一组患有SLI的年轻人和具有典型语言的年轻人进行比较。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，将评估短语的处理难度，这些短语既是论元(如“Bob Hit the Ball”中的“the ball”)，也是附加语(如“Bob Hit the Ball Over the Figure”中的“Over the First”)。参与者还将模仿记忆需求不同的句子，以及附加词或阐述成分的使用。对结果的分析将提供证据，证明SLI的成年人是否有相对完整的词汇系统和相对受损的句法处理系统，正如最近关于SLI原因的理论所预测的那样(Ullman&Pierpont，2005)。这项研究还将指出工作记忆、语言处理速度和附加加工困难是否分别对句子模仿成绩有贡献，以及每个因素与其他因素对成绩的贡献程度。

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.