Sentence processing factors in specific language impairment (SLI)

描述（由申请人提供）：涉及理解和模仿句子的任务可靠地将患有特殊语言障碍（SLI）的儿童和成人与典型的语言同龄人区分开来（condi - 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）。尽管在句子模仿作为一种诊断工具的有效性方面有令人信服的发现，但对于导致特殊语言障碍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在句子模仿表现中发挥作用的三个因素的作用，从而更好地理解为什么任务能有效地诊断特殊语言障碍，以及特殊语言障碍如何影响年轻人。该研究项目将包括对一组患有特殊语言障碍的年轻人与使用正常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，将评估作为参数的短语（如“Bob hit the ball”中的“the ball”）或作为修饰词的短语（如“Bob hit the ball over the fence”中的“over the fence”）的处理难度。参与者还将模仿在记忆要求和使用辅助成分或详细阐述成分方面有所不同的句子。对结果的分析将提供证据，证明患有特殊语言障碍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，正如最近一项关于特殊语言障碍病因的理论所预测的那样（Ullman & Pierpont, 2005）。这项研究还将表明，工作记忆、语言处理速度和辅助处理困难是否都对句子模仿的表现有贡献，以及每个因素对其他因素的综合影响程度。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): 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. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Specific language impairment (SLI) affects more than 7% of children in kindergarten and the condition persists into adulthood in over 70% of cases, with significant consequences for the educational, vocational and social well being of affected individuals. Sentence imitation performance is one of the most effective and widely used means of identifying individuals with SLI, but little is known about why it is so effective. This project aims to identify specific factors that may explain the poor sentence imitation performance of adults with SLI, indicating how the task can be refined for better diagnostic accuracy and clarifying what poor sentence imitation reveals about the nature of SLI.