Specific Language Impairment (SLI) - Introduction

1. Specific Language Impairment (SLI) - Introduction 37-924-01 Theoretical Approaches to Specific Language Impairment (SLI) Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem Bar Ilan University

2. Clip

3. SLI - Definition A developmental language disorder characterized by Gleason (2001, p. 504) as involving ‘delayed or deviant language development in a child who exhibits no cognitive, neurological or social impairment’. Children with SLI show impaired language development from birth (with problems which may either disappear during childhood or persist into adulthood) with no hearing loss (no history of otitis media), no emotional and behavioral problems, no below average non-verbal IQ(>=85), no neurological problems, and no oral or facial defects (Tallal & Stark 1981). That is, they are normal in other aspects of their physical, mental and social development (Radford 2006).

4. SLI impact on child’s social world Normative children (NC) prefer talking to other NC rather than SLI children even at preschool level SLI children prefer to talk with adults SLI children have difficulty performing basic social tasks (e.g., accessing ongoing interaction) 8-12 year old SLI were rated by teachers as being less cooperative and less assertive; have fewer peer contact in school environment; and were less satisfied with peer social relationships

5. Sample 1

6. Sample 2

7. Major Issues • Frequency of SLI • Genetic basis of SLI • Neurological basis of SLI • Overall characteristics of SLI

8. Frequency In 5 year olds, SLI affects about 2 children in every classroom (about 7%). It is more common in boys than girls.

9. Genetic basis of SLI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnlGvcDIiHw

10. Neurological basis of SLI Hugdahl et al. 2004. fMRI Brain Activation in a Finnish Family With Specific Language Impairment Compared With a Normal Control Group. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research Vol.47 162-172

11. From abstract Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)was used to monitor changes in neuronal activation in temporaland frontal lobe areas 5 Finnish family members with specificlanguage impairment (SLI) and 6 individuals in an intact controlgroup. Magnetic resonance (MR) image acquisitions were madewhile the participants listened to series of isolated vowelsounds, pseudowords, and real words. The results showedsignificant differences between the family with SLI and theintact control group with regard to brain activation in areasin the temporal and frontal lobes. Temporal lobe activationdifferences were most pronounced in the middle temporal gyrusbordering the superior temporal sulcus. The control participantsalso activated an area in the inferior frontal lobe in BA 44. Individuals with SLI showed reduced activationin brain areas that are critical for speech processing and phonologicalawareness. The present functional brain imaging data fit wellwith other recent imaging data that also showed structural abnormalitiesin the same and neighboring areas.

12. Sentences produced by children with SLI (Radford 2006) Sentences produced by the SLI children in the Leonard files on thechildes data-base.

13. Expressive vs. receptive deficit • SLI children typically show some (or all) of the following types of impairment: • Phonological (e.g. problems with consonant clusters and syllable-final consonants) • Lexical (delayed acquisition of words – e.g. first word appears around 23 months in SLI children, but around 11 months in TD children; SLI children also have word-finding problems) • Semantic (problems in determining the linguistic meaning of words, phrases and sentences, and understanding the meaning of metaphors) • Grammatical (e.g. problems with affixes/inflections and articles/particles, complex syntax) • Pragmatic (e.g. problems in the use of language in appropriate contexts) • Reading problems

14. Delay versus Deviance Delay: Protracted acquisition of language, following typical developmental pattern. Deviance: Different developmental sequences and processes. • Delay • Plateau • Profile differences • Abnormal frequency of errors • Qualitative difference

15. SLI – Accounts: Competence vs. performance 37-924-01 Theoretical Approaches to Specific Language Impairment (SLI) Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem Bar Ilan University

16. Possible accounts • Competence or performance? • Impairment in the language mechanism vs. impairment in language processing aptitude? • Impairment in language processing vs. impairment in processing?

17. Domain General Accounts (Not language specific)

18. Auditory (temporal processing) deficit hypothesis Merzenich, M. Jenkins, W., Johnston, P., S., Schreiner, C., Miller, S. L. & Tallal, P., (1996) Temporal Processing Deficits of Language-Learning Impaired Children Ameliorated by Training, Science, v. 271, p. 77-81. (=Fast ForWord) • Task: discriminate between speech stimuli -six syllable contrasts ([ba] versus [da], [da] versus [ta], [ε] versus [ae], [dab] versus [daeb], [sa] versus [sta] and [sa] versus [sha]). • Findings: • LI group made most errors discriminating syllables which were differentiated by consonants and fewest errors on those differentiated by vowels. • The LI group was significantly poorer than the normal in discriminating all syllables that incorporated brief temporal cues followed rapidly in succession by other acoustic cues. • They also were impaired in discriminating [sa] versus [sha]. • They were unimpaired discriminating stimuli differentiated by vowels.

19. Perceptual Deficit Model Leonard, L. B.1989. Language learnability and specific language impairment in children. Applied Psycholinguistics 10: 179-202 • Following the sonority scale (Srlkirk 1984), Leonard proposes that SLI is an Auditory Perceptual Deficit: • Vowels and diphthongs are easier to perceive than consonants (and consonants are particularly difficult to perceive when occurring in clusters of two or more successive consonants) • Stressed vowels are easier to perceive than unstressed vowels, long vowels and diphthongs are easier than short vowels, and full vowels are easier than reduced vowels

20. Percentage correct probes and spontaneous speech (Rice & Wexler 1995) What would be the predictions for Hebrew?

21. SLI in Hebrew monolinguals Dromi et al. (1993, 1999) • Predictions: With verbal morphology so central in Hebrew, a Semitic language, it was predicted that • a very few inflections, if any, would pose a problem for children with SLI. • inflections which carry more features would be more difficult than those which carry fewer features with errors that show a simpler feature complex. • Method: Hebrew speaking children with SLI, ages 4-6, using a sentence completion task and enactments.

22. Findings • Sentence completion: while monolingual children with TLD scored at ceiling, children with SLI showed 80% success when one feature was involved, but hardly ever produce the target morpheme which represented two features (fem. pl.). • Enactment: while monolingual children with TLD scored at ceiling, children with SLI showed 80% success when one feature was involved, but only 60% success when two features (person and gender) were involved. • While in English most errors are omissions, in Hebrew most errors are substitutions in which a morpheme which marks just one feature was used to replace a morpheme which marks two features

26. Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH) Ullman, M.T. & Pierpont, E.I. 2005. Specific Language Impairment is not Specific to Language: The Procedural Deficit Hypothesis. Cortex 41, 399-433. "SLI can be largely explained by the abnormal development of brain structures that constitute the procedural memory system.” • Procedural memory: “mental grammar”, syntax, some morphology • Declarative memory: “mental lexicon”, vocabulary, idioms, irregular past-tense forms

27. PROCEDURAL MEMORY SYSTEM: DEFINITION • Brain system involved in “procedural memory” • Learning new and controlling established motor and cognitive skills, habits, and other procedures • E.g. typing, riding a bike, skilled game playing • Aspects of rule-learning • Learning and performing skills involving sequences • Includes system involved in learning, representation, and use of procedural memory

28. PROCEDURAL SYSTEM: CHARACTERISTICS • Gradual acquisition of procedures • Learning occurs with practice, over time • Rapid, automatic application • “Implicit Memory System”

29. a network of interconnected structures rooted in frontal/basal-ganglia circuits, subserves the learning and execution of motor and cognitive skills. • recent evidence implicates that this system is important for specific aspects of grammar • a significant proportion of individuals with SLI suffer from abnormalities of this brain network, leading to impairments of the linguistic and non-linguistic functions that depend on it • grammatical and lexical retrieval deficits are strongly linked to dysfunctions of the basal ganglia (BG), and of the frontal cortex, esp. Broca’s area

30. Domain (Language (Grammar)) Specific Accounts

31. Feature Deficit Model Gopnik, M. 1990. Feature blindness: A case study. Language Acquisition 1: 139-164 • Due to a genetic deficit SLI children do not have grammatical (syntactic-semantic) features in their grammar. This is a global deficit.

32. Bilingual SLI sample - English • *EXP: what’s Maugli doing? • *YON: walking in in near the trees. • *EXP: here is a… panther • *YON: have a doll. • *EXP: the panther has a … you are right … but the panther has a… • *YON: a doll • *EXP: and what’s the panther doing? • *YON: looking for the wolves. • *EXP: and then, what is Maugli doing now? • *YON: playing on stairs. • *EXP: what’s he playing with? • *YON: bears and coconuts. • *EXP: what’s he doing with the coconuts? • *YON: try to get it. • *EXP: and who else do we have? • *YON: a a a tiger and a snake. • *EXP: oh oh. what’s the panther doing? • *YON: ask where the kid is. • *EXP: you think he is asking them where the kid is.

33. *EXP: but then what happened to the panther? *YON: asleep. *EXP: and when he was asleep? *YON: he run away. *EXP: he ran away. *EXP: who found him? *YON: the monkeys. *EXP: oh gosh, what are they doing to Maugli? *YON: picking him up. *YON: then they’re almost holding. *EXP: what did he do with these? *YON: throwed him. *EXP: he threw them? *EXP: what are they these? *YON: bananas. *EXP: who eats the bananas? *YON: monkeys.

34. *YON: the tiger. • *EXP: do you think they’re friends? • *YON: no. • *YON: he plans fire. • *EXP: he put fire on him. • *EXP: and is he scared? • *YON: yeah. • *EXP: yeah so what’s he doing? • *YON: running away. • *EXP: oh gosh he’s running away. • *EXP: then he found a girl playing by the water. • *YON: yeah. • *EXP: and where’s he? • *YON: in a tree. • *EXP: yeah. • *EXP: and now…? • *YON: going together. • *EXP: they’re going together to…? • *YON: the house.

35. Rule Deficit Model Gopnik M & Crago MB. 1991. Familial aggregation of a developmental disorder. Cognition 39: 1-50 • Studying three generations of a family in London, Gopnik & Cargo concluded that they have the same syntactic abilities as MLU matched controls, but could not generate morphological rules (due to genetic failure of the dual mechanism of morphological acquisition).

36. Bishop (1994) - A study of 12 SLI children ranging in age from 8;2 to 12;11 • Took it off (in reply to ‘What did they do with the top part of the pram?’) • It take me a long time (in reply to ‘Did it take you a long time to get better?) • And then Mummy taked to the garage to xxx • He falled in (in reply to ‘What did Andrew do when the ice gave way?’) • He sawed mine brother (in reply to ‘Has the doctor ever been to see you?’) • The car has broked down

37. Agreement Deficit Model Clahsen H, Bartke S and Göllner S. 1997. Formal features in impaired grammars: a comparison of English and German SLI children. Journal of Neurolinguistics 10: 151-171 • Findings: • Past tense - 76% of main verbs and 89% of auxiliaries • 3Sg present tense - 49% of main verbs and 35% of auxiliaries • SLI children have problems with acquiring uninterpretable features, which make no contribution to the meaning of the sentence (semantically redundant), e.g., agreement features. >> Tsimpli and Stavrakaki (1999) and Tsimpli (2001) - Uninterpretable Feature Deficit Model

38. Contexts for 3rd person auxiliaries in the corpus of Clahsen, Bartke and Göllner (from Radford 2006) - how do these examples support their claim? Contexts where adults would use a third person singular present form of the progressive auxiliary be 22. And boy picking ’em up (JW 11;03) 23. He jumping over a gate (WL 11;05). 24. Apples fallen out on the boy who pinching them (JW 11;03) 25. The man taking the cat down on the ground (AZ11 12;03) 26. The dog taking slipper off him (AZ11 12;03) 27. Her hugging it (CT 13;11)

39. Contexts where adults would use a third person singular present form of the perfect auxiliary have 35. She sometimes buy stuff and then paint it what haven’t got coat of paint on it (RJ 11;11) 36. He been tied on (AZ12 13;0)

40. Contexts where adults would use a third person singular present form of the tense auxiliary do 37. He don’t know (JW 10;3) 38. He don’t get hungry (JW 10;03) 39. What, when he don’t go to work? (JW 10;03) 40. And the bus don’t take no notice (AZ11 10;3) 41. And he don’t know how to (RJ 10;11) 42. He don’t know how to put his brakes on (AZ12 11;0)

41. Agreement-and-Tense-Omission Model (Extended Optional Infinitives) Wexler K, Schütze C & Rice M (1998) ‘Subject case in children with SLI and unaffected controls: Evidence for the Agr/Tns Omission Model’, Language Acquisition 7: 317-344 • TD children omit either TNS or AGR or neither up to the age of 3. In SLI children this is extended until the age of 7-8.

42. Schutze & Wexler (1996): AGR/TNS omission model (ATOM) • Non-nominative case on subjects used at the optional infinitive-stage will be largely with non-finite verbs • Only 5% of finite verbs take a non-nominative subjects, whereas 46% of non-finite verbs take a non-nominative subject. • Non-nominative is the default case. (Test: “Who wants ice-cream?”)

43. a) AGR or TNS or both may be deleted b) AGR assigns NOM. If no AGR, subject gets default case c) Default case in English is ACC • AGR checks 3rd person singular morphology Him goes is not attested because there is a contradiction between the verb morphology and the case on the subject.

44. Agreement-and-Tense-Omission Model (Extended Optional Infinitives) אורית 6:3 • רותי: פעם אחת.... • הילד אכל והילדה אכלה ואמא שטפה את הכלים והחתול הוא ישן. • ופתאום שאמא שטפה את הכלים החתולה קם וראה את הדבורה והוא רצה לאכול את הדבורה. • ואחרי זה החתולה בא לאכול את הדבורה והדבורה הלך כי החתולה רץ אחריו. • והם שטפו את החתולה במים באמבטיה. • ואחר כך [טעם על המילה "אחר"] הם שמו לחתולה אה.... (רותי: סרט).

45. דודי 6:7 • רותי: פעם אחת.... • היה ילד וילדה אוכלים • והיה דבורה • ואז החתול הלך לדבורה • ופתאום החתול הלך על המרק • ואמא והילד והילדה הם מנקות את החתול באמבטיה • והם שמו לחתול סרט.

46. Is the sensitivity of the tense and agreement unique to SLI?

47. Agrammatism - Fridemann & Grodzinsky (1997) "This paper discusses the description of agrammatic production focusing on the verbal inflectional morphology. Agrammatism in Hebrew is investigated through an experiment with a patient who displays a highly selective impairment: agreement inflection is completely intact, but tense inflection, use of copula, and embedded structures are severely impaired. A retrospective examination of the literature shows that our findings are corroborated by others. A selective account of the agrammatic production deficiency is proposed, according to which only a subclass of the functional syntactic categories is impaired in this syndrome. The consequence of this deficit is the pruning of the syntactic phrase marker of agrammatic patients, which impairs performance from the impaired node and higher. These findings also bear upon central issues in linguistic theories, particularly that of Pollock (1989), regarding split inflection."

48. (1) ha’ish roce levashel, az hu lokeax sir ve bishel. the-man wants to-cook, so he takes(3sg-M-pr.) pot and cooked(3sg-Mpast) (2) axshav ata holex. etmol ata telex. Now you(2sg-M) go(2sg-M-pr.). Yesterday you will-go(2sg-M-fut.) (3) Maxar dani haya ba-yam Tomorrow Danny was in-the-sea

49. Is SLI only about tense and agreement?

50. Scheaffer at al 2003 • In children with SLI (14 Subjects: 3;11-4;10), pragmatic principles develop normally as a function of age, rather than as a function of grammar developmental stage. • Grammatically, 4-year old children with SLI make errors comparable to younger normally developing children.