At the Intersection of Cognition and Grammar: Deficits Comprehending Counterfactuals in Turkish Children with Specific Language Impairment

Autor/inn/en	Duman, Tuba Yarbay; Blom, Elma; Topbas, Seyhun
Titel	At the Intersection of Cognition and Grammar: Deficits Comprehending Counterfactuals in Turkish Children with Specific Language Impairment
Quelle	In: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 58 (2015) 2, S.410-421 (12 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1092-4388
DOI	10.1044/2015_JSLHR-L-14-0054
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Language Impairments; Children; Comprehension; Comparative Analysis; Cognitive Ability; Sentences; Repetition; Syntax; Morphology (Languages); Cognitive Processes; Turkey + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Speech disorder; Speech disorders; Speech disabilities; Speech disability; Speech handicap; Speech handicaps; Speech impairment; Speech impairments; Language handicaps; Sprachbehinderung; Child; Kind; Kinder; Verstehen; Verständnis; Denkfähigkeit; Sentence analysis; Satzanalyse; Wiederholung; Morphology; Morphologie; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Türkei
Abstract	Purpose: This study investigated the comprehension of counterfactual conditionals in monolingual Turkish children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing (TD) children. Comprehending counterfactuals requires a well-developed cognitive system (Beck, Riggs, & Gorniak, 2009). Children with SLI have impaired cognitive functioning (Im-Bolter, Johnston, & Pascual-Leone, 2006), which affects their ability to comprehend counterfactuals. Method: The sample consisted of 13 children (9 boys, 4 girls) with SLI who were matched in age and nonverbal intelligence with 13 TD children (8 boys, 5 girls; mean age 6;9 [years; months] for both groups). Each group completed a sentence comprehension and repetition task with 3 sentence conditions: nonconditional, factual, and counterfactual. Nonconditionals did not have "if"-embedding, whereas factual and counterfactual conditionals were morphosyntactically equivalent "if"-clauses, but only the latter was cognitively complex. Results: Conditionals were more difficult to comprehend than nonconditionals for both groups. Counterfactuals were more difficult to comprehend than the morphosyntactically equivalent factual counterparts for the SLI group. There was no discrepancy between the groups for repetition of counterfactuals and factuals. Conclusions: Children with SLI have difficulty processing counterfactuals due to morphosyntactic complexity (if-embedding) and the cognitive processes involved in comprehending counterfactuals. This indicates that cognitive complexity adds to sentence comprehension deficits in SLI. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01