Analysis of the questions asked by normal children suggests that there are cognitive stages of question development. Samples of spontaneous questions asked by normal children and linguistically deviant children were compared in this study in order to determine if linguistically deviant (aphasic) children suffer primarily from a syntactic impairment. If this were so, the questions asked by a deviant group matched to a normal group on a syntactic measure would not show the same cognitive stages if the aphasic children were all significantly older than the normal children. The results of this study indicate, however, that the asphasic children do show the same cognitive stages and suggest that aphasia in children is not simply a syntactic impairment, but a cognitive deficiency in those features of cognition that are prerequisites for language learning. (Author/PMP)