ERIC Number: EJ1004872
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013-Jan
Pages: 30
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-7164
EISSN: N/A
Real-Time Sentence Processing in Children with Specific Language Impairment: The Contribution of Lexicosemantic, Syntactic, and World-Knowledge Information
Pizzioli, Fabrizio; Schelstraete, Marie-Anne
Applied Psycholinguistics, v34 n1 p181-210 Jan 2013
The present study investigated how lexicosemantic information, syntactic information, and world knowledge are integrated in the course of oral sentence processing in children with specific language impairment (SLI) as compared to children with typical language development. A primed lexical-decision task was used where participants had to make a lexical decision on the last word of a sentence. Thirty-nine children were tested: 13 children with SLI, 13 younger children matched on receptive vocabulary, and 13 age-matched children. We manipulated (a) the semantic fit between the target and the prime sentence, (b) the syntactic structure of the prime (syntactic vs. asyntactic), and (c) the lexical association between the target word and the prime. Despite being slower overall, children with SLI showed a significant priming effect. Syntactic information had a similar impact on thematic integration in control children and children with SLI, although the latter were more sensitive to lexicosemantic association and world knowledge than control groups. In addition, children with SLI appeared to use semantic information even when the sentence was asyntactic. The results suggest thematic integration problems in SLI: syntactic and semantic information contribute independently to the thematic structure but are not integrated to generate the emerging higher order representation.
Descriptors: Syntax, Semantics, Language Impairments, Priming, Control Groups, Language Acquisition, Sentences, Language Processing, Vocabulary, Task Analysis, Decision Making, Correlation, Receptive Language, Psycholinguistics
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A