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ERIC Number: EJ1303642
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-May
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1092-4388
EISSN: N/A
Comprehension of "Welcher"-Questions in German-Speaking Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder
Roesch, Anne Dorothée; Chondrogianni, Vasiliki
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, v64 n5 p1683-1695 May 2021
Purpose: This study examined whether monolingual German-speaking preschool children with developmental language disorder (DLD) were facilitated by the presence of case-marking cues in their interpretation of German subject and object "welcher" ("which")-questions, as reported for their typically developing peers. We also examined whether knowledge of case-marking and/or phonological working memory modulated children's ability to revise early assigned interpretations of ambiguous questions. Method: Sixty-three monolingual German-speaking children with and without DLD aged between 4;0 and 5;11 (years;months) participated in an offline picture selection task targeting the comprehension of "welcher"-questions in German. We manipulated question type (subject, object), case-marking transparency, and case-marking position within the question (sentence-initial/-final). Results: The typically developing children outperformed the children with DLD across conditions, and all children performed better on subject than on object "wh"-questions. Transparent and early cues elicited higher accuracy than late-arriving cues. For the DLD children, their working memory capacity explained their inability to revise early assigned interpretations to ambiguous questions, whereas their knowledge of case did not. Conclusions: The results suggest that disambiguating morphosyntactic cues can only partly facilitate comprehension of German "welcher"-questions in children with DLD, whose poor phonological working memory rather than their knowledge of case-marking mediates performance on these structures.
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. 2200 Research Blvd #250, Rockville, MD 20850. Tel: 301-296-5700; Fax: 301-296-8580; e-mail: slhr@asha.org; Web site: http://jslhr.pubs.asha.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Germany
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A