Susan Ebbels|Julie Dockrell|Heather K. J. van der Lely
Non?word repetition in adolescents with specific language impairment (SLI)
University College London|UCLouvain|Harvard University
nonword repetition nwr difficulties common universal among children specific language impairment sli however older children adolescents sli rarely studied studies disagree relationship nwr difficulties difficulties areas language literacy also consensus underlying reason difficulties children sli nwr scholars argue difficulties phonological shortterm memory storage cause nwr language difficulties whereas others argue difficulties nwr may due difficulties phonological representationsto investigate nwr abilities relationship language literacy abilities group older children sli typically developing controls investigate relative effects increasing phonological complexity number syllables ability participants repeat nonwordsan nwr test test phonological structure tophs systematically varies phonological complexity administered 15 participants sli aged 1115 years 30 language 15 age controls standardized language literacy tests specific test verb agreement tense marking verb agreement tense test vatt also administeredthe participants sli showed bimodal distribution half achieved ageappropriate nwr half scored significantly language age controls 7 two groups participants sli high versus low scorers differed nwr 5 agreement 3 tense marking 25 standardized language literacy measures administered nwr also highly correlated verb agreement r 097 tense marking r 089 among participants sli among controls r 016 030 respectively phonological complexity related nwr accuracy particularly among participants sli number syllables independent effect nwr performance groupsome children sli good nwr language difficulties unrelated factors underlying nwr others probably additional deficit affects nwr also leads greater difficulties verb agreement tense marking results indicate difficulties particular nwr test likely due deficit phonology per se rather phonological shortterm memory storage