Language characteristics in Japanese children with specific language impairment

Abstract

The core problem in English-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) has been in morphosyntax. The prevalence rate in 5-year-olds is 7.4% (Tomblin et al., 1997). Language problem may be a life long deficit for these children. Since SLI theories have been developed mainly in reference to the Romance languages, cross-language comparisons would be useful. In our first study, children with possible SLI were identified by screening in kindergartens. Sentence comprehension tasks were administered to four groups of children: SLI, CA- and LA-matched controls, and MR children. The SLI children performed differently from the LA controls and MR children, supporting the information processing deficit hypothesis. Three SLI children, who were clinically diagnosed, were given comprehension and obsolete-word repetition tasks. These tasks successfully differentiated the SLI children from the language-age controls, indicating possible usefulness as diagnostic tools. The clinical implications for language delayed children were discussed in terms of 1) the fact that speaking words does not guarantee normal language for them, and 2) the need to carefully treat infants who are late talkers so as to prevent the secondary language-based disabilities.