Sentence repetition in Norwegian children with developmental language disorder: An investigation of morphosyntax

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Sentence repetition in Norwegian children with developmental

language disorder

An investigation of morphosyntax

Emily Wanda Williams

Master Thesis in Special Needs Education Institute of Special Needs Education

Faculty of Educational Sciences UNIVERSITY OF OSLO

14 June 2019

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Sentence repetition in Norwegian children with developmental language disorder:

An investigation of morphosyntax

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Sentence repetition in Norwegian children with developmental language disorder: An investigation of morphosyntax

Emily Wanda Williams http://www.duo.uio.no/

Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo

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Abstract

Background and rationale

Sentence repetition (SR) has been shown to be a particular weakness for children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and a tool with good diagnostic accuracy. Previous studies have investigated its usefulness for investigating the morphosyntactic abilities of children with DLD through various methods of qualitative error analysis. Morphosyntactic complexity has been defined in different ways in previous studies, and the question remains as to whether there exists any universal definition of grammatical complexity that could be useful in identifying and treating children with DLD. In addition, we know very little about the particular morphosyntactic difficulties of Norwegian-speaking children with DLD. Based on this rationale, the current study will examine the following research question: What can close examination of the CELF-4 Recalling Sentences subtest tell us about the

morphosyntactic abilities of Norwegian children with DLD? To operationalize the concept of morphosyntactic complexity, I used the framework of Processability Theory (Pienemann, 1998a, 1998b, 2015), a universal hierarchy for the acquisition of language processing procedures.

Method

A group of Norwegian children with DLD (N=21) and an age- and NVIQ-matched control group of typically developing children (N=21) completed the CELF-4 Recalling Sentences subtest. Their responses were transcribed, and errors were coded and counted. The method was a quantitative and qualitative error analysis of the children’s responses to the SR task.

Analyses

Quantitative differences between the two groups were analyzed through inferential statistical tests of significance. Frequency analyses were conducted to examine differences in error types. Lastly, I conducted some qualitative linguistic analyses of the children’s responses within the framework of Processability Theory.

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V Results & conclusions

The results showed a significant difference in overall performance on the SR task between the DLD group and the TD control group, with the DLD group giving less accurate repetitions on all sentences and on all measures of accuracy. In addition, we found evidence of an effect of morphosyntactic complexity, as defined within the framework of Processability Theory, on the performance of the children with DLD. Further examination of the children’s responses indicated that the Norwegian children with DLD had more difficulties at the higher levels of processing complexity, particularly with a sentence involving a subordinate clause with adverbial. More research is needed to strengthen and nuance the findings of this study.

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VI

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VII

Preface

I should begin by expressing my gratitude to the group of researchers in the project

“Examining speech recognition, language skills and quality of life of individuals with cochlear implant (CI), hearing aid, language disorder and typically developing children”

(Undersøkelse av taleoppfattelse, språkferdigheter og livskvalitet hos personer med cochleaimplantat (CI), høreapparat, språkvansker og typisk utvikling) at the Institute for Special Needs Education (ISP) at the University of Oslo, for welcoming my involvement in the project facilitating the use of their data in my thesis.

I wish to extend my deepest appreciation and thanks to my advisor within the project, Professor Janne von Koss Torkildsen. Throughout the process of planning and writing my thesis she was always available to answer my questions, to offer academic and personal guidance, and to cheer me on. I was also fortunate enough to have Professor emerita Gisela Håkansson (Lund University) as my second advisor. Not only do they both possess an incredible amount of knowledge and expertise within their fields, but they have consistently been gracious and encouraging of my humble contribution to the research. Their excitement about my project has been a huge source of motivation.

Thank you also to my friends and classmates in the program who have offered me support and kept me company throughout the process. Lastly, I wish to acknowledge my family for their support and love. My wonderful parents, for invaluable help with proofreading, and emotional support. I want to thank my husband Vegard for always believing in me and for supporting me unconditionally during the process of completing my master’s degree. Thank you to my daughter Heidi, who does not know the details of what I do at school, but keeps me motivated by giving me the special kind of unconditional love and affection that only a toddler can provide.

Lastly, thank you to the person reading this. I hope you will learn something new.

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VIII

1 Introduction

1.1 Purpose

The purpose of the current study is to investigate and compare the morphosyntactic abilities of Norwegian-speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and a matched control group of typically developing children by studying their responses to a sentence repetition task. The errors will be measured using a systematic method of counting deviations between the child’s response and the target sentence, and categorizing the errors based on grammatical function. I will also investigate the use of the Processability Theory (PT;

Pienemann, 1998a, 1998b, 2015) framework as a means of measuring the level of morphosyntactic complexity in the target sentences and in the children’s responses. In comparing sentences of the same length at varying levels of complexity, I will examine differences the group-level.

1.2 Possible implications

This study has the potential to add to our understanding of sentence repetition (SR) tasks as a tool for measuring linguistic ability, especially as it applies to children with developmental language disorder. The results can improve our knowledge of how morphosyntactic

complexity can pose challenges for children with DLD in a task such as SR, and they add novel information about Norwegian-speaking children. In addition, the study will demonstrate how the concept of morphosyntactic complexity can be operationalized through a universal theory of the development of language processing routines, Processability Theory

(Pienemann, 1998a, 1998b, 2015). This will add a developmental perspective to the study of the language of children with DLD, rather than focus on specific deficits. PT also has the advantage of already having been demonstrated in Swedish children with DLD (Håkansson, 2001, 2005). Since this study investigates a clinically-relevant population of children and their performance on a well-known language assessment, the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, Fourth Edition (CELF-4; Semel, Wiig & Secord, 2003), it is hoped that clinicians will also find the study informative and that it can add to their knowledge of assessing language in children with a language disorder.

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2 Theory

2.1 What is developmental language disorder?

2.1.1 Definition and terminology

Child language acquisition is often viewed as a universal and robust developmental process that occurs without the help of explicit instruction, provided there is an adequate level of input. The inner mechanisms driving this development are in large part not yet fully

understood, and there is both evidence and disagreement over the roles of various factors we know to have an effect on language acquisition, such as neurobiological development, input, learning, and socialization (Shatz, 2009). Another dimension to our understanding of child language acquisition is the fact that some children have significant difficulties acquiring their first language without any obvious neurobiological or environmental basis. They have normal hearing, show no evidence of neurological damage, and do not meet the diagnostic criteria for other developmental disorders associated with language impairment, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or mental disability. The most common term applied to these children has been specific language impairment (SLI; e.g. Leonard, 2014a), though the term

developmental language disorder (DLD; e.g. Bishop, 2017) has been recommended as a replacement for SLI. In this paper I will prefer the use of DLD – the reasons for which are stated further down. Earlier terminology has included developmental aphasia, dysphasia, primary language impairment, and more generally, language impairment (Leonard, 2014a).

The prevalence of this type of language difficulty is estimated to be approximately 3% to 7%

of the population depending on diagnostic criteria (Tomblin, Records, Buckwalter & Zhang, 1997; Norbury et al., 2016). In a very practical sense this means that in a school class of thirty-some children, a teacher could expect to meet one or two children with a developmental language disorder. Despite this, DLD is a far lesser-known condition amongst both clinicians and the general public than other developmental disorders such as dyslexia or ASD – the latter having a much lower prevalence than DLD (Kamhi, 2004). Bishop (2017) suggests this is in part a result of inconsistent terminology, definitions and diagnostic criteria. With the aim of yielding a professional consensus on the definition and terminology applied to childhood language disorders, Bishop and colleagues (Bishop, Snowling, Thompson, Greenhalgh & the

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3 CATALISE Consortium, 2016; Bishop, Snowling, Thompson, Greenhalgh & the

CATALISE-2 Consortium, 2017) asked a panel of experts to respond to a set of statements on appropriate identification criteria and terminology for children with language disorders

including specific language impairment. Firstly, the panel agreed that reasons for referral to a specialist could be concerns about the speech, language or communicative abilities of the child expressed by caregivers, teachers or healthcare professionals (Bishop et al., 2017), representing a broad view of the clinical picture of a child with DLD. Assessment of these children, according to the panel, should draw from multiple sources including direct observation, interviews with caregivers and standardized, age-appropriate language tests (Bishop et al., 2017). In general, the panel emphasized assessing the functional impact of the language disorder on the child’s daily activities, rather than relying solely on test scores or an arbitrary cut-off to determine whether or not a language disorder is present.

The conclusions of the CATALISE study were not a complete departure from the established practice; however, criteria for SLI often required a certain discrepancy between nonverbal abilities and language abilities, and/or a lower cut-off of at least 85 on a test of nonverbal abilities (Leonard, 2014a). Children could therefore be excluded from the diagnosis if their lower-than-average language abilities were accompanied by a lower-than-average nonverbal IQ (NVIQ) score. Exclusion from a diagnosis can often mean exclusion from treatment, and this is not only unfortunate; it is also not supported by research findings (Norbury et al., 2016). There is no evidence that speech-language therapy is effective only for children with a large discrepancy between language skills and nonverbal abilities, nor is there evidence that children with low-average nonverbal abilities cannot benefit from clinical language

intervention (Cole, Dale & Mills, 1990; Bowyer-Crane, Snowling, Duff & Hulme, 2011).

Citing these and other studies, Bishop et al. (2016, 2017) did not support using NVIQ as an exclusionary criterion for the diagnosis of a developmental language disorder.

Another outcome of the CATALISE study was the recommendation that the term “specific language impairment” be replaced with “developmental language disorder” (Bishop et al., 2016, 2017; Bishop, 2017). The more general term “language disorder” was defined as childhood language problems enduring into the school years and beyond, with “a significant impact on everyday social interactions or educational progress” (Bishop et al., 2017, p. 3-4).

The term DLD should be used, according to the panel, when such a language disorder occurs where there is no known biomedical condition which could explain it in part or fully.

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Incidentally, a research project based on CATALISE is underway in Norway to determine appropriate terminology in Norwegian (CATALISE Norge, 2019). Until now, Norwegian educators have generally used the terms språkvansker, “language difficulties” or spesifikke språkvansker (SSV), “specific language difficulties,” when referring to these children. This study will use the term DLD when referring to children with an unexplained delay or disorder in acquiring their first language, in support of the revised terminology and criteria proposed by Bishop et al. (2016, 2017). Nevertheless, in some cases SLI or simply “language

impairment” will be used interchangeably, acknowledging that much research up until recently has employed these terms when referring to children with DLD.

The question remains, however, as to whether the condition of DLD truly represents a separate category: a diagnosis for which we can eventually hope to identify the exact neurobiological basis. Although it seems highly likely that there is a genetic component to DLD, based on evidence from twin studies (Tomblin & Buckwalter, 1998) and molecular genetics (SLI Consortium, 2004; Newbury & Monaco, 2008), researchers have as yet not been able to determine a universal “cut-off” that would distinguish children with DLD from children at the low end of normal variation in language ability (Bishop, 2017; Leonard, 2014b). To the contrary, the available evidence seems to imply that children with DLD in fact

“fall on the weak end of a language ability continuum” (Leonard, 2014b, p. 45). This

statement notwithstanding, the debate continues in speech and language research fields as to whether a developmental language disorder mainly represents a quantitative delay compared to the normal developmental pattern, or whether the language development of children with DLD is qualitatively different – deviant from normal development – in ways that could guide diagnosis and treatment (Baird, 2008).

The current study will investigate both quantitative and qualitative differences between Norwegian-speaking children with DLD and typically developing children, but is too limited to attempt to respond to this question in a general sense. However, regardless of whether DLD is better characterized as language delay or as an abnormal path of language development, the fact remains that these children can experience difficulties which can follow them throughout their school years and beyond, impacting quality of life. This is reason enough to continue conducting research which could help us improve guidelines for assessment and treatment of this condition. DLD is most often diagnosed during the preschool years, and despite the relative success of language intervention, many children may never achieve age-appropriate

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5 language skills (Leonard, 2014a). Children with DLD, particularly those with more severe difficulties, will often experience long-lasting problems with communication which continue to affect them into their adolescent and adult lives. Children whose language difficulties persist into their school years are more vulnerable to mental health problems in adolescence and adulthood (Snowling, Bishop, Stothard, Chipcase & Kaplan, 2006; Conti-Ramsden, Mok, Pickles & Durkin, 2013). The demands placed on oral and written communication are only increasing in our current information-based society, and as such we could expect childhood language and communication difficulties to impact the well-being and future success of these children to an even greater extent than previously (Tomblin, 2019). It is therefore imperative to gain more accurate knowledge of the nature and causes of DLD, with the hope that this should lead to better practices in individual treatment as well as in school settings.

2.1.2 Classification and subtypes of developmental language disorder

As mentioned previously, differences in language ability between children with DLD and typically developing children seem mainly to be quantitative rather than qualitative; that is, it is the magnitude of the differences, not the nature of the differences, which seems to

distinguish them. Nevertheless, researchers continue to search for defining characteristics and/or subtypes of DLD, with the aim of providing information that could improve accuracy in assessment and clarify targets for language intervention.

Previous research on childhood language disorders has often attempted to identify subtypes of DLD. One common distinction is reflected in the ICD-11 subtypes of developmental language disorder, two of which are developmental language disorder with impairment of receptive and expressive language or with impairment of mainly expressive language (World Health

Organization, 2019). Despite this division, Tomblin (2019) points out in a summary of the literature that numerous studies have found no evidence for a separation of expressive and receptive language abilities; on the contrary, their findings point to a single latent trait of language underlying the various measures of vocabulary and sentence use (Tomblin & Zhang, 2006). This is of no little importance to studies on sentence repetition tasks, such as the

current study, as sentence imitation represents a complex interplay of expressive and receptive language mechanisms, as well as other mechanisms related to recall (e.g. Klem et al., 2015).

In summary, there appears not to be a compelling reason to separate expressive and receptive

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language abilities when considering subtypes of children with DLD. Speech sound disorders and fluency disorders are considered distinct conditions from DLD, both within the ICD-11 definition and supported by a wide body of research (e.g. Webb, 2017; Leonard, 2014a). This is reflected in the current study by the fact that fluency problems (such as stuttering and/or repetition of sounds, syllables and words) and phonological errors were disregarded when analyzing the responses of the children with and without DLD to the sentence recall task.

2.1.3 Markers of developmental language disorder

Despite the heterogeneity of children with developmental language disorder, researchers have over the years developed a number of theories regarding specific linguistic or cognitive deficits that seem to be representative of this population. There has been a considerable amount of research dedicated to identifying markers for the condition of DLD, whether

“marker” is meant as a defining, underlying deficit or as a clinical marker to be used in screening and assessment.

In his summary of the research into defining characteristics of DLD, Leonard (2014a; 2014c) draws two broad categories: 1) grammatical computation difficulties and 2) special weakness in phonological STM. Evidence from twins studies suggests that these two difficulties

represent heritable traits of DLD (Bishop, Adams & Norbury, 2006). These proposed defining characteristics are reflected in the most commonly proposed clinical markers for DLD (e.g.

Tomblin, 2019): 1) nonword repetition, which is generally assumed to test the phonological STM, 2) special difficulties with morphosyntax, especially tense and agreement markers, and 3) sentence repetition, which as will be discussed in detail further down, seems to reflect abilities and difficulties in both morphosyntax and STM.

2.1.4 The nature of the disorder and cross-linguistic aspects As mentioned earlier, one important unanswered question regarding children with DLD is whether the condition of DLD represents mainly a language delay or a different path of language development than that seen in typically developing (TD) children. In his summary of the research, Leonard (2014a) implies that both are theoretically plausible, although there seems to be more evidence in support of the characterization of children with DLD simply being at the lower extreme of variation in normal language ability (Leonard, 2014b). In support of the language delay theory, a wealth of studies and clinical observations suggest

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7 that children with DLD are generally weaker than their same-age TD peers in every area of language that has been examined; furthermore, the nature of errors observed generally

resemble those seen in younger TD children (Leonard, 2014a). However, if one delves further into the research on relative strengths and weaknesses of children with DLD, a different pattern emerges. Although children with DLD have been shown to have weaknesses in many if not all areas of language studied, it also appears that there may be some qualitative

differences between children with DLD and their TD peers: children with DLD seem to have a particular weakness in morphosyntactic abilities as opposed to lexical and pragmatic skills, and it could appear that they have more difficulties with certain aspects of morphosyntax – such as tense/agreement and relative clauses – than others (Leonard, 2014a; Leonard, 2019).

One issue with research identifying these specific “vulnerable” structures, however, is that cross-linguistic studies indicate that there are salient differences across languages with regard to which structures appear most problematic for children with DLD (Leonard, 2009).

Rather than pointing to a single, universal language-related deficit, cross-linguistic studies of DLD in children have demonstrated that “the relative strengths and weaknesses of children with SLI were influenced by the characteristics of the ambient language” (Leonard, 2014c, p.

2). In other words, those features of a language which are most difficult to acquire for young, typically developing children, will pose a dramatic learning challenge for children with DLD.

This is more evidence for the view of DLD as an “extreme variation in the same factors that influence language learning in all children” (Leonard, 2014c, p. 2).

Processability Theory, which will be elaborated on further down, provides an interesting opportunity to study the system of morphosyntax as a whole as it applies to language acquisition and development in children with DLD, since it is concerned not with particular grammatical structures, but with the “requirements of grammatical processability that underlie them” (Håkansson, 2016, p. 66).

Linguistic characteristics of DLD in Scandinavian languages

In general, problems with morphosyntax seem to be the most common for language-impaired children speaking Scandinavian languages (Leonard, 2014a; Leonard, 2014c), although there are some key differences between findings of morphosyntactic difficulties of English-

speaking children with DLD and those of Scandinavian children with DLD. It has been suggested that the single grammatical structure presenting the most difficulty for children

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with DLD in Germanic languages (which includes the Scandinavian languages) is the verb- second rule (Leonard, 2014c). This has been demonstrated in numerous studies of Swedish- speaking children with DLD (Hansson, Nettelbladt & Leonard, 2000; Hansson & Nettelbladt, 2000; Leonard, Hansson, Nettelbladt, & Deevy, 2004). Some of the same studies have

demonstrated that Swedish children with DLD do not have the same level of difficulties with verb morphology as English-speaking children with DLD (Hansson, Nettelbladt & Leonard, 2000; Leonard, Hansson, Nettelbladt, & Deevy, 2004).

Subordinate clauses and in particular the production of relative clauses has also been shown to be problematic for Swedish language-disordered children (Håkansson & Hansson, 2000). In this longitudinal study on comprehension and production of relative clauses, Håkansson and Hansson (2000) found that language-impaired children aged 4 to 6 had significantly more trouble producing relative clauses than the group of language-matched controls, although level of comprehension was similar in both groups, and the relationship between

comprehension and production varied between testings. In many cases, the children with DLD did not insert the obligatory complementizer in their production of relative clauses through elicited imitation and sentence completion.

Relative clause comprehension and production has also been studied in Danish-speaking children with DLD (Jensen De López, Sundahl Olsen, & Chondrogianni, 2014). In this study, the Danish children with DLD showed significantly poorer comprehension of object relative clauses than control groups of age-matched and language-matched children, and differed significantly in production of subject relative clauses, producing fewer subject relative clauses and avoiding them in required contexts by instead producing simple sentences.

Compared to Swedish and Danish, there are far fewer studies of Norwegian-speaking children with DLD. In general one could expect findings in one Scandinavian language to apply to all, as they are very closely related languages. Nevertheless, one could also expect to find slight differences due to factors such as phonology, dialects, usage, culture, etc. In a study on the use of past-tense verb inflections, Simonsen & Bjerkan (1998) found that Norwegian children with DLD were less accurate than their age-matched TD peers in producing past-tense

inflections, and produced a greater number of present-tense and infinitive forms when past- tense was required, similar to TD younger children. Of greater interest to the current study would be information on Norwegian-speaking language-disordered children’s use of complex syntactic structures such as subject-verb inversion and word order in relative clauses, but no

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9 published studies of this nature exist. Because of the paucity of previous evidence on

Norwegian children with DLD, the current study will examine the data in a broad, exploratory manner, with the aim of identifying linguistic trends that could be the focus of future studies.

2.1.5 Summary

In summary, the search for specific linguistic “deficits” in children with DLD remains inconclusive and seems to vary depending on the language studied, age of the speaker,

severity of the language impairment, and other factors. At the same time, there is good reason to continue studying the language of children with DLD. Not only can they add an important dimension to our understanding of child language development (Leonard, 2014a), but we as clinicians need to know how to best help these children succeed in understanding and communicating. A more detailed description of the nature of the language disorder could provide better guidelines on how to treat it. It is the aim of this study to examine what a commonly-used standardized sentence repetition task can tell us about the language skills of this under-recognized population of children.

2.2 What is language?

2.2.1 A brief description of language and grammar

Language is multimodal and multifunctional; that is, we have several different modes of expressing language (i.e. spoken language, written language, sign language) and it has many different functions in our daily lives. We use language to express and exchange ideas and opinions with other people, and to organize our own thoughts and feelings (Lind &

Kristoffersen, 2014). A child with a language disorder is limited in his linguistic choices, and as a consequence he does not have the same freedom and opportunity of expressing himself as others who are unimpaired (Lind & Kristoffersen, 2014).

Perhaps the most essential elements of language are words and the rules and principles that organize them into longer utterances, i.e. grammar (Lind & Kristoffersen, 2014). Grammar can be divided into morphology and syntax, and therefore the word morphosyntax can be used as a synonym to grammar. Morphology refers to the structure of words (involving word inflection and word formation), and syntax refers to the rules that govern sentence formation

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and combinations of words (Simonsen & Theil, 2005; Sveen, 2005). The formation of a sentence will always involve both morphological and syntactic processes, which is why is makes sense to refer to “morphosyntax” when sentence formation, as I will do in the current study.

Regarding the error analysis that I will conduct on children’s responses to a sentence repetition task, it is important to discuss how words can be classed and categorized. Words are organized into different classes based on their semantic and grammatical function. A word can be a noun, adjective, verb, preposition, etc. In addition to these well-known word classes, a division is often made between lexical and function words. Lexical words (also known as

“content words”) refer to people, objects, characteristics and actions in the physical world (Lind & Kristoffersen, 2014). This includes nouns, adjectives, most verbs and many adverbs.

Function words contribute to the organization of meaning within a sentence, e.g. its syntax.

These words have ambiguous lexical meaning, but instead express grammatical relationships (Lind & Kristoffersen, 2014). Function words can be pronouns, grammatical articles and determinatives, conjunctions, prepositions, and in languages such as Norwegian, the modal auxiliary verbs which express attitude and/or mood of the speaker such as ability, intention, obligation, etc. As function words exist to give grammatical information about other words in a sentence or clause, we could argue that function words indicate the speaker’s understanding of grammar, whereas lexical words indicate the contents of the speaker’s lexicon, e.g. their vocabulary. Although there is no absolute division between lexical and functional words, there is a good deal of evidence from studies of childhood language acquisition, as well as from acquired communication disorders such as aphasia, that the lexical/functional distinction is both innate and universal (Stromswold, 2000).

2.2.2 Characteristics of Norwegian grammar

Norwegian has a verb-second rule for main clauses like in German, but in other respects its word-order rules differ from German and can be more similar to English. When a modal or auxiliary verb is used in combination with a main verb, the main verb in nonfinite form directly follows the auxiliary in a main clause with SVO order (1), or directly follows the subject in a non-subject-initial utterance (2). This is demonstrated in the following examples:

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11 (1) Jeg må dra snart.

I must leave soon “I must leave soon.”

(2) Snart må jeg dra Soon must I leave “I must leave soon.”

In subordinate clauses, word order differs from main clauses in that the subject always precedes the verb, even following an adverbial or complementizer (cancellation of V2 inversion) and adverbials are placed before the finite verb rather than after, as in (3):

(3) Fordi jeg snart må dra, … Because I soon must leave “Because I must leave soon, …”

The negation adverbial ikke “not” is placed after the finite verb in main clauses (4), but before the finite verb in subordinate clauses (5), as in the following examples:

(4) Hun spiser ikke kjøtt.

She eats not meat “She doesn’t eat meat.”

(5) Jenta som ikke spiser kjøtt…

Girl-the who not eats meat “The girl who doesn’t eat meat…”

In terms of morphology, Norwegian is not very complex. Verbs are inflected for present tense and simple past tense, as well as having a present perfect participle, but there are no

distinctions for person or number. Nouns are gendered (male, female or neuter) and both definite and indefinite forms must agree with the gender of the noun. While the indefinite forms are articles, the definite forms are suffixes attached to the noun. In forming a noun phrase with an adjective, the adjective agrees with the gender in the indefinite form, but has an invariant suffix (-e) in the definite form.

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2.3 Sentence repetition

2.3.1 Sentence repetition as a diagnostic tool

Sentence repetition (SR), also known as sentence recall, sentence imitation or elicited imitation, has been used for decades as a tool for assessing language skills and to identify children with a developmental language disorder. Sentence repetition is often included in standardized language tests such as the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, Fourth Edition (CELF-4; Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2003) and the Norwegian screening test for language difficulties “Language 6-16” (Språk 6-16, Ottem & Frost, 2011). The diagnostic accuracy of SR in identifying children with developmental language disorder has been validated in a number of studies. A large study comparing the diagnostic accuracy of four potential markers of specific language impairment including SR found that SR alone was the most useful, showing high levels of sensitivity, specificity, and overall accuracy in

differentiating between TD children, children with a current status of language impairment, and even children whose current language status fell within the normal range but had a history of SLI (Conti-Ramsden, Botting, & Faragher, 2001). Conti-Ramsden et al. (2001) suggest that their findings, supported by previous research, of deficits in both nonword repetition and SR do suggest that children with DLD suffer from limitations in short-term memory, but

furthermore, the relative advantage of SR as a diagnostic marker over nonword repetition suggests some involvement of prior language knowledge residing in long-term memory. They propose that sentence repetition tasks tap “something of the language knowledge base of the child” (Conti-Ramsden et al., 2001, p. 747).

The usefulness of SR in particular as a clinical marker for DLD has since been validated in a number of different languages besides English (Conti-Ramsden et al., 2001; Archibald &

Joanisse, 2009), such as French (Leclercq, Quemart, Magis & Maillart, 2014), Cantonese (Stokes, Wong, Fletcher & Leonard, 2006) and Cypriot Greek (Theodorou, Kambanaros &

Grohmann, 2017), to name a few.

The aforementioned studies primarily compared children with DLD, usually in the early school-years age, to TD age-matched children. SR has also been shown to be a good clinical marker of DLD in adolescents (Poll, Betz & Miller, 2010; Riches, Loucas, Baird, Charman &

Simonoff, 2010) and adults (Poll, Miller & van Hell, 2016). Furthermore, there is evidence

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13 that SR can be used in the differential diagnosis of DLD compared to ASD with or without an accompanying language impairment (Riches et al., 2010), children with ADHD (Redmond, Thompson & Goldstein, 2011), and children with language problems due to hearing loss (Briscoe, Bishop & Norbury, 2001). In summary, research indicates that SR represents a striking weakness in children and adults with DLD compared to their TD peers and compared to children with other developmental diagnoses.

2.3.2 What does SR measure?

If we know that SR tasks represent a particular difficulty for individuals with DLD – and to an even greater extent than nonword repetition (Conti-Ramsden et al., 2001; Stokes et al., 2006), another proposed “marker” of DLD – then this begs the question of what exactly SR is measuring. Identifying the underlying mechanisms that are being tapped by SR could be a step towards potentially identifying the causes or defining characteristics of developmental language disorder. Theories regarding the underlying mechanisms which support SR performance range from a strong emphasis on the role of memory, particularly STM and working memory, to putting more of an emphasis on the role of existing language knowledge and the language processing system. Both of these viewpoints are relevant for the current study, but especially the role of the language processing system as it relates to

morphosyntactic processing. Here I will give a brief summary of some of the different theories and studies that we will be revisiting in the discussion of results.

According to a summary of the research, Vance (2008) suggests that “[s]entence recall highlights the interaction between STM and the language processing system” (p. 31). One piece of evidence for this is the high occurrence of semantically-similar substitutions in SR.

Vance (2008) notes that when children make errors in recalling the exact grammatical forms of sentences, the general meaning of the sentence is often preserved (Marshall & Nation, 2003, cited in Vance, 2008). In addition, substitutions of words in the context of an SR task tend to involve synonyms rather than unrelated words (Alloway & Gathercole, 2005a). These findings suggest that existing language knowledge stored in long-term memory supports recall of sentences. Vance (2008) points out that if it is indeed the case that SR relies on the interaction between language skills and STM capacity, then children with DLD, who seem to have special weaknesses in both of these areas, are doubly disadvantaged when it comes to

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performance on SR. Perhaps this could explain why SR has proven to be such a powerful diagnostic tool for DLD.

The role of memory in SR accuracy

First I should briefly address the larger question of what role memory plays in language comprehension and production in general. Memory is a multidimensional construct, and separating it from other aspects of cognition such as attention is difficult (Webb, 2017). In general, the term memory refers to how we store information attained through our sensory experiences; for spoken language, this would primarily be auditory information. In many theories of memory processing, two main types of storage exist: short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM). Short-term memory is temporary, and the brain has limited capacity for this storage (Webb, 2017). Working memory (WM) is a term which is sometimes considered synonymous with short-term memory. Others make a division between STM as the “storage site,” and working memory as active processing to manipulate the information (Webb, 2017). In a task such as SR, where the individual is asked to repeat a sentence verbatim, one would expect to see an effect based on the length of the stimulus being

imitated, due to natural limitations in STM and WM. Indeed, there is strong evidence for the role of STM in SR (Panagos & Prelock, 1982; Willis & Gathercole, 2001).

It is possible to repeat a short sequence of words by simply imitating the chain of sounds without knowing the meaning; however, this is not the case for the sentence repetition tasks examined in this study and most other studies. If the sequence to be repeated is longer than that which can be held in immediate auditory recall, then the subject will need to go through a series of processes in order to attempt to repeat the sentence (Vinther, 2002). The question of how long a sentence should be so that it surpasses the STM capacity for rote repetition does not have a definitive answer, and will depend on age, language status and individual

differences – researchers have variously suggested stimulus sentences of at least 15 syllables, eight morphemes, or more than six to seven words (Vinther, 2002; Potter & Lombardi, 1990) – but in part due to large individual variation, there is no definitive answer.

One theoretical account of SR which places a greater emphasis on the role of memory than the role of existing language knowledge is that of Alloway & Gathercole (2005b), who suggest that SR mainly taps a distinct language-linked memory system. This theory operates within a working memory framework whereby the capacity of a component of WM called the

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“episodic buffer” is seen to have an essential role in language learning and processing. In the context of sentence recall, the speaker would be relying on the capacity of his episodic buffer in order to temporarily store the information that he is expected to recall. In this view, the limited capacity of the episodic buffer places limits on the language processing capacities of the subject, and these limits will be observed in a sentence repetition task (Klem et al., 2015).

In other words, this view sees SR as a “measure of a separate component of memory (the episodic buffer) that has a causal influence on the development of language skills in children”

(Klem et al., 2015, p. 147).

However, a longitudinal study of SR performance in over 200 children by Klem et al. (2015) did not provide support for the theory that WM capacity has a causal influence on the

development of language skills. Instead, the authors of this study found support for viewing SR as “a reflection of an underlying language ability factor rather than as a measure of a separate construct with a specific role in language processing” (Klem et al., 2015, p. 146).

They argue that SR is best described as “a complex linguistic task that reflects the integrity of language processing systems at many different levels” (Klem et al., 2015, p. 152), including, but not limited to, grammatical processing. Since morphosyntactic abilities are at the heart of this current study of SR, I will now discuss how language skills and more specifically, morphosyntax play a role in SR performance.

The role of morphosyntactic abilities in SR accuracy

I have just presented the conclusions of Klem, et al. (2015), who argue that sentence repetition taps a complex array of language processing mechanisms, and that it therefore should be considered a measure of language ability, not a measure of a separate component of memory that is associated with language, or has a causal effect on language. This is closely aligned with the Regeneration Hypothesis (Potter & Lombardi, 1990; Lombardi & Potter, 1992). In this account of sentence imitation, a sentence is regenerated in immediate recall not from its surface representation in short-term memory, but from a representation of its

meaning, which probes deeper into working memory and semantic and syntactic knowledge stored in LTM (Lombardi & Potter, 1992). In other words, the process by which sentences are reproduced immediately in SR tasks is in fact very similar to the process by which we would attempt to recall, verbally, something we have heard or read from long-term memory. In

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sentence repetition, the subject regenerates the sentence using the normal mechanisms of sentence production (Lombardi & Potter, 1992).

This would seem to indicate that SR could be a reflection of language behavior in natural settings, meaning that we can use it to gain knowledge about the speaker’s existing language knowledge. Indeed, studies have shown that accuracy on SR tasks is affected by syntactic complexity independent of sentence length, indicating that it relies in part on underlying linguistic representations in LTM (Riches, 2012). It has also been demonstrated that SR can be used as a tool to investigate the effects of complex syntax on performance, and to screen morphosyntactic abilities of the children completing the task (Riches et al., 2010; Theordorou et al., 2017). During an SR task, the subject is processing the target sentence – interpreting and decoding its semantic, grammatical and phonological elements – encoding it using the grammar available to him or her, and reproducing it to the best of his or her expressive

linguistic abilities (Vinther, 2002; Poll et al., 2016). In this case, the repetition “yields data for evaluating the level of the subject’s linguistic proficiency” (Vinther, 2002, p. 55). Indeed, research shows that the sentences children produce in SR tasks reflect their level of language development (Klem et al., 2015). Morphosyntactic complexity plays a role in SR accuracy in part because more complex stimuli will place greater demands on the subject’s linguistic and memory-related capacities, meaning that repetition from STM/WM will be more difficult for more complex stimuli (Riches, 2012).

In light of this discussion, researchers have begun looking more closely at the type of errors made in SR tasks. Klem et al., 2015 call for more research examining “in greater detail the forms of error that children make in sentence repetition tasks” (p. 152), as this type of error analysis may give some answers as to the underlying language processing difficulties seen in different children. The potential of sentence repetition to provide “qualitative” information about underlying language difficulties has been probed in a number of studies comparing children with DLD to children with other language difficulties. For example, younger and older children with DLD have presented with greater syntactic difficulties than age-matched TLD children (Theodorou et al., 2017) and age-matched individuals with autism plus

language impairment (Riches et al., 2010), as measured by higher error rates on syntactically- complex object relative clauses and in some cases, subject relative clauses. I will revisit the question of error types in SR performance in the discussion of my results.

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2.4 Processability Theory

Processability Theory (PT; Pienemann, 1998a, 1998b, 2015) is a psycholinguistic theory of language acquisition that proposes a universal hierarchy of morphosyntactic stages of

language development for all language learners, although it is more widely-known within the field of second language acquisition (SLA). PT argues that the process of language learning includes the acquisition of procedural skills needed for the processing of the language, and that the acquisition of these processing routines happens in a predictable, hierarchical sequence which theoretically can be applied to any language. The theory focuses on a

developmental view of language acquisition whereby the development of the target language follows a describable route, which can be organized into a “universal hierarchy of processing resources” (Pienemann, 1998a, p. 2). This hierarchy of processing procedures is described in table 2.1 below, along with a short description of how each level presents in Norwegian grammar.

Table 2.1 Processability Theory and corresponding structures in Norwegian grammar¹ Processing procedure Language structure(s)

affected

Norwegian grammar 5. Subordinate clause

procedure (if applicable)

Internal differences between main and subordinate clause

Word order in subordinate clauses; e.g.

adverbial/negation before finite verb

4. Sentence/Inter-phrasal procedure

Interphrasal agreement;

word order rules

Predicative agreement (N + Adjective agreement in predicative constructions);

subject-verb inversion with main verb (V2)

3. Phrasal procedure Agreement within phrases, instigated by the category of the head

NP agreement (N +

Adjective, attributive) & VP agreement (compound tense markings)

2. Category procedure Lexical category of words Plural, definiteness on nouns, past or present tense on verbs. Canonical word order.

1. Word or lemma access Invariant forms (no

procedural skills involved)

Single words

1Sources: Pienemann, 1998a; Pienemann & Håkansson, 1999; Håkansson, 2017

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Within the framework of Processability Theory, an essential component of language acquisition is the gradual acquisition of “computational routines” or procedural skills that operate on, but are separate from, the speaker’s linguistic knowledge of the target language (Pienemann, 1998a). It is these procedural skills with which PT is mainly concerned, and the order in which they develop in the learner would determine the sequence in which the

typological elements of the target language are learned (Pienemann, 1998a). The processing requirements at each stage in development in PT have their basis in Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG; Pienemann, 2015; Bresnan, 2001). LFG is a so-called “unification grammar”

that views sentence formation as a process of “feature unification.” According to LFG, the formation of a sentence in a speaker’s mind is a process of matching the different elements of the sentence that fit together according to the grammar of the target language (Pienemann, 1998b). On the question of the origin or innateness of language, PT operates within the framework of Universal Grammar (e.g. Chomsky, 1965).

Processability Theory has implications for language teaching and intervention in that it is also concerned with which structures in a language will be “teachable” at a given stage in the learner’s development. The “teachability hypothesis” based on PT addresses the question of how linguistic input is converted into linguistic knowledge. This hypothesis predicts that instruction will be most beneficial if it takes into account the current stage of development of the language learner, and focuses on structures from “the next stage” (Pienemann, 1998b).

According to Processability Theory, stages cannot be skipped because each successive stage requires processing procedures developed at the previous stage (Pienemann, 1998b). If research continues to demonstrate that Processability Theory provides a valid framework for the language development of children with DLD, then it could potentially also provide guidelines for which linguistic structures should be targeted in intervention.

Children with DLD seem not to fit well within many theories of child language acquisition, as pointed out by Leonard (2014a). They seem to deviate from the notion of Universal Grammar and effortless language learning. Leonard (2014a) argues that any universal theory of

language acquisition is obliged to include children with DLD (p. 13). In the current study, I will use the framework of Processability Theory to study the differences in morphosyntactic knowledge between language-impaired and non-language-impaired children acquiring their first language. If we assume that children with DLD mostly differ from typically-developing children by their slower pace of language development, as suggested by Leonard (2014c),

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19 then it seems reasonable to analyze their language through the lens of a developmental theory of language acquisition.

Indeed, Pienemann and Håkansson (1999) tested PT predictions for Swedish morphosyntax acquisition by examining 14 previous studies on Swedish L2 acquisition, some of which also compared Swedish L1 speakers with TLD and language impairment. They found no

counterevidence for the Swedish processability hierarchy as predicted by PT. In some cases, more similarities were found between Swedish L2 speakers and Swedish L1 children with language impairment than between children with TLD and language-impaired children;

specifically, L2 learners and children with language impairment both struggled with acquiring the Swedish verb-second (V2) rule, which is located at level 4 of the processing hierarchy.

This finding was replicated by Håkansson (2001), who in addition observed that the L2 and language-impaired children’s use of V2 improved markedly during the six months between data collection points, likely due to a developmental factor.

Because Processability Theory is a universal framework, it allows for cross-linguistic studies of emerging language. Håkansson (2017) tested PT predictions on 42 empirical studies of language input from children with DLD in 19 typologically-different languages, including Danish and Swedish. Despite the limitations of conducting a meta-analysis on studies

employing different methods of elicitation, data collection, and evaluation, Håkansson (2017) found that the vast majority of the vulnerable grammatical structures reported in these studies as problematic for children with language impairment as compared to TD children are found in the later stages in PT; specifically stages 4 and 5. These structures generally involve merging grammatical features at the sentence level (e.g. interphrasal agreement) and non- canonical word order in main and subordinate clauses.

As Håkansson (2017) points out, this evidence seems to tie together several existing hypotheses about specific linguistic deficits in children with DLD, such as the Optional Infinitive Hypothesis (Wexler, 1998), which deals with agreement, tense, and case, and the Deficit in Computational Grammatical Complexity Model (van der Lely, 2005), which addresses problems with syntactic relationships including subject-verb agreement (for some languages) and relative clauses. The advantage of applying Processability Theory to this area of study is that it can be empirically tested in any existing language. Furthermore, it adds a developmental perspective to the discussion. As Håkansson (2017) points out, the choice of PT, a developmental theory of language, to study the language of children with DLD, implies

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that “children with SLI will be regarded as children in the process of acquiring a language, moving slowly toward the target language” (p. 270).

2.5 Research questions

This study will address the following research questions:

1. What can close examination of the CELF-4 Recalling Sentences subtest tell us about the morphosyntactic abilities of Norwegian children with DLD?

a. What kind of differences can we observe between children with DLD and TD children using different scoring methods?

b. Is there an effect of morphosyntactic complexity independent of sentence length on the performance on either group?

c. What can we learn from a qualitative error analysis? Are there differences between children with DLD and TD children in terms of what types of errors they make?

d. Are there any particular grammatical structures which appear to be especially problematic for the children with DLD, based on the above analyses?

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3 Method

The method for this study involves transcription and evaluation of a sentence repetition task administered to children with and without developmental language disorder. The current study on sentence repetition is part of a larger research project run by researchers at the Institute of Special Needs Education at the University of Oslo. This section will describe the key aspects of the study design, selection of participants, type of SR task used, procedure for collecting, coding and scoring the data, and the analyses that were conducted. It will also mention relevant aspects of study validity and ethical considerations.

3.1 Study design

The aim of this study is to describe and compare performance on a sentence repetition task by a group of children with developmental language disorder and a matched control group of children with typical language development. The study design can be described as a cross- sectional survey design whereby two different groups are observed at one point in time (De Vaus, 2014). Studies which seek to describe a certain phenomenon, without attempting to manipulate it, are generally characterized as nonexperimental research (Kleven, 2002b).

Survey design, which is a type of nonexperimental design, is similar to the experimental method in terms of the form of data that is collected, but differs in that variation between cases is simply observed by the researcher rather than created by intervention (i.e.

manipulation) from the researcher (De Vaus, 2014; Kleven, 2002b).

Survey data consists of a structured, systematic grid of data where information is collected about the same variables for a number of cases, thus making the cases directly comparable (De Vaus, 2014). The main data collected for this study was generated by the administration of a standardized language test to a group of participants. Their responses were transcribed, and the responses were then transformed into numeric data via several different methods of coding and scoring. This numeric data was then analyzed using appropriate statistical tools. In addition, I returned to the raw linguistic data to investigate qualitative information.

In this study I will use both deductive and inductive approaches in answering the research questions. An inductive approach involves the formation of new theories based on what the data seem to suggest (Kvernbekk, 2002) and is well suited to more qualitative analyses such

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as my investigations into types of errors and specific grammatical structures. Since there is little previous data on Norwegian children with DLD, I have taken an inductive, exploratory approach to my own data. At the same time, some of my research questions represent a more deductive approach, seeking to test existing hypotheses related to general differences in performance between children with DLD and TD children on SR tasks, and applying the morphosyntactic processing hierarchy represented in Processability Theory.

3.2 Participants

3.2.1 Initial selection process

Fifty-eight children aged 5;9 to 12;11 were recruited and selected for participation in a larger ongoing research project on which the current study is based: 29 children with DLD (12 girls and 17 boys) and 29 children with typical language development (TLD) for the control group, pair-wise matched for gender, age and nonverbal abilities. The larger research project is titled

“Examining speech recognition, language skills and quality of life of individuals with cochlear implant (CI), hearing aid, language disorder and typically developing children”

(Undersøkelse av taleoppfattelse, språkferdigheter og livskvalitet hos personer med cochleaimplantat (CI), høreapparat, språkvansker og typisk utvikling) at the Institute for Special Needs Education (ISP) at the University of Oslo.

Participants in the current study are a subset of 42 children, 21 children with DLD and the 21 children matched with them in the control group. The criterion for inclusion in this subset required that the child had completed the CELF-4 Recalling Sentences subtest up to and including sentence 13 and starting from sentence 5, the starting point for children aged nine and older. Reasons for this selection process will be elaborated in the description of the stimulus.

The 29 children with DLD were recruited through educational and psychological counselling services in municipalities across Norway. These regional offices are responsible for

assessment and counselling of children with developmental difficulties, including speech and language difficulties. Inclusion in the DLD group for this study was dependent on the

following six criteria: (1) referral to the aforementioned counselling services for language difficulties, (2) scoring at least 1 SD below the normative mean on at least two of five

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23 standardized tests: the British Picture Vocabulary Scale II (BPVS-II; Dunn, Dunn, Whetton &

Burley, 1998; Norwegian version by Lyster, Horn, & Rygvold, 2010), the Children’s Test of Nonword Repetition (Gathercole, Willis, Baddeley & Emslie, 1994; Norwegian version by Furnes and Samuelsson, 2009), and three subtests from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF-4; Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2003; Norwegian translation by Rygvold, 2013): Concepts and Following directions, Formulating sentences, and Recalling Sentences;

(3) a nonverbal IQ score of at least 70, as measured by the Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices (CPM) for children aged 5;9-8;11 and Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM or SPM+) for children aged 9;0-12;11 (Raven, Raven & Court, 2003); (4) Norwegian as a first language, defined as the child and at least one of the child’s parents having Norwegian as a native language; (5) no existing diagnosis of other developmental disorders such as autism or ADHD; and (6) normal hearing: the children passed an otoacoustic emission (OAE)

screening, indicating hearing thresholds in the normal range and normal inner ear functioning.

In addition to the 29 children who met all six inclusion criteria, five additional children were initially recruited for the DLD group but had to be excluded due to the following reasons:

language scores which were better than specified in criterion (2) above (two children), nonverbal ability scores on Raven’s matrices below 70 (two children), and a lack of an audio recording of the relevant CELF-4 subtests (one child).

In summary, children recruited to the DLD group for this study had already been referred to special education services for language difficulties, and these difficulties were confirmed through the use of standardized language tests with good psychometric properties. In addition, children could not have an existing diagnosis of other developmental disorders including intellectual disability, which was the reason for the requirement of a NVIQ score of at least 70. These selection criteria are consistent with current practice and recommendations (e.g.

Bishop et al., 2016, 2017).

Children with typical language development were recruited for the typically developing control group via presentations at parent meetings at schools as well as via relevant social media channels. Children in the TD control group were recruited from municipalities in the south-eastern part of Norway that are representative of the national average on measures of socioeconomic status and education. Inclusion criteria for these children were the same as for the children with DLD for criteria (3-6) as listed above. In addition, children in the control group did not score -1 SD or below on more than one of the five standardized language tests

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listed in inclusion criterion (2) above, and did not have a history of language difficulties according to a parental report. Children in the TD control group were matched pair-wise with the DLD children by gender, age (as close as possible and no more than a 10-month

difference) and NVIQ score (as close as possible and no more than 1 SD apart).

3.2.2 Selection and details of subset for current study

As mentioned above, the current study is based on a subset of 21 children from each group.

The subset consists of the 21 children from the DLD group who responded to all nine

sentences from sentence 5 to sentence 13 on the CELF-4 Recalling Sentences subtest, and the 21 matched children in the TD control group. An independent samples t test to compare mean age and NVIQ between groups showed that although there were slight differences in the means (see table 3.1), these differences were not significant (average age in months:

t(40)=-0.10, p=0.92; average NVIQ: t(40)=-1.67, p=0.10).

Table 3.1 Details of study participants by group.

DLD group

(N=21)

Control group (N=21)

Gender Male 10 10

Female 11 11

Age (years;months) Mean 10;3 10;4

SD 20 months 20 months

Min 7;8 7;5

Max 12;11 12;11

NVIQ Mean 88.81 94.81

(Raven's scores) SD 12.03 11.30

Min 70 70

Max 120 115

3.3 Stimuli

The sentence repetition task used in this study is the CELF-4 Recalling Sentences subtest.

This sentence repetition task consists of 18 sentences of increasing length and varying syntactic complexity. Participants were administered the version of CELF-4 for ages 5-8 or ages 9-12, depending on their age at the time of testing. CELF-4 Recalling Sentences is the

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25 same in both, but children aged 9 or older start at sentence (5). As this study does not examine the first few sentences, this has no impact on the analyses.

A sub-set of nine sentences, corresponding to numbers (5) up to and including (13), was selected for analysis in this study. These are presented in table 3.2 further down. These nine sentences represent stimuli of varying length and complexity. I decided to start with sentence (5) because this was the starting point for administering the test for children aged nine and older, meaning that there was too little data on sentences (1-4). Additionally, I decided not to include any sentences after (13) because there were increasingly fewer responses from the children with DLD after this point, and I did not want my sample size to be smaller than about twenty children in each group. This selection process and the methodological issues it

presented are presented more in depth in the discussion.

3.4 Procedure

3.4.1 Administration

Participants in this study were administered the following tests as part of their participation in the larger research project: CELF-4, Raven’s Progressive Standard and Colored Matrices (RPM), British Picture Vocabulary Scale II, Children’s Test of Nonword Repetition, the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE; Rashotte, Torgesen & Wagner, 1999), and a

computerized test of visual statistical learning. In each case, the version of CELF-4 and RPM was determined by the age of the participant at the date of testing, with the cut-off between the colored matrices and standard matrices of Raven being set at 9 years.

Tests were administered over a period of one or two days by the same or two different test administrators. Administration of the total battery of tests lasted in general from 2 to 4 hours per child. Location of testing was most often at the participant’s school in a separate room.

Administration of the CELF-4 Recalling Sentences task was done in accordance with the instructions in the manual and instructions given by a research coordinator in advance. Test administrators had varying regional dialects, as did the children being tested, who primarily came either from eastern Norway or from northern Norway. This is not expected to have a significant influence on the results.

Sentence repetition in Norwegian children with developmental language disorder: An investigation of morphosyntax

Sentence repetition in Norwegian children with developmental

language disorder

An investigation of morphosyntax

Emily Wanda Williams

Master Thesis in Special Needs Education Institute of Special Needs Education

Faculty of Educational Sciences UNIVERSITY OF OSLO

Sentence repetition in Norwegian children with developmental language disorder:

An investigation of morphosyntax

Abstract

Preface

Table of Contents

List of tables and figures

1 Introduction

1.1 Purpose

1.2 Possible implications

2 Theory

2.1 What is developmental language disorder?

2.2 What is language?

2.3 Sentence repetition

2.4 Processability Theory

2.5 Research questions

3 Method

3.1 Study design

3.2 Participants

3.3 Stimuli

3.4 Procedure