Synchronic Data Analysis of a Child with an SLI, and a Typically Developing Child
Introduction
The purpose of this essay is to analyse and compare the language acquisition between two children, one with a Specific Language Impairment (SLI), and one Typically Developing (TD). A SLI can be defined as “a persistent and significant language delay that may be characterised by some typical forms of plateau, but without the presence of variables that would usually explain this delay” (Aguilar-Mediavilla, Sanz-Torrent, Serra-Raventos, 2012, p.575). It is important to remember that though language acquisition can be compared, there is no specific timeline upon which a child must have acquired a certain language feature, although it may be harder to identify “links between forms and functions produced at…four without scrutiny of the paths children follow” (Clark, 2009, p.378). This essay will identify and compare a phonological, syntactical and morphological feature from a TD and a SLI child, and discuss any conflicting features.
Literature Review
Phonology
When studying phonological acquisition in SLI children, Claessen and Leitao (2012, p.214) theorise that “difficulty forming and retrieving phonological representations may be an underlying deficit in SLI”, and so it is expected that phonologically the SLI child is less advanced and shows less differentiation between different phonological forms. From the data, it was evident that the SLI child uses deaffrication as a substitution process in the presence of an affricate. Classen and Leitao (2012, p.220) go on to speculate that this is due to the fact “the quality of their semantic representations… may not be as well developed and this may influence their ability to judge the accuracy of spoken words”, and so it is expected that the child consistently uses the process of deaffrication throughout different examples in the transcript.
The data collected by Aguilar-Mediavilla, Sanz-Torrent and Serra-Raventos (2012) compares the language acquisition between SLI children, TD children, and children with learning difficulties (LD). The results of which “show a delay in phonological acquisition for children with SLI and LD” (2012, p.588). Substitution processes are evident in the data for all sets of children, and thus from the literature, it is expected that these processes will also be evident with the SLI participant.
Morphology
When children begin to learn tense, such as the past tense inflectional morpheme ‘-ed’, Taatgen and Anderson suggest it is acquired in 3 stages. In the first stage of using past tenses they argue “irregular verbs are used correctly” (2002, p.124), perhaps based on Pinker’s concept that there being a “fixed number of irregular verbs suggests that they are memorised as pairs or ordinary lexical items” (1998, p.223). However, Pinker also suggests that the first stage of learning past tense they “leave regular verbs unmarked”, and after a period of time the child “begins to mark these verbs”, a concept which contrasts with Taatgen and Anderson’s theory. From analysis of the data, Pinker’s theory was applicable to the SLI child, and in the case of not knowing to apply the ‘-ed’ morpheme, the child instead left the stem word unmarked. Both authors suggest that in the second stage of tense acquisition, children “begin to overgeneralise irregular verbs” (Pinker, 1998, p.235), before finally in the third stage “this overgeneralisation diminishes until performance is without errors” (2002, p.124).
Syntax
Language acquisition of personal pronouns is suggested by Chiat (1986, p.344) to begin at around 2 years old for many children. It is evident that incorrect pronoun use is a common and normal feature of child language, and Chiat (1986, p.344) concludes “children who reverse 1stand 2ndperson pronouns give clear evidence of controlling the speech role function of pronouns through their correct comprehension”. It appears that Chiat is inferring that although a child might not use a “standard adult English” (1986, p.344) form, they possess cognitive understanding of who exactly the pronoun refers to.
Contrastingly, Ambridge and Lieven theorise that the reason children understand pronouns- and in return why adults can understand a child’s use of a pronoun, is because they only “serve the grammatical function of referring back to something that is already under discussion” (2011, p.110). Thus, both authors are perhaps suggesting that pronoun use does not need to be correct in order to be understood.
Methodology
The participants are two male children both age 4 years 3 months, one who has ‘normally’ acquired language, and one with an SLI. The data was provided by the online database CHILDES, in the form of an audio and written transcript. It can be debated that the fact the children were recorded may have biased the results, however it is reasonable to suggest that after around the first 2 minutes this would no longer be a factor, as contextually it also seems the children are familiar with the Investigator, and in the case of the TD child his mother is present.
Analysis- Phonology
When studying the substitutions of the SLI and TD child, specifically deaffrication, it seems the SLI child does not distinguish between some phonemes, substituting some affricates with fricatives. In line 171, the SLI child refers to /teachers/, however substitutes the affricate [t∫] for the fricative [∫], resulting in the pronunciation of [dwi?∫ə]. This process of deaffrication is consistently used on the medial affricate in /teachers/, as repeated in line 275- [di?∫əs]. Interestingly, in line 73 the SLI child says the utterance /mine shoe watch/, again substituting the affricate [t∫] for the fricative [∫], this time word finally resulting in the production of [wa?∫]. Conversely, it appears the child instead substitutes the fricative [∫] in /shoe/ for the affricate [t∫], this could suggest “SLI children have more imprecise or “fuzzy” phonological representations…and thus are more likely to accept ‘near misses’ as correct productions.” (Claessen & Leitao, 2012, p.219). In both cases of deaffrication, the substituted fricative is pronounced following a glottal stop, thus although the child has deleted the ‘stop’ component of the affricate, they have introduced the glottal- perhaps in an attempt to mimic the production of the affricate but in a simpler and more manageable form.
When comparing these findings to the child with TD language, the difference in the ability of the two children’s pronunciation is extreme. The TD child does not use the process of deaffrication once throughout the transcript, and engages in correct pronunciation of the affricate [t∫] 100% of time. The position of the affricate does not appear to have an effect upon the production of the word, in line 167 and 182 the TD child correctly pronounces the phoneme word medially in /ketchup/, and word finally in line 416 with the word /scratch/. In lines 167 and 259, the TD child talks about /chicken/ and /chocolate/ pronounces the word-initial affricate correctly in both instances. This matches the data collected by Aguilar-Mediavilla, et al (2012, p.588), who when referring to an age-matched control group found “the controls showed a higher percentage of affrication”.
Analysis- Morphology
Morphological analysis of the data - specifically past tense inflectional ‘-ed’, suggests that both children have some awareness of the correct use of this inflection and its properties related to tense, although both children make some mistakes.
The SLI child’s speech shows evidence of incorrect use of past tense inflection in the lines 743- /Tara wash both of them/, and 747- /her wash it in water/. Here, the child has omitted the past tense marking ‘-ed’ inflection, and instead continues to use the present tense stem /wash/. Pinker (1998, p.236) suggests that before children begin to overgeneralise irregular verbs, they “leave regular verbs unmarked most of the time”, so perhaps the SLI child is still beginning to learn and demonstrate his understanding of this past tense inflection. Conversely, in line 753 the SLI child exhibits the ability to correctly use the ‘-ed’ form, saying /but yyy not gonna get his teeth cleaned/, which Taatgen and Anderson (2002, p.124) theorise that “in the second stage” (of learning past tense) “the child develops a sense for the regularity in regular past tenses”. Therefore, the SLI child shows some understanding of past tense inflection markers and his ability to correctly use them, but still does deviate from the standard.
The TD child appears to have grasped the correct use of past tense inflection with regular verbs, applying the ‘-ed’ inflection in line 272 /if I knocked it off/, and line 359 /if I looked/. Nonetheless, the TD child does overgeneralise this feature, applying it to the irregular verb /buy/ in line 172- /since you already buyed the doll, and you buyed everything else/. This overgeneralisation may have been used as “given an unknown verb, people tend to use a regular past tense” (Taatgen and Anderson, 2002, p.124), however it’s also plausible that “irregular verbs bear the hallmark of memorised words” (Pinker, 2002, p.223), and if so the child has not yet memorised the irregular verb.
Analysis- Syntax
It is evident that the SLI child and TD child do not have the same understanding of pronouns when exploring the use of the first person pleural pronoun ‘we’. Whilst the TD child shows no difficulty in correctly using the subjective form of the pronoun, the SLI child continuously uses the objective form ‘us’ where the subjective is correct. In lines 153 to 185 the SLI child repeats the phrase /us go to the dentist/, rather than using the correct object form /we/. The child is correct in using the first person pleural pronoun, but is likely that the child has not understood the difference between the subjective and objective as “the 1stperson pleural forms ‘we, us, our, ours’ identify any combination of individuals which include the speaker” (Chiat, 1986, p.340). This form is repeated in this sentence throughout the conversation, as in line 749 the child once again says /us gonna go to the dentist/. This pronoun is used again in line 449 /us us already do that one/ rather than the subjective form. It is interesting to note that whereas in lines 153 to 185 and 749, the child was using the exclusive /us/- perhaps referencing himself and his family, whereas in line 449 the child seems to be using the inclusive /us/, referencing himself and the investigator he is present with. Although the incorrect form is used by the SLI child, questionably “items that belong to the functional category of pronoun…carry little meaning on their own” (Ambridge & Lieven, 2011, p.110), and therefore this is why it is still easy to understand who the child is referencing.
Conversely, the TD child uses the first person pleural pronoun ‘we’ correctly 100% of the time, and does not use the objective in place of the subjective, for example in line 39 /we were going to a place/ and line 249 /we didn’t see/. The TD child is consistent in his use of the standard, does not deviate from the correct form, showing the TD child has a concrete understanding of this personal pronoun, whereas the SLI child may still be developing his understanding.
Conclusion
It is evident from the findings of this data that children with SLI’s do not acquire language at the same rate as TD children. The TD child showed little deviation from the correct use of all features, only overgeneralising the past tense inflection ‘-ed’. Whilst the SLI child used more incorrect forms than the TD child, he showed signs of progress, and is likely to learn correct features over time. Although the SLI child omitted the past tense inflection ‘-ed’ in some instances, he also showed correct use this feature, and so arguably the SLI child may learn these language features at a slower pace than the TD child. To suggest that “children with SLI are those that fall at the bottom end of normal distribution of language competence” (Bishop & Leonard, 2000, p.19) can be perceived as inappropriate, and it’s important to question whether it’s fair to compare two children’s acquired language. There is no correct rate of acquisition, nor a set time a child must have learned all language features by.
Comments
Post a Comment