engleski

Speed of processing nouns in mother and non-mother tongue in children with specific language impairment

Research have shown that speed of processing in children with specific language impairment generally slower than in children with typical language development when it comes to linguistic and non-linguistic tasks. Aim of this research was to examine speed of processing nouns in mother tongue (Croatian) and nouns in English language in children with specific language impairment and in those with typical language development. Three groups of children participated in the study ; (1) children with specific language impairment (SLI), (2) children with typical language development matched to children with SLI on age, and (3) children with typical language development matched to children with SLI on speech-language status. E-prime software was used to examine speed of processing. Lists of nouns chosen on the basis of their frequency in Croatian language were used as stimulus material. English language nouns were chosen based on English language school curriculum for third year of English language studying in primary school. Accuracy and reaction time were dependent variables in this research, and group of children was independent variable. Research procedure included stimulus word presented in auditory form, and children’s task was to choose which one of the three options (presented visually) represents the noun they just heard. One of the pictures represented the target noun, the other contained noun chosen on the basis of phonological similarity with the target noun, and the last one was chosen on the basis of visual similarity with the target noun. Target words were presented to children in random order, and ordering of picture types (i.e. target noun, phonologically and visually similar nouns) was random at each trial. Results were analyzed at quantitative and qualitative level. Data from this research gives support to thesis that children with specific language impairments process mother tongue words at the same speed rate that was observed in children learning English language in educational process, after they learned their mother tongue. Obtained results have implications for creating therapeutic goals when working with children with specific language impairments, as well as for creating educational methods for teaching those children.

speed of processing ; nouns ; non-mother tongue ; specific language impairment

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