Sentence Repetition as a Tool for Screening Morphosyntactic Abilities of Bilectal Children with SLI

Abstract

The clinical significance of sentence repetition tasks (SRTs) for assessing children's language ability is well-recognized. SRT has been identified as a good clinical marker for children with (specific) language impairment as it shows high diagnostic accuracy levels. Furthermore, qualitative analysis of repetition samples can provide information to be used for intervention protocols. Despite the fact that SRT is a familiar task in assessment batteries across several languages, it has not yet been measured and validated in bilectal settings, such as Cypriot Greek, where the need for an accurate screening tool is urgent. The aims of the current study are three-fold. First, the performance of a group of (Cypriot) Greek-speaking children identified with SLI is evaluated using a SRT that elicits complex morphosyntactic structures. Second, the accuracy level of the SRT for the identification of SLI is explored. Third, a broad error analysis is carried out to examine and compare the morphosyntactic abilities of the participating children. A total of 38 children aged 5–9 years participated in this study: a clinical group of children with SLI (n = 16) and a chronological age-matched control group (n = 22). The ability of the children to repeat complex morphosyntactic structures was assessed using a SRT consisting of 24 sentences. The results showed that the SRT yielded significant differences in terms of poorer performance of children with SLI compared to typically developing peers. The diagnostic accuracy of the task was validated, since regression analysis showed that the task is sensitive and specific enough to identify children with SLI. Finally, qualitative differences between children with SLI and those with TLD regarding morphosyntactic abilities were detected. This study showed that a SRT that elicits morphosyntactically complex structures could be a potential clinical indicator for SLI in Cypriot Greek. The task has the potential to be used as a referral criterion in order to identify children whose language needs to be evaluated further. Implications for speech–language therapists and policy-makers are discussed.

Morphosyntactic abilities of toddlers with hearing impairment and normal hearing: evidence from a sentence‐repetition task

“…The task involves syntactic knowledge, language processing, memory and production (e.g., Polišenská et al 2015). SRep tasks are reliable tools for assessing typical and atypical language acquisition among different populations (Armon-Lotem and Meir 2016, Conti-Ramsden et al 2001, Marshall et al 2014, Theodorou et al 2017).…”

What Machine Learning Can Tell Us About the Role of Language Dominance in the Diagnostic Accuracy of German LITMUS Non-word and Sentence Repetition Tasks

“…It has been recently shown that SRTs eliciting structures involving the latter operations can be reliably used to tease apart typically developing bilingual children from monolingual and bilingual children with SLI, not only in bilingual but also in bialectal settings (e.g., Armon-Lotem and Meir, 2016; Meir et al, 2016, 2017 for LITMUS-SRT in Russian and Hebrew; de Almeida et al, 2017; Fleckstein et al, 2018 for French; Lein et al, 2016; Abed Ibrahim and Hamann, 2017; Hamann et al, 2017; Hamann and Abed Ibrahim, 2017 for German; Theodorou et al (2017) for Cypriot-Greek; see also Marinis et al, 2017 for an overview). In particular, Armon-Lotem and Meir (2016) showed that although the highest level of diagnostic accuracy can be achieved using a combination of SRTs in the child’s L1/Russian and L2/Hebrew (applying bilingual cut-offs), good diagnostic accuracy can still be achieved if SRT is only administered in the societal language (L2-Hebrew).…”

Morpho-Syntactic Abilities of Unbalanced Bilingual Children: A Closer Look at the Weaker Language

“…Sentence Repetition tasks are widely used to assess morpho-syntactic abilities of monolingual and bilingual children. Sentence Repetition tasks have been shown to be highly effective in discriminating children with typical and atypical language development in monolingual and bilingual populations (e.g., Conti-Ramsden et al, 2001 ; Archibald and Joanisse, 2009 ; Klem et al, 2015 ; Meir et al, 2016 ; Antonijevic et al, 2017 ; Gavarró, 2017 ; Hamann and Abed Ibrahim, 2017 ; Theodorou et al, 2017 ; Fleckstein et al, 2018 ; among many others). In the following subsections, quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the Weaker Language of unbalanced bilinguals are discussed as compared to BB and unbalanced bilinguals in the Dominant Language.…”