| Description |
As a group, children with specific language impairment (SLI) have presented with lower levels of proficiency with infinitive clauses than typically developing children (TD). Considerable individual variability, however, remains unexplained within this population and the status of infinitive clauses in children with other developmental language disorders (DLD) is unknown. In this study, language samples collected on 30 children with DLD (21 SLI; 9 Concomitant-LI) and 30 children with Typical Language (TL) skills (25 TD; 5 Concomitant-TL) were analyzed to examine potential predictors of infinitive clause proficiency (age range: 5;1-7;7). Consistent with previous reports, some of the participants with SLI did not exhibit problems producing infinitive clauses or providing the obligatory TO morpheme. In contrast, many of the participants with Concomitant-LI demonstrated difficulties with these syntactic elements. Maternal education and MLU were identified as predictors for infinitive clause use. Finite verb morphology composite (FVMC) scores and MLU were identified as predictors for infinitive TO omission rates. |
