Specific Language
Impairment (SLI) Introduction
37-924-01
Theoretical Approaches to Specific Language
Impairment (SLI)
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Bar Ilan University
Clip
SLI - Definition
A developmental language disorder characterized by
Gleason (2001, p. 504) as involving ‘delayed or deviant
language development in a child who exhibits no
cognitive, neurological or social impairment’. Children
with SLI show impaired language development from birth
(with problems which may either disappear during
childhood or persist into adulthood) with no hearing loss
(no history of otitis media), no emotional and behavioral
problems, no below average non-verbal IQ(>=85), no
neurological problems, and no oral or facial defects
(Tallal & Stark 1981). That is, they are normal in other
aspects of their physical, mental and social development
(Radford 2006).
SLI impact on child’s social world




Normative children (NC) prefer talking to other
NC rather than SLI children even at preschool
level
SLI children prefer to talk with adults
SLI children have difficulty performing basic
social tasks (e.g., accessing ongoing interaction)
8-12 year old SLI were rated by teachers as
being less cooperative and less assertive; have
fewer peer contact in school environment; and
were less satisfied with peer social relationships
Sample 1
Sample 2
Major Issues
Frequency of SLI
 Genetic basis of SLI
 Neurological basis of SLI
 Overall characteristics of SLI

Frequency


In 5 year olds, SLI affects about 2 children in every
classroom (about 7%).
It is more common in boys than girls.
Genetic basis of SLI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnlGvc
DIiHw
Neurological basis of SLI
Hugdahl et al. 2004. fMRI Brain Activation in
a Finnish Family With Specific Language
Impairment Compared With a Normal
Control Group. Journal of Speech,
Language, and Hearing Research Vol.47
162-172
From abstract







Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was
used to monitor changes in neuronal activation in
temporal and frontal lobe areas
5 Finnish family members with specific language
impairment (SLI) and 6 individuals in an intact control group.
Magnetic resonance (MR) image acquisitions were made while the participants
listened to series of isolated vowel sounds, pseudowords, and real words.
The results showed significant differences between the family with SLI and the
intact control group with regard to brain activation in areas in the temporal and
frontal lobes.
Temporal lobe activation differences were most pronounced in the middle
temporal gyrus bordering the superior temporal sulcus. The control participants
also activated an area in the inferior frontal lobe in BA 44.
Individuals with SLI showed reduced activation in brain areas that are critical
for speech processing and phonological awareness.
The present functional brain imaging data fit well with other recent imaging data
that also showed structural abnormalities in the same and neighboring areas.
Sentences produced by children with SLI
(Radford 2006)
Sentences produced by the SLI children in the Leonard files on the childes data-base .
No
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Child
B
B
C
C
C
C
D
D
D
D
D
D
E
F
G
G
H
H
J
K
Child utterance
Maybe goes on this one
What say?
Can get us some them?
Do this come out?
Billy wanna has his blocks out
The tree must broken off
Superman have him hands up
And they’re jump in water
This is mine daddy’s
I will be Chad brother
Them is boys
Me don’t know how do it
How you knowed?
It cames off
I didn’t sawed you come in
Think her too growed up
What is this is?
What next one is?
Hope him gonna hit him butt
Me no like him
Adult counterpart
Maybe it goes on this one
What did you/d’you say?
Can you get us some of them?
Does this come out?
Billy wants to have his blocks out
The tree must have broken off
Superman has his hands up
And they’re jumping in the water
This is my daddy’s
I will be Chad’s brother
They are boys
I don’t know how to do it
How did you know?
It came off
I didn’t see you come in
I think she’s too grown up
What is this?
What’s the next one?|
I hope he’s gonna hit his butt
I don’t like him
Expressive vs. receptive deficit







SLI children typically show some (or all) of the following types of
impairment :
Phonological (e.g. problems with consonant clusters and syllable-final
consonants)
Lexical (delayed acquisition of words – e.g. first word appears around 23
months in SLI children, but around 11 months in TD children; SLI children
also have word-finding problems)
Semantic (problems in determining the linguistic meaning of words, phrases
and sentences, and understanding the meaning of metaphors)
Grammatical (e.g. problems with affixes/inflections and articles/particles,
complex syntax)
Pragmatic (e.g. problems in the use of language in appropriate contexts)
Reading problems
Delay versus Deviance
Delay: Protracted acquisition of language,
following typical developmental pattern.
Deviance: Different developmental
sequences and processes.
 Delay
 Plateau
 Profile differences
 Abnormal frequency of errors
 Qualitative difference
SLI – Accounts:
Competence vs.
performance
37-924-01
Theoretical Approaches to Specific Language
Impairment (SLI)
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Bar Ilan University
Possible accounts
Competence or performance?
 Impairment in the language mechanism
vs. impairment in language processing
aptitude?
 Impairment in language processing vs.
impairment in processing?

Domain General Accounts (Not
)language specific
Auditory (temporal processing)
deficit hypothesis
Merzenich, M. Jenkins, W., Johnston, P., S., Schreiner, C., Miller, S.
L. & Tallal, P., (1996) Temporal Processing Deficits of LanguageLearning Impaired Children Ameliorated by Training, Science, v.
271, p. 77-81. (=Fast ForWord)


Task: discriminate between speech stimuli -six syllable contrasts
([ba] versus [da], [da] versus [ta], [ε] versus [ae], [dab] versus [daeb],
[sa] versus [sta] and [sa] versus [sha]).
Findings:

LI group made most errors discriminating syllables which were
differentiated by consonants and fewest errors on those differentiated
by vowels.
 The LI group was significantly poorer than the normal in discriminating
all syllables that incorporated brief temporal cues followed rapidly in
succession by other acoustic cues.
 They also were impaired in discriminating [sa] versus [sha].
 They were unimpaired discriminating stimuli differentiated by vowels.
Perceptual Deficit Model
Leonard, L. B.1989. Language learnability and specific
language impairment in children. Applied
Psycholinguistics 10: 179-202

Following the sonority scale (Srlkirk 1984), Leonard
proposes that SLI is an Auditory Perceptual Deficit:


Vowels and diphthongs are easier to perceive than consonants
(and consonants are particularly difficult to perceive when
occurring in clusters of two or more successive consonants)
Stressed vowels are easier to perceive than unstressed vowels,
long vowels and diphthongs are easier than short vowels, and
full vowels are easier than reduced vowels
Percentage correct probes and spontaneous
speech (Rice & Wexler 1995)
-ed probe
-ed spontaneous
-s probe
-s spontaneous
BE probe
BE spontaneous
DO probe
plural
Prepositions
SLI
27
23
22
37
50
46
30
88
96
What would be the predictions for Hebrew?
N3
45
46
44
60
64
71
47
96
97
N5
92
90
91
89
95
96
90
97
98
SLI in Hebrew monolinguals
Dromi et al. (1993, 1999)

Predictions: With verbal morphology so central in
Hebrew, a Semitic language, it was predicted that
a
very few inflections, if any, would pose a problem for
children with SLI.
 inflections which carry more features would be more
difficult than those which carry fewer features with errors
that show a simpler feature complex.

Method: Hebrew speaking children with SLI, ages
4-6, using a sentence completion task and
enactments.
Findings

Sentence completion: while monolingual children with TLD
scored at ceiling, children with SLI showed 80% success
when one feature was involved, but hardly ever produce
the target morpheme which represented two features (fem.
pl.).

Enactment: while monolingual children with TLD scored at
ceiling, children with SLI showed 80% success when one
feature was involved, but only 60% success when two
features (person and gender) were involved.

While in English most errors are omissions, in Hebrew
most errors are substitutions in which a morpheme which
marks just one feature was used to replace a morpheme
which marks two features
Verb inflection in Hebrew (Dromi 1999 et al) present tense agreement items
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Fem sing
Masc plur
SLI
TLD - MLU
Fem plur
Verb inflections in Hebrew - A comparison
between the SR and Dromi et al's enactment task
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
1sg
2sg ms
Enactment task (Dromi et al., 1999)
2sg fm
SR
Figure 2 - Person errors in the past tenes
2sg fm
2sg ms
0
2
1sg
4
2sg ms
6
2sg fm
8
3rd sg
10
1 pl
12
2pl
14
Procedural Deficit Hypothesis
(PDH)
Ullman, M.T. & Pierpont, E.I. 2005. Specific Language
Impairment is not Specific to Language: The Procedural
Deficit Hypothesis. Cortex 41, 399-433.
"SLI can be largely explained by the abnormal development
of brain structures that constitute the procedural memory
system.”


Procedural memory: “mental grammar”, syntax, some
morphology
Declarative memory: “mental lexicon”, vocabulary, idioms,
irregular past-tense forms
PROCEDURAL MEMORY SYSTEM:
DEFINITION

Brain system involved in “procedural memory”
 Learning
new and controlling established motor and
cognitive skills, habits, and other procedures

E.g. typing, riding a bike, skilled game playing
 Aspects
of rule-learning
 Learning and performing skills involving sequences

Includes system involved in learning,
representation, and use of procedural memory
PROCEDURAL SYSTEM:
CHARACTERISTICS

Gradual acquisition of procedures

Learning occurs with practice, over time

Rapid, automatic application

“Implicit Memory System”




a network of interconnected structures rooted in
frontal/basal-ganglia circuits, subserves the learning and
execution of motor and cognitive skills.
recent evidence implicates that this system is important
for specific aspects of grammar
a significant proportion of individuals with SLI suffer from
abnormalities of this brain network, leading to
impairments of the linguistic and non-linguistic functions
that depend on it
grammatical and lexical retrieval deficits are strongly
linked to dysfunctions of the basal ganglia (BG), and of
the frontal cortex, esp. Broca’s area
Domain (Language (Grammar))
Specific Accounts
Feature Deficit Model
Gopnik, M. 1990. Feature blindness: A
case study. Language Acquisition 1: 139164

Due to a genetic deficit SLI children do not
have grammatical (syntactic-semantic)
features in their grammar. This is a global
deficit.
Bilingual SLI sample - English
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
what’s Maugli doing?
walking in in near the trees.
here is a… panther
have a doll.
the panther has a … you are right … but the panther has a…
a doll
and what’s the panther doing?
looking for the wolves.
and then, what is Maugli doing now?
playing on stairs.
what’s he playing with?
bears and coconuts.
what’s he doing with the coconuts?
try to get it.
and who else do we have?
a a a tiger and a snake.
oh oh. what’s the panther doing?
ask where the kid is.
you think he is asking them where the kid is.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
but then what happened to the panther?
asleep.
and when he was asleep?
he run away.
he ran away.
who found him?
the monkeys.
oh gosh, what are they doing to Maugli?
picking him up.
then they’re almost holding.
what did he do with these?
throwed him.
he threw them?
what are they these?
bananas.
who eats the bananas?
monkeys.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*YON:
*EXP:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*EXP:
*YON:
*EXP:
*YON:
the tiger.
do you think they’re friends?
no.
he plans fire.
he put fire on him.
and is he scared?
yeah.
yeah so what’s he doing?
running away.
oh gosh he’s running away.
then he found a girl playing by the water.
yeah.
and where’s he?
in a tree.
yeah.
and now…?
going together.
they’re going together to…?
the house.
Rule Deficit Model
Gopnik M & Crago MB. 1991. Familial
aggregation of a developmental disorder.
Cognition 39: 1-50

Studying three generations of a family in
London, Gopnik & Cargo concluded that they
have the same syntactic abilities as MLU
matched controls, but could not generate
morphological rules (due to genetic failure of the
dual mechanism of morphological acquisition).
Bishop (1994) - A study of 12 SLI children
ranging in age from 8;2 to 12;11






Took it off (in reply to ‘What did they do with
the top part of the pram?’)
It take me a long time (in reply to ‘Did it take
you a long time to get better?)
And then Mummy taked to the garage to xxx
He falled in (in reply to ‘What did Andrew do
when the ice gave way?’)
He sawed mine brother (in reply to ‘Has the
doctor ever been to see you?’)
The car has broked down
Agreement Deficit Model
Clahsen H, Bartke S and Göllner S. 1997. Formal
features in impaired grammars: a comparison of English
and German SLI children. Journal of Neurolinguistics 10:
151-171

Findings:



Past tense - 76% of main verbs and 89% of auxiliaries
3Sg present tense - 49% of main verbs and 35% of auxiliaries
SLI children have problems with acquiring
uninterpretable features, which make no contribution to
the meaning of the sentence (semantically redundant),
e.g., agreement features.
>> Tsimpli and Stavrakaki (1999) and Tsimpli (2001) Uninterpretable Feature Deficit Model
Contexts for 3rd person auxiliaries in the corpus of
Clahsen, Bartke and Göllner (from Radford 2006) how do these examples support their claim?
Contexts where adults would use a third person singular
present form of the progressive auxiliary be
22. And boy picking ’em up (JW 11;03)
23. He jumping over a gate (WL 11;05).
24. Apples fallen out on the boy who pinching them (JW
11;03)
25. The man taking the cat down on the ground (AZ11
12;03)
26. The dog taking slipper off him (AZ11 12;03)
27. Her hugging it (CT 13;11)
Contexts where adults would use a third
person singular present form of the perfect
auxiliary have
35. She sometimes buy stuff and then paint it
what haven’t got coat of paint on it (RJ 11;11)
36. He been tied on (AZ12 13;0)
Contexts where adults would use a third
person singular present form of the tense
auxiliary do
37. He don’t know (JW 10;3)
38. He don’t get hungry (JW 10;03)
39. What, when he don’t go to work? (JW 10;03)
40. And the bus don’t take no notice (AZ11 10;3)
41. And he don’t know how to (RJ 10;11)
42. He don’t know how to put his brakes on (AZ12
11;0)
Agreement-and-Tense-Omission
Model (Extended Optional
Infinitives)
Wexler K, Schütze C & Rice M (1998) ‘Subject
case in children with SLI and unaffected
controls: Evidence for the Agr/Tns Omission
Model’, Language Acquisition 7: 317-344

TD children omit either TNS or AGR or neither
up to the age of 3. In SLI children this is
extended until the age of 7-8.
Schutze & Wexler (1996):
AGR/TNS omission model (ATOM)
Nominative Subject
Non-Nom Subject
Finite
+ (he goes)
- (him goes)
Non-finite
+ (he go)
+ (him go)
•Non-nominative case on subjects used at the optional
infinitive-stage will be largely with non-finite verbs
•Only 5% of finite verbs take a non-nominative subjects,
whereas 46% of non-finite verbs take a non-nominative
subject.
•Non-nominative is the default case. (Test: “Who wants icecream?”)
a) AGR or TNS or both may be deleted
b) AGR assigns NOM. If no AGR, subject gets default
case
c) Default case in English is ACC
d) AGR checks 3rd person singular morphology
Him goes is not attested because there is a
contradiction between the verb morphology and the
case on the subject.
+AGR
-AGR
+TNS
+ (he goes)
+ (him go)
-TNS
+ (he go)
+ (go)
‫‪Agreement-and-Tense-Omission Model‬‬
‫)‪(Extended Optional Infinitives‬‬
‫אורית ‪6:3‬‬
‫‪ .1‬רותי‪ :‬פעם אחת‪....‬‬
‫‪ .2‬הילד אכל והילדה אכלה ואמא שטפה את הכלים‬
‫והחתול הוא ישן‪.‬‬
‫‪ .3‬ופתאום שאמא שטפה את הכלים החתולה קם וראה‬
‫את הדבורה והוא רצה לאכול את הדבורה‪.‬‬
‫‪ .4‬ואחרי זה החתולה בא לאכול את הדבורה והדבורה הלך‬
‫כי החתולה רץ אחריו‪.‬‬
‫‪ .5‬והם שטפו את החתולה במים באמבטיה‪.‬‬
‫‪ .6‬ואחר כך ]טעם על המילה "אחר"[ הם שמו לחתולה‬
‫אה‪) ....‬רותי‪ :‬סרט(‪.‬‬
‫דודי ‪6:7‬‬
‫‪ .1‬רותי‪ :‬פעם אחת‪....‬‬
‫‪ .2‬היה ילד וילדה אוכלים‬
‫‪ .3‬והיה דבורה‬
‫‪ .4‬ואז החתול הלך לדבורה‬
‫‪ .5‬ופתאום החתול הלך על המרק‬
‫‪ .6‬ואמא והילד והילדה הם מנקות את החתול באמבטיה‬
‫‪ .7‬והם שמו לחתול סרט‪.‬‬

Is the sensitivity of the tense and
agreement unique to SLI?
Agrammatism - Fridemann & Grodzinsky
(1997)
"This paper discusses the description of agrammatic
production focusing on the verbal inflectional
morphology. Agrammatism in Hebrew is investigated
through an experiment with a patient who displays a
highly selective impairment: agreement inflection is
completely intact, but tense inflection, use of copula,
and embedded structures are severely impaired. A
retrospective examination of the literature shows that our
findings are corroborated by others. A selective account
of the agrammatic production deficiency is proposed,
according to which only a subclass of the functional
syntactic categories is impaired in this syndrome. The
consequence of this deficit is the pruning of the syntactic
phrase marker of agrammatic patients, which impairs
performance from the impaired node and higher. These
findings also bear upon central issues in linguistic
theories, particularly that of Pollock (1989), regarding
split inflection."
(1) ha’ish roce levashel, az hu lokeax sir ve bishel.
the-man wants to-cook, so he takes(3sg-M-pr.) pot and
cooked(3sg-Mpast)
(2) axshav ata holex. etmol ata telex.
Now you(2sg-M) go(2sg-M-pr.). Yesterday you willgo(2sg-M-fut.)
(3) Maxar dani haya ba-yam
Tomorrow Danny was in-the-sea

Is SLI only about tense and agreement?
Scheaffer at al 2003


In children with SLI (14 Subjects: 3;11-4;10),
pragmatic principles develop normally as a
function of age, rather than as a function of
grammar developmental stage.
Grammatically, 4-year old children with SLI
make errors comparable to younger normally
developing children.
Mabel L. Rice, Kenneth Wexler, &
Jennifer Francois (2001)
Passive Comprehension: Identification of Agent
Percent Correct
0.9
0.75
0.6
0.45
0.3
0.15
0
SLI
Lexically Matched
Age Matched
At 5 years of age, children in the SLI group were below age
peers in their comprehension of reversible full verbal passives,
and similar to their younger lexically-equivalent peers
Van der Lely HKJ and Battell J
(2003)
(a)
(b)
(c)
Who Miss Scarlett saw somebody? (Response to ‘Miss
Scarlet saw someone in the lounge. Ask me who’ – the
target response being Who did Miss Scarlet see in the
lounge?)
Which Reverend Green open a door? (Response to
‘Reverend Green opened a door. Ask me which one’ –
the target response being Which door did Rev. Green
open?).
What did Colonel Mustard had something in his pocket?
(Response to ‘Something was in Colonel Mustard’s
pocket. Ask me what’ – the target response being What
was in Colonel Mustard’s pocket?).
Sample narrative (MoSLI)
‫אמא הכינה לילדים שלה אוכל ואכלו ואכלו‬
.‫אח"כ בא לו זבוב‬
‫אח"כ הוא כעס‬
‫אח"כ שמו לה בייגלה בזנב‬
‫אח"כ שמו לה בשערות משהו חם‬
. ‫אח"כ ניקו אותה וזהו‬
Mom prepared food for her children and pro ate.pl and pro ate.pl
Then, came a fly.
Then, he was angry
Then, pro put.pl a pretzel on her tail.
Then, pro put.pl something hot in her hair
Then, pro cleaned.pl her and that’s it
Representational Deficit For
Dependent Relations (RDDR)
Van der Lely HKJ and Battell J (2003) ‘Wh-movement in children
with grammatical SLI: A test of the RDDR hypothesis’, Language 79:
153-181

"SLI children have problems in handling non-local dependencies
(between pairs of constituents which are not immediately adjacent)
such as those involved in tense marking (which involves a T-V
dependency both in the agreement-based analysis of Adger 2003
and in the Affix Hopping analysis of Radford 2004), agreement
(which involves a subject-verb dependency), determining
pronominal reference (which involves a pronoun-antecedent
dependency), and movement (which involves a dependency
between two constituents, one of which attracts the other)."
Deficit in Computational
Grammatical Complexity (CGC)

Marinis, T. & van der Lely, H. K. J. (2007).
On-line processing of wh-questions in
children with G-SLI and typically
developing children. International Journal
of Language & Communication Disorders
42(5), 557-582.
“The CGC Hypothesis claims that the core deficit in
some but not all forms of SLI is in the representation
and/or mechanisms underlying the construction of
hierarchical grammatical structures. For G-SLI children
their grammar is characterized by Grammatical
Structural Economy in syntax, morphology and for most
phonology too. Thus, the least complex structure will
surface. Within the syntactic component, the core deficit
is in computing syntactic dependencies between
constituents. Within Chomsky’s Minimalist Program
(Chomsky 1995), this can be implemented as optionality
of the operation Move, which is not ‘automatic’ and
‘compulsory’. Further, complexity is defined as the
number of movement operations, thus subject questions
are predicted to be less problematic than object
questions because the former has one less movement
operation (van der Lely and Battell 2003). van der Lely
and colleagues demonstrated that the CGC hypothesis
accounts for a wide range of phenomena in English GSLI children”

Is it only about the functional system?
Deficits were found for:
 Lexical access
 NWR
 SR
 Narratives
 Executive functions
