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The purposes or the present study were to examine the ability of children with specific language impairment(SLI) with respect to comprehending informative utterances, and using common ground in comprehending ambiguous utterances. The study subjects were 20 children with SLI, 20 chronologically age(CA) matched children, and 20 language ability(LA) matched children. Twenty-four short vignettes, which included a speaker, a listener, three or four sentences of context and a referential utterance by the speaker to the listener about one of the objects in the display, were constructed. After the children listened to the vignettes, each accompanied by a set of six pictures of objects randomly placed with varying details, they were asked to choose the matching object. Children with SLI were significantly inferior to CA matched children, but similar to LA matched children, in comprehending informative utterances. Children with SLI were significantly inferior to both other groups in using the common ground based on linguistic co-presence. However, in using the common ground based on community membership, children with SLI and LA matched children were significantly inferior to CA matched children. These results suggest that the communication difficulties experienced by children with SLI extend beyond their linguistic problems. They further suggest that children with SLI use different strategies than normal children in dealing with comprehension problems. |
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