IS THE SYNTAX DEVELOPMENT OF DYSPHASIC CHILDREN DEVIANT AND WHY - NEW FINDINGS TO AN OLD QUESTION

The present study addresses three main issues: First, it considers whether the syntax development of dysphasic preschoolers is adequately described as being a purely quantitative retardation or whether there are qualitative differences as well. Second, the suggestion put forward by Grimm (1987) that the syntactic deficits of dysphasic children result from deficient language processing strategies is further explored. Third, it asks whether the language deficits are related to specific structural and interactional aspects of the language input. We examined two groups of children with comparable levels of language development: 8 dysphasic children, ages 3:9 to 4:8 years, and 8 control children, ages 2:1 to 2:11 years, who showed normal language development. The empirical evidence suggested that the dysphasic children's syntax development was not only delayed but also deviant, and that the children's deviant syntax structures were the result of insufficient language processing and could not be traced back to structural characteristics of the sentences used by their mothers.