Spoken and written narratives from French- and English-speaking children with Language Impairment
Résumé
Children with Language Impairment (LI) show significant delays in spoken language development with persistent problems in morphology. In this chapter, we compare spoken and written narratives from children with LI and their typically developing peers (TD) in French and English. We investigate the role of modality (spoken and written language), and the contribution of language-specific factors (French and English) to the LI phenotype. We found that both French and English LI groups exhibit problems with morphology; however, they use complex syntax strategically to bring coherence to their stories. Moreover, both LI and TD children are sensitive to the pragmatic and rhetorical conventions of their linguistic communities. Our findings increase our understanding of the nature of LI, and how language-specific features and culture might affect this profile.