Martha Crago

Familial aggregation of a developmental language disorder

This paper investigates the etiology of developmental dysphasia and its linguistic properties. Data are presented that suggest that at least some cases of dysphasia are associated with an abnormality in a single dominant gene. The results of a series of tests on a large three-generation family, in which half of the members have dysphasia, are reported. These results show that abstract morphology is impaired in these subjects. It is argued further that the data are consistent with the hypothesis that the dysphasics learn the feature-marked lexical items of language as unanalyzed lexical items. They do not have the underlying capacity to learn language by constructing paradigms.

Lexical acquisition over time in minority first language children learning English as a second language

The English second language development of 19 children (mean age at outset = 5 years, 4 months) from various first language backgrounds was examined every 6 months for 2 years, using spontaneous language sampling, parental questionnaires, and a standardized receptive vocabulary test. Results showed that the children’s mean mental age equivalency and standard scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Third Edition nearly met native-speaker expectations after an average of 34 months of exposure to English, a faster rate of development than has been reported in some other research. Children displayed the phenomenon of general all-purpose verbs through overextension of the semantically flexible verb do, an indicator of having to stretch their lexical resources for the communicative context. Regarding sources of individual differences, older age of second language onset and higher levels of mother’s education were associated with faster growth in children’s English lexical development, and nonverbal intelligence showed some limited influence on vocabulary outcomes; however, English use in the home had no consistent effects on vocabulary development.

Domain-General versus Domain-Specific Accounts of Specific Language Impairment: Evidence from Bilingual Children's Acquisition of Object Pronouns.

In this study, we tested the predictions of 2 opposing perspectives on the nature of the deficit in specific language impairment (SLI): the domain-general, cognitive/ perceptual processing view and the domain-specific, linguistic representational view. Data consisted of spontaneous speech samples from French–English bilingual children with SLI; younger, typically developing, bilingual language peers, and monolingual French comparison groups. We analyzed the children’s use of direct object clitics/pronouns and definite articles in French and English. The bilingual children had more difficulty with clitics in French than articles in French and pronouns in English; and bilingual children with SLI performed like their younger, unaffected bilingual peers and like monolinguals with SLI. We argue that these findings present challenges to the domain-general perspective and support the claim that domain-specific limitations in linguistic representation are a component of SLI.

The acquisition of tense in English: Distinguishing child second language from first language and specific language impairment

This study reports on a comparison of the use and knowledge of tense-marking morphemes in English by first language (L1), second language (L2) and specifically language-impaired (SLI) children. The objective of our research was to ascertain whether the L2 childrens tense acquisition patterns were similar or dissimilar to those of the L1 and SLI groups, and whether they would fit an (Extended) Optional Infinitive profile, or an L2-based profile, e.g., the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis. Results showed that the L2 children had a unique profile compared with their monolingual peers, which was better characterized by the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis. At the same time, results reinforce the assumption underlying the (Extended) Optional Infinitive profile that internal constraints on the acquisition of tense could be a component of L1 development, with and without SLI.

Early passive acquisition in Inuktitut

Passive structures are typically assumed to be one of the later acquired constructions in child language. English-speaking children have been shown to produce and comprehend their first simple passive structures productively by about age four and to master more complex structures by about age nine. Recent crosslinguistic data have shown that this pattern may not hold across languages of varying structures. This paper presents data from four Inuit children aged 2;0 to 3;6 that shows relatively early acquisition of both simple and complex forms of the passive. Within this age range children are productively producing truncated, full, action and experiential passives. Some possible reasons for this precociousness are explored including adult input and language structure.

Bilingual children's acquisition of the past tense: a usage­based approach

Bilingual and monolingual childrens (mean age=4;10) elicited production of the past tense in both English and French was examined in order to test predictions from Usage-Based theory regarding the sensitivity of childrens acquisition rates to input factors such as variation in exposure time and the type/token frequency of morphosyntactic structures. Both bilingual and monolingual children were less accurate with irregular than regular past tense forms in both languages. Bilingual children, as a group, were less accurate than monolinguals with the English regular and irregular past tense, and with the French irregular past tense, but not with the French regular past tense. However, bilingual children were as accurate as monolinguals with the past tense in their language of greater exposure, except for English irregular verbs. It is argued that these results support the view that childrens acquisition rates are sensitive to input factors, but with some qualifications.

The Morphosyntax of Specific Language Impairment in French: An Extended Optional Default Account

This study examines the use of tense, agreement, and non-tense morphemes and associated distributional contingencies in the language production of Quebec French-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) and normally developing language and age-matched controls. We sought to determine whether the Optional Infinitive/Extended Optional Infinitive (OI/EOI; e.g., Rice & Wexler (1996)) pattern of normal and impaired developmental language in English occurs in French as well. In so doing, we also sought to explore the possibility that certain kinds of finite verb forms can pattern as root infinitives in some languages including French. Our results indicate that SLI in French has the majority of the EOI characteristics displayed in English SLI, such as variable use of tense-marking morphemes combined with accuracy of form choice, obedience to distributional contingencies associated with finiteness, and relatively nonvariable use of non-tense grammatical morphemes. Our results also provide support for French SLI being an extension of an earlier stage in normal development. Furthermore, our analyses reveal that the finite verb stem in French appears to act as a root infinitive along side the nonfinite verb forms. Accordingly, we suggest that the (Extended) Optional Infinitive account could be renamed the (Extended) Optional Default account in order to include certain finite forms as well as nonfinite forms as root infinitives.

Communicative Interaction and Second Language Acquisition: An Inuit Example

This article reports on research findings that emerged during a longitudinal ethnographic study on the role of cultural context in the communicative interactions of young Inuit (Eskimo) children and their caregivers. The study was conducted in two small communities of arctic Quebec where Inuktitut, the native language of the Inuit, is spoken on a routine, daily basis. The focus of the research was on discourse features of primary language socialization in Inuit families. The incongruity of these features with the discourse in classrooms taught by non-Inuit second language teachers surfaced repeatedly during the course of the study. This incongruity raised several issues pertinent to the learnability and teachability of second languages for Native populations. Such issues are discussed here with reference to related second language acquisition literature. In doing so, the interface between the sociocultural aspects of communicative interaction and second language acquisition is emphasized.

Culturally based miscommunication in classroom interaction

This article identifies a number of ways teachers and students can misunderstand and confuse each other with their language-based communications in the classroom. Cultural variations in the formats...

Early Finiteness in Inuktitut: The Role of Language Structure and Input

A stage of optional infinitive (OI) production has been identified in typically developing (TD) children learning languages that do not permit null subjects (Wexler (1994; 1998; 1999)), and this stage has been shown to be extended in at least English- and German-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI; Rice, Noll, and Grimm (1997), Rice, Wexler, and Cleave (1995)). Although TD children learning null subject languages do not go through an OI stage (Bar-Shalom and Snyder (1997), Guasti (1993)), reports differ concerning whether children with SLI learning these languages go through this stage (Bortolini, Caselli, and Leonard (1997), Bottari, Cipriani, and Chilosi (1996)). In this article, we present evidence from Inuktitut, a null subject language not yet investigated with respect to OIs. We show that although TD children learning Inuktitut do not go through an OI stage, one child with SLI does go through an OI stage. In addition, the percentage of finite verb forms marked with an overt verbal inflection in Inuktitut child-directed speech (CDS) is strikingly high compared with that in English CDS. We discuss the implications of these results for theories of continuity, the initial stage of child grammar, and the effect of language structure and input on language acquisition.