THE ABILITY OF CHILDREN WITH SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT TO ACCESS AND PARTICIPATE IN AN ONGOING INTERACTION

This study investigated the ability of 6 children with specific langua ge impairment (SLI), ages 8;10 to 12;5 (years; months), to enter and p articipate in an ongoing dyadic interaction. Performance was compared to that of 6 chronological age-matched (CA) peers and 6 language-simil ar (LS) peers. All children in the IS and CA groups successfully acces sed the interaction, and most did so quickly. Two children from the SL I group did not access, and the 4 remaining subjects required varying amounts of time to access. Following successful access, the triadic in teractions of subjects were examined. The accessing children with SLI talked significantly less, were addressed significantly less, and coll aborated less than either of the partners within their triads. Few sig nificant differences were observed between LS or CA children and their partners.