EFFECT OF IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT RULE PRESENTATION ON BOUND-MORPHEME GENERALIZATION IN SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT

This study addressed whether generalization of a trained bound morphem e to untrained vocabulary stems differs between children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children with normal language (NL) unde r two controlled instructional conditions. Twenty-five children with N L and 25 children with SLI matched for age served as subjects. Contras ts between affixed and unaffixed words highlighted the affixation ''ru le'' in the ''implicit-rule'' condition. The ''rule'' was verbalized b y the trainer in the ''explicit-rule'' condition. Biomodal generalizat ion results occurred in both subject groups, indicating that generaliz ation was not incremental. Chi-square analyses suggested that the SLI group generalized the bound morpheme less often than the NL group unde r the explicit-rule training condition. The findings add to those that indicate children with SLI have a unique language-learning style, and suggest that the explicit presentation of metalinguistic information during training may be detrimental to bound-morpheme generalization by preschool-age children with SLI.