ARTICLE USE IN THE SPONTANEOUS SAMPLES OF CHILDREN WITH SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT - THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSIDERING SYNTACTIC CONTEXTS

Using spontaneous language samples from eight children with specific l anguage impairment (SLI) and eight normally developing (ND) children m atched to the SLI group on the basis of mean length of utterance, I ca lculated percentage use of articles in subject phrase contexts only, p redicate phrase contexts only, and overall combined contexts. The SLI and ND groups showed highly similar profiles in article use. For both groups there were significant differences between use of articles in s ubject phrases and predicate phrases, which were obscured by determina tion of use in the combined contexts, though this is the more typicall y used procedure. Specifically, the children were less able to use art icles in subject phrases. Furthermore, attempts at article use in subj ect phrases were less frequent, resulting in few obligatory contexts f or subject articles in many samples. Some pairs of children showed equ ivalent mastery of articles in predicate contexts but diverged in thei r attempts to use articles in subject contexts. The member of the pair who attempted a greater number of articles in subject phrases showed the lower percentage of overall article use. Thus the overall percenta ge score was misleading in that children who were advanced enough to a ttempt subject article + noun constructions showed lower overall perce ntage use scores. To accurately describe children's abilities with the percentage use of articles score, more careful delineation of context s is needed.