Non-word repetition and language development in children with specific language impairment (SLI)

Non-word repetition has previously been found to correlate with language ou tcomes both in children who are language impaired and in those who are deve loping normally. This paper concerns a group of children identified as havi ng specific language impairment (SLI) and follows the methods of Adams and Gathercole (2000) by taking children with the highest and the lowest nonwor d repetition scores at age 11. These children's language and literacy abili ties were then compared. Despite the fact that high and low scorers were ma tched on Performance IQ tasks ( Block Design and Picture Completion), all l inguistic measures except for vocabulary assessments showed significant dif ferences between the groups. The fact that these differences were present d espite block design scores being identical for the two groups suggests that more than a general working memory deficit underlies the language difficul ties. Furthermore, significant differences were noted on a digit-span task requiring processing and production of number words. A specific phonologica l memory difficulty may therefore be present over and above a subtle but mo re general processing limitation. The implications for SLI theory and pract ice are discussed.