What kind of Problem-Sources are self-repaired by children with Primary Language Impairment?

Abstract

A number of trouble-sources (ts) in speech that are the subject of the speaker’s attention when doing a strict self-repair (r) constitute a window to explore language monitoring processes (Levelt, 1989) among children with a specific language impairment recently related with cognitive processing deficits (Leonard et al., 2007). From this perspective, this paper analyzes self-repairs to solve ts in a group of 3 children with primary language impairment (pli) and another group of children matched by age (ce) with typical language development (tld); both groups were monolingual Spanish speakers between 6.2 and 6.6 years old. Comparisons of the number of ts repaired between both groups revealed that self-repairs are less frequent in pli children; a significantly different distribution of phonological and pragmatic ts between groups; and a prevalence of self-repaired ts related to syntactic organization in both groups. Contrary to our expectations, pli children paid little attention to ts on inflections of number, person and tense, despite these morphological markers having been reported as typical problem source in this group of children.