The purpose of this study is to determine whether children with SLI and normally-developing children are similar in their sensitivity to the acoustic-phonetic properties of function words, in their reliance on function words in story comprehension, and in the neurophysiological correlates of function word perception. Answers to these questions are designed to tease apart and/or clarify different versions of perceptual processing theories of SLI. Forty preschool-aged children with SLI and 40 age-matched controls will comple two studies that involve listening to stories presented auditorally. ERPs wil be recorded as the children process function words and nonsense syllables that are embedded in stories. The only differences between the stories are the acoustic properties of the normal function words and the nonsense syllables. After hearing sections of each story, participants will point to a picture tha represents what a character in the story saw. After listening to the stories, participants will complete a basic auditory discrimination task.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Small Research Grants (R03)
Project #
5R03DC003042-02
Application #
2749256
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZDC1-SRB-S (01))
Project Start
1997-08-01
Project End
1999-07-31
Budget Start
1998-08-01
Budget End
1999-07-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
1998
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Hofstra University
Department
Miscellaneous
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
City
Hempstead
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
11549
Shafer, V L; Schwartz, R G; Mor, M L et al. (2001) Neurophysiological indices of language impairment in children. Acta Otolaryngol 121:297-300