Remembering sentences is not all about memory: Convergent and discriminant validity of syntactic knowledge and its relationship with reading comprehension.

Recent studies have found correlations between sentence-level tests and reading comprehension. However, the task demands of sentence-level tests are not well understood. The present study investigated syntactic knowledge as a construct by examining the convergent and discriminant validity of two sentence-level tasks, sentence comprehension and sentence repetition, designed to test syntactic knowledge and their relation with reading comprehension. Results from 86 Grade 6 students showed that the syntax tests were more highly correlated with each other than with tests of working memory and vocabulary. This suggests that the syntax measures tap into a set of skills that are at least partially separate from these other cognitive constructs. Furthermore, syntactic knowledge explained unique variance in reading comprehension beyond controls. The syntax tasks were working memory dependent, but working memory was not the primary reason why syntax tasks are correlated with reading comprehension.

Sentence Repetition: A Clinical Marker for Developmental Language Disorder in Danish.

Purpose The aim of the study was to explore the potential of performance on a Danish sentence repetition (SR) task-including specific morphological and syntactic properties-to identify difficulties in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) relative to typically developing (TD) children. Furthermore, the potential of the task as a clinical marker for Danish DLD was explored. Method SR performance of children with DLD aged 5;10-14;1 (years;months; n = 27) and TD children aged 5;3-13;4 (n = 87) was investigated. Results Compared to TD same-age peers, children with DLD were less likely to repeat the sentences accurately but more likely to make ungrammatical errors with respect to verb inflection and use of determiners and personal pronouns. Younger children with DLD also produced more word order errors that their TD peers. Furthermore, older children with DLD performed less accurately than younger TD peers, indicating that the SR task taps into morphosyntactic areas of particular difficulty for Danish children with DLD. The classification accuracy associated with SR performance showed high levels of sensitivity and specificity (> 90%) and likelihood ratios indicating good identification potential for clinical and future research purposes. Conclusion SR performance has a strong potential for identifying children with DLD, also in Danish, and with a carefully designed SR task, performance has potential for revealing morphosyntactic difficulties. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.10314437.

The use and productivity of past tense morphology in specific language impairment: an examination of Danish.

PURPOSE: The authors' primary goal was to investigate the potential of past tense inflection as a clinical marker of Danish specific language impairment (SLI). They also wished to test the predictions of the extended optional infinitive (EOI) account and processing based accounts of SLI on Danish. METHOD: Using sentence completion and sentence repetition tasks, the authors investigated the use of past tense by 3 groups ( n = 11 in each group): (a) children with SLI whose ages ranged from 5;2 (years;months) to 7;11; (b) children with typical language development matched on chronological age; and (c) children with typical language development matched on vocabulary. RESULTS: Participants with SLI were less likely to produce past tense than were both typically developing control groups. In particular, only the children with SLI had difficulties with accurately producing past tense verbs during the sentence repetition task. Past tense accuracy was associated with children's productive vocabulary levels and proficiency with a nonword repetition task. CONCLUSION: Past tense use is potentially a clinical marker of Danish SLI, but more research is needed to confirm this. Results provided mixed support for competing accounts of SLI.