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Tense and aspect in childhood language impairment: Contributions from Hungarian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2011

LAURENCE B. LEONARD ,
ÁGNES LUKÁCS  and
BENCE KAS
LAURENCE B. LEONARD*
Affiliation:
Purdue University
ÁGNES LUKÁCS
Affiliation:
Budapest University of Technology and Economics and Hungarian Academy of Sciences
BENCE KAS
Affiliation:
Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Laurence B. Leonard, Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, 500 Oval Drive, Heavilon Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. E-mail: xdxl@purdue.edu
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Abstract

Previous studies of children with language impairment (LI) reveal an insensitivity to aspect that may constitute part of the children's deficit. In this study, we examine aspect as well as tense in Hungarian-speaking children with LI. Twenty-one children with LI, 21 TD children matched for age, and 21 TD children matched for receptive vocabulary scores were tested on their comprehension and production of both imperfective and perfective verb forms in past tense contexts. Although the groups did not differ in their comprehension performance, the children with LI were less accurate than both comparison groups in producing both imperfective and perfective forms. Based on these results, it appears that children with LI have difficulties selecting the appropriate aspectual marking in past tense contexts.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , April 2012 , pp. 305 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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