Development of Grammatical Aspect in Specific Language Impairment: Evidence from an Experimental Design with Video Stimuli

AbstractTypical development of tense and aspect has been extensively studied across various languages. However, relevant research on language disorders has been generally restricted on tense morphology rather than aspect resulting in inconsistent findings. Specifically, some studies imply that acquisition of aspect in Specific Language Impairment (SLI) does not differentiate from typical development, whereas others report a deviant performance. These inconsistencies could be related to the limited number of languages tested or even to the different methodologies used across the studies. The present study examines the comprehension and production of grammatical aspect in Greek-speaking children with SLI. Thirty-six children participated in a combined comprehension – production task; twelve children with SLI (mean age: 6;3), twelve age-matched typically developing children (mean age: 6;3) and twelve language-matched typically developing children (mean age: 4;4). The originality of the study mainly lies on its methodology, since the task distributed to the children consisted of video stimuli instead of pictures, which are usually used in similar experimental designs. According to the findings, Greek-speaking children with SLI exhibited the same asymmetrical pattern reported for early stages of typical development. That is, perfective aspect is fully acquired, while interpretation and use of imperfective aspect seems to be problematic. Therefore, development of aspect in Greek SLI appears rather delayed than severely impaired