Why ask questions? Contextual effects on the grammatical structure in the language production of children with SLI

In this small-scale study we investigated the influence of different aspects of context on the language production of children with specific language impairment (SLI). Each of the variables, type of partner, the partner’s interactional style and the type of material used for eliciting conversation, was related to the probability of the use of a set of grammatical constructions by the child. The results show that the interactional style of the conversational partner as well as the type of elicitation material used can have an influence on the grammatical complexity in the language production of children with SLI. Further investigation of such contextual effects from a dialogical perspective would have important implications for intervention with these children