Nonword repetition in Cantonese (Fu et al., 2024)

<b>Purpos</b><b>e: </b>Nonword repetition (NWR) has been described as a clinical marker of developmental language disorder (DLD), as NWR tasks consistently discriminate between DLD and typical development (TD) cross-linguistically, with Cantonese as the only reported exception. This study reexamines whether NWR is able to generate TD/DLD group differences in Cantonese-speaking children by reporting on a novel set of NWR stimuli that take into account factors known to affect NWR performance and group differentiation, including lexicality, sublexicality, length, and syllable complexity.<b>Method: </b>Sixteen Cantonese-speaking children with DLD and 16 age-matched children with TD repeated two sets of high-lexicality nonwords, where all constituent syllables are morphemic in Cantonese but meaningless when combined, and one set of low-lexicality nonwords, where all constituent syllables are nonmorphemic. Low-lexicality nonwords were further classified on sublexicality in terms of consonant–vowel (CV) combination attestedness (whether or not CV combinations in nonword syllables occur in real Cantonese words).<b>Results: </b>Children with DLD scored significantly below their peers with TD. Effect sizes showed that high-lexicality nonwords and nonword syllables with attested CV combinations offered the greatest TD/DLD group differentiation. Nonword length and syllable complexity did not affect TD/DLD group differentiation.<b>Conclusions: </b>NWR can capture TD/DLD group differences in Cantonese-speaking children. Lexicality and sublexicality effects must be considered in designing NWR stimuli for TD/DLD group differentiation. Future studies should replicate the present study on a larger sample size and a younger population as well as examine the diagnostic accuracy of this NWR test.<b>Supplemental Material S1. </b>Full list of NWR stimuli.Fu, N. C., Chen, S., Polišenská, K., Chan, A., Kan, R., &amp; Chiat, S. (2024). Nonword repetition in children with developmental language disorder: Revisiting the case of Cantonese. <i>Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 67</i>(6), 1772–1784<i>. </i>https://doi.org/10.1044/2024_JSLHR-22-00397