Sentence repetition as a marker of DLD in Arabic (Taha et al., 2021)

Purpose: Research on the typical and impaired grammatical acquisition of Arabic is limited. This study systematically examined the morphosyntactic abilities of Arabic-speaking children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) using a novel sentence repetition task. The usefulness of the task as an indicator of DLD in Arabic was determined.Method: A LITMUS (Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings) sentence repetition task was developed in Palestinian Arabic (LITMUS-SR-PA-72) and administered to 30 children with DLD (M = 61.50 months, SD = 11.27) and 60 age-matched typically developing (TD) children (M = 63.85 months, SD = 10.16). The task targeted grammatical structures known to be problematic for Arabic-speaking children with DLD (language specific) and children with DLD across languages (language independent). Responses were scored using binary, error, and structural scoring methods.Results: Children with DLD scored below TD children on the LITMUS-SR-PA-72, in general, and in the repetition of language-specific and language-independent structures. The frequency of morphosyntactic errors was higher in the DLD group relative to the TD group. Despite the large similarity of the type of morphosyntactic errors between the two groups, some atypical errors were exclusively produced by the DLD group. The three scoring methods showed good diagnostic power in the discrimination between children with DLD and children without DLD.Conclusions: Sentence repetition was an area of difficulty for Palestinian Arabic–speaking children with DLD. The DLD group demonstrated difficulties with language-specific and language-independent structures, particularly complex sentences with noncanonical word order. Most grammatical errors made by the DLD group resembled those of the TD group and were mostly omissions or substitutions of grammatical affixes or omissions of function words. SR appears to hold promise as a good indicator for the presence or absence of DLD in Arabic. Further validation of these findings using population-based studies is warranted.Supplemental Material S1. Average age of acquisition of 50 words included in the LITMUS-SR-PA-71. Data from Lebanese Arabic-speaking children (from Łuniewska et al., 2019).Taha, J., Stojanovik, V., & Pagnamenta, E. (2021). Sentence repetition as a clinical marker of developmental language disorder: Evidence from Arabic. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_JSLHR-21-00244

研究背景：目前针对阿拉伯语典型语法习得与受损语法习得的相关研究仍较为有限。本研究采用一款新型句子重复任务，系统考察了有/无发育性语言障碍（Developmental Language Disorder, DLD）的阿拉伯语儿童的形态句法能力，并评估了该任务作为阿拉伯语群体DLD筛查指标的应用价值。

研究方法：本研究以巴勒斯坦阿拉伯语开发了一款多语言环境语言障碍测试（Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings, LITMUS）句子重复任务（LITMUS-SR-PA-72），并将其施测于30名DLD儿童（平均年龄61.50个月，标准差SD=11.27）与60名年龄匹配的典型发育（Typically Developing, TD）儿童（平均年龄63.85个月，标准差SD=10.16）。该任务针对两类语法结构：一是阿拉伯语DLD儿童特有的语言特异性结构，二是跨语言DLD儿童共有的语言非特异性结构。研究采用二分法、错误分析法与结构评分法对被试的反应进行评分。

研究结果：总体而言，在LITMUS-SR-PA-72任务中，以及在语言特异性结构与语言非特异性结构的重复测试中，DLD儿童的得分均低于TD儿童。DLD组的形态句法错误发生率显著高于TD组。尽管两组的形态句法错误类型整体相似，但DLD组仅会出现部分非典型错误。三种评分方法均展现出良好的区分DLD儿童与典型发育儿童的诊断效能。

研究结论：句子重复任务是巴勒斯坦阿拉伯语DLD儿童的困难领域。DLD组在语言特异性与非特异性语法结构的重复上均存在困难，尤其是带有非常规语序的复杂句。DLD儿童所犯的多数语法错误与TD儿童相似，主要表现为语法词缀的遗漏或替换，以及功能词的遗漏。句子重复（Sentence Repetition, SR）有望成为阿拉伯语群体DLD筛查的有效指标。未来需采用基于人群的研究对本研究结果进行进一步验证。

补充材料S1：LITMUS-SR-PA-71任务中包含的50个词汇的平均习得年龄，数据来自黎巴嫩阿拉伯语儿童（引自Łuniewska等人，2019年）。

参考文献：Taha, J., Stojanovik, V., & Pagnamenta, E. (2021). 句子重复作为发育性语言障碍的临床标志物：来自阿拉伯语的证据. 《言语、语言与听力研究杂志》, 预在线发表. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_JSLHR-21-00244