Maria Mastropavlou
University of Ioannina/Greece, Philology, Faculty Member
- Psycholinguistics, Child Language Impairment; Child Language Acquisition, Developmental Psycholinguistics, Morphological Processing, Morphology and Syntax, Linguistics, and 14 moreFirst Language Acquisition, Child Language Disorders, Neurolinguistics, Speech-Language Pathology/ Communication Disorders, Sentence Processing, Philology, Learning Disabilities, Bilingual Language Acquisition, Aphasia, Morphology, Specific Language Impairment, Past Tense, Languages and Linguistics, and Language Acquisitionedit
- I am a Psycholinguist, currently employed as an Assistant Professor at the School of Philology of the University of I... moreI am a Psycholinguist, currently employed as an Assistant Professor at the School of Philology of the University of Ioannina. I have worked on first and second language acquisition, language disorders in children and adults and learning difficulties.edit
In this paper we report on the findings from a Greek and German production task which investigated the expression of constructions involving manner-of-motion verbs with Greek and German adults as well as typically developing and SLI... more
In this paper we report on the findings from a Greek and German production task which investigated the expression of constructions involving manner-of-motion verbs with Greek and German adults as well as typically developing and SLI children at the age of 5-6 years. The results showed that the typically developing children, when describing motion events, differed from the adults in the integration of grammatical information into motion predicates. The SLI children on the other hand displayed problems with the use of grammatical aspect (Greek) and case marking (German) as well as with ambiguous constructions (Greek).
Research Interests:
The current study investigates past formation in Standard Greek (SG) and Cypriot Greek (CYG) measuring the associated morphophonological salience and its effects on SLI grammars. Elicited production of real and pseudo verbs was carried... more
The current study investigates past formation in Standard Greek (SG) and Cypriot Greek (CYG) measuring the associated morphophonological salience and its effects on SLI grammars. Elicited production of real and pseudo verbs was carried out with SLI and TD groups from each variety. Results show that phonological salience of past formation affects SLI but not TD performance. Between varieties, the GR/SLI group performs better than CYG/SLI group with real verbs. We attribute this finding to the difference in the status of the augment in each variety.
Research Interests:
The aim of the current paper is to present and discuss the development, structure, content, and use of a flexible, scalable and cost-effective cloud-based software system used in the iRead project.The iRead Project (Infrastructure and... more
The aim of the current paper is to present and discuss the development, structure, content, and use of a flexible, scalable and cost-effective cloud-based software system used in the iRead project.The iRead Project (Infrastructure and Integrated Tools for Personalized Learning of Reading Skills) aimed to offer personalized learning services to novice readers and students with reading difficulties or dyslexia by developing an integrated supportive tool for tablets, the iRead software, which includes a set of educational applications, like mini-games, an e-reader and a text classifier. iRead is built and operates around a comprehensive knowledge base, which includes a structured and detailed model of linguistic content that is essential to reading development, the domain model. iRead Domain models are essential for the operation of all iRead apps and were designed to provide personalized learning support to students with dyslexia by enabling each app to select linguistic content based on the particular learning needs of each student. The sophisticated and thorough structure and linguistic content of the iRead domain models, along with the ability of iRead to adapt to students’ needs, constitute unique features that render iRead innovative.
Research Interests:
In recent research in language development, several attempts have been made to compare performance data from different populations (L1 or L2 learners, SLI, agrammatics) in order to provide an analysis that would account for the patterns
In this paper we report on the findings from a Greek and German production task which investigated the expression of constructions involving manner-of-motion verbs with Greek and German adults as well as typically developing and SLI... more
In this paper we report on the findings from a Greek and German production task which investigated the expression of constructions involving manner-of-motion verbs with Greek and German adults as well as typically developing and SLI children at the age of 5-6 years. The results showed that the typically developing children, when describing motion events, differed from the adults in the integration of grammatical information into motion predicates. The SLI children on the other hand displayed problems with the use of grammatical aspect (Greek) and case marking (German) as well as with ambiguous constructions (Greek).
Research Interests:
Studies on the processing of non-active (NACT) voice have indicated that passive sentences are more difficult to comprehend and require more time to process. Children with Reading Difficulties (RDs) face problems with sentence... more
Studies on the processing of non-active (NACT) voice have indicated that passive sentences are more difficult to comprehend and require more time to process. Children with Reading Difficulties (RDs) face problems with sentence comprehension, which are often attributed to phonological processing, working memory, syntactic awareness limitations, or a maturation delay. Using an online self-paced reading task, we investigated the effect of voice morphology and argument structure on sentence processing in 3 groups of participants; 30 children RDs, 28 Age-Matched (AM) controls without RDs, and 28 young Beginning Readers (BRs). Our results suggest that although the RDs and BR groups present similar reading times, their reading patterns differ qualitatively. Beginning Readers experienced greater processing delays when processing NACT structures, suggesting that they have not yet fully grasped the properties of the various NACT verbs. However, the RDs group presents effects not found in the ...
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The aim of this paper is to increase knowledge and understanding on how the implementation of language content through specialized software, such as the “Integrated Intelligent Learning Environment for Reading and Writing-iLearnRW”, can... more
The aim of this paper is to increase knowledge and understanding on how the implementation of language content through specialized software, such as the “Integrated Intelligent Learning Environment for Reading and Writing-iLearnRW”, can enhance learning during intervention procedures to enhance reading skills for children with dyslexia.The iLearnRW software is a newly designed tool that makes use of innovative technology and provides individualized intervention through games that incorporate learning activities, addressing those language areas that are most challenging for children with dyslexia in a highly entertaining and motivating way. Individualized intervention is provided through an underlying user profile, which incorporates these language features and is constantly updated as the child uses the software playing games, presenting language material selected based on his difficulties and recording his progress. A group of 78 students (52 male, 26 female) diagnosed with dyslexi...
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The aim of this presentation is to investigate the status of Agreement features and in particular [Gender] in the grammar of Greek children with Specific Language Impairment. Feature assignment is investigated with respect to... more
The aim of this presentation is to investigate the status of Agreement features and in particular [Gender] in the grammar of Greek children with Specific Language Impairment. Feature assignment is investigated with respect to Chomsky's notion of LF-interpretability. It has been argued that AGR features (phi- features) on definite articles and adjectives are interpretable only in PF but not in LF, whereas phi-features of Nouns are LF-interpretable. If features that are non-interpretable at LF are mostly affected by SLI, then there should be a distinction between the assignment of [Gender] on Articles and Nouns, as [Gender] is considered an inherent property of the noun stem, whereas in adjectives it is a property of the inflectional affix. There should also be a distinction between [Gender] assignment as opposed to [Number] and [Case] assignment, features that are considered to be of a different status.
Studies on the processing of non-active (NACT) voice have indicated that passive sentences are more difficult to comprehend and require more time to process. Children with Reading Difficulties (RDs) face problems with sentence... more
Studies on the processing of non-active (NACT) voice have indicated that passive sentences are more difficult to comprehend and require more time to process. Children with Reading Difficulties (RDs) face problems with sentence comprehension, which are often attributed to phonological processing, working memory, syntactic awareness limitations, or a maturation delay. Using an online self-paced reading task, we investigated the effect of voice morphology and argument structure on sentence processing in 3 groups of participants; 30 children RDs, 28 Age-Matched (AM) controls without RDs, and 28 young Beginning Readers (BRs). Our results suggest that although the RDs and BR groups present similar reading times, their reading patterns differ qualitatively. Beginning Readers experienced greater processing delays when processing NACT structures, suggesting that they have not yet fully grasped the properties of the various NACT verbs. However, the RDs group presents effects not found in the ...
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Research Interests:
Although extensive research has been conducted in the field of text-readability and user modelling, scholars and researchers have taken into consideration only linguistic complexity in order to classify a text as readable or not. In this... more
Although extensive research has been conducted in the field of text-readability and user modelling, scholars and researchers have taken into consideration only linguistic complexity in order to classify a text as readable or not. In this paper, the authors move one step forward by considering one more factor, namely intended…
The aim of the current paper is to present and discuss the development, structure, content, and use of a flexible, scalable and cost-effective cloud-based software system used in the iRead project.The iRead Project (Infrastructure and... more
The aim of the current paper is to present and discuss the development, structure, content, and use of a flexible, scalable and cost-effective cloud-based software system used in the iRead project.The iRead Project (Infrastructure and Integrated Tools for Personalized Learning of Reading Skills) aimed to offer personalized learning services to novice readers and students with reading difficulties or dyslexia by developing an integrated supportive tool for tablets, the iRead software, which includes a set of educational applications, like mini-games, an e-reader and a text classifier. iRead is built and operates around a comprehensive knowledge base, which includes a structured and detailed model of linguistic content that is essential to reading development, the domain model. iRead Domain models are essential for the operation of all iRead apps and were designed to provide personalized learning support to students with dyslexia by enabling each app to select linguistic content based on the particular learning needs of each student. The sophisticated and thorough structure and linguistic content of the iRead domain models, along with the ability of iRead to adapt to students' needs, constitute unique features that render iRead innovative.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The paper explores the extent to which surface gender marking impacts on online gender processing and lexical access, aiming to determine the way grammatical gender is represented in the lexicon and accessed in real-time. Two online... more
The paper explores the extent to which surface gender marking impacts on online gender processing and lexical access, aiming to determine the way grammatical gender is represented in the lexicon and accessed in real-time. Two online experiments were conducted: an online gender monitoring task and a lexical decision task. The effects of explicit gender marking and suffix type were examined by comparing adjusted and unadjusted loans as well as derived and inflected pseudo-nouns. The results revealed a significant gender marking effect in the gender monitoring task (Exp.1) but not in the lexical decision task (Exp.2), while a suffix type effect was found on pseudo-nouns only, with derived items yielding faster gender decision times (Exp.1) but slower lexical decisions (Exp.2). The findings are consistent with models supporting a dual-route access to grammatical gender, while the lexical nature of both inflectional and derivational suffixes is also attested.
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Abstract: In this paper we report on the findings from a Greek and German production task which investigated the expression of constructions involving manner-of-motion verbs with Greek and German adults as well as typically developing and... more
Abstract: In this paper we report on the findings from a Greek and German production task which investigated the expression of constructions involving manner-of-motion verbs with Greek and German adults as well as typically developing and SLI children at the age of 5-6 years. The results showed that the typically developing children, when describing motion events, differed from the adults in the integration of grammatical information into motion predicates.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
"Σύγχρονες έρευνες στο χώρο της γλωσσικής επεξεργασίας έχουν δείξει αναπτυξιακές διαφορές ως προς τις στρατηγικές κατανόησης που χρησιμοποιούν ενήλικες ομιλητές και παιδιά ηλικίας 10-11 ετών, γεγονός που δηλώνει ότι κατά τη γλωσσική... more
"Σύγχρονες έρευνες στο χώρο της γλωσσικής επεξεργασίας έχουν δείξει αναπτυξιακές διαφορές ως προς τις στρατηγικές κατανόησης που χρησιμοποιούν ενήλικες ομιλητές και παιδιά ηλικίας 10-11 ετών, γεγονός που δηλώνει ότι κατά τη γλωσσική ανάπτυξη υπάρχει διαφοροποίηση ανάμεσα στη γραμματική
ικανότητα και την πραγμάτωσή της. Αντίστοιχα, μελέτες σε παιδιά με αναγνωστικές διαταραχές έχουν δείξει πως η προτασιακή επεξεργασία (ακουστική και οπτική) διαταράσσεται σημαντικά, γεγονός το οποίο συνήθως αποδίδεται σε περιορισμούς στη φωνολογική επεξεργασία και τη λεκτική
βραχυπρόθεσμη μνήμη (Bar-Shalom κ.ά. 1993, Smith κ.ά. 1989). Στόχος της εργασίας είναι η μελέτη της γλωσσικής επεξεργασίας (μη)-γραμματικών προτάσεων και δομικών αμφισημιών από τυπικά αναπτυσσόμενα παιδιά και από παιδιά με αναγνωστικές δυσκολίες οι οποίες αφορούν και την ανάπτυξη
αναγνωστικών ικανοτήτων. Δύο ομάδες παιδιών – με και χωρίς αναγνωστικές δυσκολίες – συμμετείχαν σε ένα χρονομετρικό πείραμα ανάγνωσης προτάσεων, στο οποίο οι προτάσεις εμφανίζονται στην οθόνη ενός υπολογιστή λέξη-λέξη και στο τέλος κάθε πρότασης οι συμμετέχοντες καλούνται να κρίνουν την
(μη)-αποδεκτότητα των προτάσεων. Το πείραμα ελέγχει τον τρόπο με τον οποίο χρησιμοποιούνται γραμματικές πληροφορίες για (α) την εύρεση (μη)-αποδεκτών δομών και (β) την κατανόηση δομικών αμφισημιών σε προτάσεις, όπως
Καθώς έτρεχε/μαγείρευε οι/τους αστακοί/αστακούς κάηκαν/κάηκε στην κατσαρόλα.
Τα αποτελέσματα έδειξαν ότι, ενώ τα τυπικά αναπτυσσόμενα παιδιά δεν διαφέρουν από τους ενήλικες ως προς τη χρήση των γραμματικών χαρακτηριστικών για την εύρεση (μη)-γραμματικών
δομών, χρησιμοποιούν σε μικρότερο βαθμό από τους ενήλικες πληροφορίες που δεν είναι αμιγώς γραμματικές. Αντίθετα, τα παιδιά με αναγνωστικές διαταραχές διαφοροποιούνται από τα τυπικά αναπτυσσόμενα, καθώς παρατηρείται καθυστέρηση στην ενσωμάτωση των γραμματικών πληροφοριών κατά την επεξεργασία (μη)-γραμματικών προτάσεων αλλά και δομικών αμφισημιών (πρβλ. Isakson & Miller 1976, Mann κ.ά.1984)."
ικανότητα και την πραγμάτωσή της. Αντίστοιχα, μελέτες σε παιδιά με αναγνωστικές διαταραχές έχουν δείξει πως η προτασιακή επεξεργασία (ακουστική και οπτική) διαταράσσεται σημαντικά, γεγονός το οποίο συνήθως αποδίδεται σε περιορισμούς στη φωνολογική επεξεργασία και τη λεκτική
βραχυπρόθεσμη μνήμη (Bar-Shalom κ.ά. 1993, Smith κ.ά. 1989). Στόχος της εργασίας είναι η μελέτη της γλωσσικής επεξεργασίας (μη)-γραμματικών προτάσεων και δομικών αμφισημιών από τυπικά αναπτυσσόμενα παιδιά και από παιδιά με αναγνωστικές δυσκολίες οι οποίες αφορούν και την ανάπτυξη
αναγνωστικών ικανοτήτων. Δύο ομάδες παιδιών – με και χωρίς αναγνωστικές δυσκολίες – συμμετείχαν σε ένα χρονομετρικό πείραμα ανάγνωσης προτάσεων, στο οποίο οι προτάσεις εμφανίζονται στην οθόνη ενός υπολογιστή λέξη-λέξη και στο τέλος κάθε πρότασης οι συμμετέχοντες καλούνται να κρίνουν την
(μη)-αποδεκτότητα των προτάσεων. Το πείραμα ελέγχει τον τρόπο με τον οποίο χρησιμοποιούνται γραμματικές πληροφορίες για (α) την εύρεση (μη)-αποδεκτών δομών και (β) την κατανόηση δομικών αμφισημιών σε προτάσεις, όπως
Καθώς έτρεχε/μαγείρευε οι/τους αστακοί/αστακούς κάηκαν/κάηκε στην κατσαρόλα.
Τα αποτελέσματα έδειξαν ότι, ενώ τα τυπικά αναπτυσσόμενα παιδιά δεν διαφέρουν από τους ενήλικες ως προς τη χρήση των γραμματικών χαρακτηριστικών για την εύρεση (μη)-γραμματικών
δομών, χρησιμοποιούν σε μικρότερο βαθμό από τους ενήλικες πληροφορίες που δεν είναι αμιγώς γραμματικές. Αντίθετα, τα παιδιά με αναγνωστικές διαταραχές διαφοροποιούνται από τα τυπικά αναπτυσσόμενα, καθώς παρατηρείται καθυστέρηση στην ενσωμάτωση των γραμματικών πληροφοριών κατά την επεξεργασία (μη)-γραμματικών προτάσεων αλλά και δομικών αμφισημιών (πρβλ. Isakson & Miller 1976, Mann κ.ά.1984)."
Research Interests:
The current study investigates past formation in Standard Greek (SG) and Cypriot Greek (CYG) measuring the associated morphophonological salience and its effects on SLI grammars. Elicited production of real and pseudo verbs was carried... more
The current study investigates past formation in Standard Greek (SG) and Cypriot Greek (CYG) measuring the associated morphophonological salience and its effects on SLI grammars. Elicited production of real and pseudo verbs was carried out with SLI and TD groups from each variety. Results show that phonological salience of past formation affects SLI but not TD performance. Between varieties, the GR/SLI group performs better than CYG/SLI group with real verbs. We attribute this finding to the difference in the status of the augment in each variety.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This paper aims to test the interpretability distinction between features and its role on the developmental pattern found in L2 and SLI data. The idea is that interpretable features are always accessible in any instance of language... more
This paper aims to test the interpretability distinction between features and its role on the developmental pattern found in L2 and SLI data. The idea is that interpretable features are always accessible in any instance of language development or impairment, whereas uninterpretable features are relatively more problematic in non-native and SLI grammars, for reasons related to critical period constraints or genetically-based deficiencies in the analysis of the input. The study concentrates on the use of the article and the pronominal paradigm in Greek. In the domain of pronominal clitics, 3rd person accusative clitics are analysed as clusters of uninterpretable features only, whereas 1st/2nd person accusative clitics and possessive clitics include an interpretable [person] feature. In the article system, the definite article is similar to the 3rd person clitic in categorial, case and agreement features with no inherent specification for definiteness. The indefinite article, on the other hand, is intrinsically marked as [-definite], and as such it should show a similar developmental pattern with 1st/2nd person accusative and possessive clitics.
Overall, the data shows evidence for differential performance in interpretable vs uninterpretable features. However, differences between the three populations are also found: older SLI children perform target-like on 3rd person clitics and the definite article, showing that prolonged exposure to the input can lead to successful production in natural contexts. The older group of child L2 learners is successful in the definite article but not the 3rd person clitic. Finally, adult L2 learners show persistent problems with both the clitic and the definite article. The role of ‘misanalysis’ of the definite article and the clitic is proposed as a compensatory function of L2 and SLI grammars. It involves the introduction of an interpretable feature, namely [person] or [specificity], on the problematic elements. The motivation for misanalysis stems from the ban on unconstrained optionality; its availability as a grammatical option, on the other hand, is based on the accessibility of interpretable features in processes of language development or impairment.
Overall, the data shows evidence for differential performance in interpretable vs uninterpretable features. However, differences between the three populations are also found: older SLI children perform target-like on 3rd person clitics and the definite article, showing that prolonged exposure to the input can lead to successful production in natural contexts. The older group of child L2 learners is successful in the definite article but not the 3rd person clitic. Finally, adult L2 learners show persistent problems with both the clitic and the definite article. The role of ‘misanalysis’ of the definite article and the clitic is proposed as a compensatory function of L2 and SLI grammars. It involves the introduction of an interpretable feature, namely [person] or [specificity], on the problematic elements. The motivation for misanalysis stems from the ban on unconstrained optionality; its availability as a grammatical option, on the other hand, is based on the accessibility of interpretable features in processes of language development or impairment.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The aim of this study is threefold: Firstly, to describe the acquisition patterns of Greek past tense by children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI); secondly, to investigate the relationship between the phonological salience of past... more
The aim of this study is threefold: Firstly, to describe the acquisition patterns of Greek past tense by children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI); secondly, to investigate the relationship between the phonological salience of past tense in Greek and its acquisition by language impaired learners; thirdly, to establish an account on the nature of the impairment by comparing the acquisition patterns exhibited by SLI children with those presented by language unaffected ones.
The performance of 10 SLI children in elicited past tense production is compared to that of chronological age matched (CA) and language development matched (LD) controls. Based on the claim that perceptual saliency aids acquisition (or learning), it is predicted that SLI children will perform better in the production of past forms of higher salience than less salient forms. The results confirm this prediction, providing support for the claim that perceptual salience does account for better performances in tense marking in Greek SLI.
The performance of 10 SLI children in elicited past tense production is compared to that of chronological age matched (CA) and language development matched (LD) controls. Based on the claim that perceptual saliency aids acquisition (or learning), it is predicted that SLI children will perform better in the production of past forms of higher salience than less salient forms. The results confirm this prediction, providing support for the claim that perceptual salience does account for better performances in tense marking in Greek SLI.
Research Interests:
This paper investigates the production of manner-of-motion verbs by three groups of participants: monolingual Greek adults, 6- to 7-year-old monolingual Greek children and 6- to 7-year-old Albanian children acquiring Greek as a second... more
This paper investigates the production of manner-of-motion verbs by three groups of participants: monolingual Greek adults, 6- to 7-year-old monolingual Greek children and 6- to 7-year-old Albanian children acquiring Greek as a second language. The production of motion constructions has been tested through short videos that depicted (a)telic motion events. The aim of the study was to examine the role of grammatical aspect in the expression of (a)telic motion events. The results showed that the monolingual children’s performance differed from that of the adults, suggesting that (a)telicity is a late acquired concept. In addition, the L2 children experienced difficulties with the description of telic events compared to the L1 children and relied more on lexical cues to encode telicity rather than on grammatical aspect.
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This study aims to report on the pattern of use of complementisers by Greek SLI children as well as describe differences and/or similarities with patterns of emergence in typical language development. The complementisers na (corresponding... more
This study aims to report on the pattern of use of complementisers by Greek SLI children as well as describe differences and/or similarities with patterns of emergence in typical language development. The complementisers na (corresponding to the English infinitival marker to), oti and pos (corresponding to the English that) and pu (introducing factive complements and relative clauses) were investigated in spontaneous speech samples of 8 children with SLI and two control groups: 8 language-matched and 8 age-matched children. The theoretical frameworks adopted are that of the Interpretability Hypothesis, according to which LF-interpretability plays a determining role in the acquisition of formal features by SLI children, and Roussou’s account of the C domain in Greek. In line with these accounts, the child data was analysed with respect to feature specification, posing a distinction between pu on the one hand, specified for the interpretable feature of definiteness, and oti and pos on the other, while na holds a unique status, functioning as marker of mood/modality and a clause-typing element. Additionally, the selectional restrictions these complementisers impose on inflection were also investigated. The results indicate that complementisers with low specification for LF- interpretability are more sensitive in SLI, while their selectional properties are active, revealing a problem in the morpho-phonological operation of spell-out rather than their lexical representation in the children’s underlying grammar.
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The aim of this study is to investigate how native speakers of Greek assign gender to nouns. The main question concerns the role that the morpho-phonological information encoded on noun suffixes plays in the assignment of gender values by... more
The aim of this study is to investigate how native speakers of Greek assign gender to nouns. The main question concerns the role that the morpho-phonological information encoded on noun suffixes plays in the assignment of gender values by native speakers. To that end, novel nouns were created combined with the different nominal suffixes so that the role of the suffix could be investigated independently of any lexical and/or semantic effects. Monolingual, native speakers of Greek were asked to use these novel nouns by providing an agreeing definite article thus indicating the corresponding gender value. The experiment was conducted both orally and in written form, so that potential effects of phonological as opposed to orthographic information could be examined. Following the experiment, probability values (predictive values) were calculated for each noun suffix based on the participants’ interpretations, which were then compared to counts of frequency co-occurrence of each suffix with each gender value in the language. The results are discussed with respect to theoretical models of gender assignment and lexical access, while lexicalist approaches to morphology are also addressed.
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"The aim of this study is threefold: Firstly, to describe the acquisition patterns of Greek past tense by children with specific language impairment (SLI); secondly, to investigate the relationship between the phonological salience of... more
"The aim of this study is threefold: Firstly, to describe the acquisition patterns of Greek past tense by children with specific
language impairment (SLI); secondly, to investigate the relationship between the phonological salience of past tense in Greek and its acquisition by children of typical and atypical language development; thirdly, to establish an account on the nature of specific language impairment by comparing the acquisition patterns exhibited by children with SLI to those presented by typically developing children.
The performance of 10 children with SLI in elicited past tense production is compared to that of chronological age matched (CA) and language matched (LM) controls. Based on the claim that morphophonological salience aids acquisition (or learning), it is predicted that children with SLI will perform better in the production of past forms of higher salience than less salient forms. The results confirm this prediction, providing support for the claim that salience differences do account for better performances in tense marking in Greek SLI."
language impairment (SLI); secondly, to investigate the relationship between the phonological salience of past tense in Greek and its acquisition by children of typical and atypical language development; thirdly, to establish an account on the nature of specific language impairment by comparing the acquisition patterns exhibited by children with SLI to those presented by typically developing children.
The performance of 10 children with SLI in elicited past tense production is compared to that of chronological age matched (CA) and language matched (LM) controls. Based on the claim that morphophonological salience aids acquisition (or learning), it is predicted that children with SLI will perform better in the production of past forms of higher salience than less salient forms. The results confirm this prediction, providing support for the claim that salience differences do account for better performances in tense marking in Greek SLI."