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Linguistic Illusions in Children with Down Syndrome, Specific Language Impairment and Typical Language Development

Objective

This project investigates the acquisition of grammar in children with Down syndrome (DS), Specific language Impairment (SLI) and typical language development (TLD) between the ages of 2 and 12, speaking African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Southern English (SE). Similarities and differences will be compared between the three populations to determine whether the reduced use of inflectional marking in AAVE speaking children is the result of linguistic illusions, conditioned by factors external to morphosyntax (i.e dialectal particularities).
Children speaking AAVE are often referred to speech language pathologists for further assessment and intervention, because reduced production of overt inflectional marking resembles the speech of children with SLI. Similar characteristics have been argued for individuals with DS. Studies looking at DS and SLI comparatively find a number of similarities across the two populations. However, recent work on DS has shown that productions that may be seemingly due to a morphosyntactic impairment, are in fact “morphosyntactic illusions”, where the surfacing effect might seem to be a result of grammatical restrictions but it is in fact an effect caused by physiological/articulatory limitations and differences in the phonological system. The same has also been argued for toddlers with TLD.
This study will provide information on the stages of language acquisition in the three populations and determine if the potential differences recorded across the three groups are the outcome of problematic language acquisition or linguistic illusions (phonetic/phonological effects, dialectal particularities, etc). Therefore, this project constitutes innovative research with regard to different stages of (a)typical language development across the three populations speaking AAVE and SE. We further aim to provide sufficient information for therapists for the development of new tools to improve linguistic performance in populations with DS and SLI

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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MSCA-IF-GF - Global Fellowships

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2016

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Coordinator

THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 269 857,80
Address
TRINITY LANE THE OLD SCHOOLS
CB2 1TN Cambridge
United Kingdom

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Region
East of England East Anglia Cambridgeshire CC
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 269 857,80

Partners (1)

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