A Semantic Organization of the Words of Children with Specific Language Impairment

Lee, Yoon Kyoung

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2005;10(1): 43-57.

Yoon Kyoung Lee^`

이윤경(Yoon Kyoung Lee)

ABSTRACT

Semantic organization of words is closely related with word acquisition and use. The present study was designed to compare semantic organization of words between children with specific language impairment and normal children. Thirty children participated in this study: 10 with specific language impairment(SLI group) whose language ages were 4;6 - 6;6, 10 normal children chronological-age matched(CA controls) and 10 normal children language-age matched with the SLI children(LA controls). All participants were asked to respond to contrast questions consisting of 4 types of semantic categories: functional, physical, locative, and categorical. The principal findings of the study were as follows. (1) The performance of the SLI group was significantly lower than the CA controls, and they also performed poorer than the LA controls. (2) The SLI group revealed significantly lower performance in the functional category than the other two control groups and the CA controls significantly higher performance in the physical category than the other two groups. The study results were discussed in terms of the relationships between the semantic organization and word acquisition and production.