Analogical reasoning in children with specific language impairment

[en] Usage-based theory considers analogical reasoning as a cognitive process required in language development. We hypothesized that difficulties with analogical reasoning could hinder the abstraction of construction schemas, thus slowing down morphosyntactic development for children with specific language impairment (SLI). We also hypothesized, in accordance with usage-based theory, that the same analogy mechanism is shared by linguistic and non-linguistic processes. The current study investigated the performance of 15 children with SLI in comparison with age-matched peers on a nonlinguistic analogical reasoning task. Our experimental setting targeted two prerequisites of analogical reasoning: structural alignment and the discovery of relational similarity in comparison with perceptual similarity. The results obtained are compatible with our hypotheses according to which children with SLI would encounter problems building more abstract construction schemas, related to difficulties with analogical reasoning. The study also shows that children with SLI have specific cognitive difficulties regardless of their linguistic development.

Disciplines :

Theoretical & cognitive psychology

Author, co-author :

Leroy, Sandrine ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Psychologie : cognition et comportement > Logopédie clinique

Parisse, Christophe; Univerité Paris Ouest Nanterre > INSERM-Modyco

Maillart, Christelle ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Psychologie : cognition et comportement > Logopédie clinique

Language :

English

Title :

Analogical reasoning in children with specific language impairment

Publication date :

April 2012

Journal title :

Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics

ISSN :

0269-9206

eISSN :

1464-5076

Publisher :

Taylor & Francis Ltd, Abingdon, United Kingdom

Volume :

Issue :

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Funders :

F.R.S.-FNRS - Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique [BE]

Available on ORBi :

since 12 March 2012

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