Analogical processes in language development in children with specific language impairment

Constructivist approach (Goldberg, 1995; Tomasello, 2003) considers that analogical reasoning is a cognitive process which underlies the abstraction of the linguistic forms and the construction of more abstract linguistic schemas. When children hear two utterances such as “John eats an apple” and “She sees a bird”, they can infer the abstract schema [Subject Verb Object] by realizing analogies between the two utterances.
Morphosyntactic disorders encountered by children with specific language impairment (SLI) could be caused by problems with analogies, what would hinder their abstraction of construction schemas. Consequently, children with SLI would be less productive with their language and would use more fixed linguistic forms. Owing to these problems of generalization, the morphosyntactic development of children with SLI would be slow down