Nonverbal imitation skills in children with specific language delay.
Research in children with language problems has focussed on verbal deficits, and we have less understanding of children's deficits with nonverbal sociocognitive skills which have been proposed to be important for language acquisition. This study was designed to investigate elicited nonverbal im...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2013
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| _version_ | 1797070850816475136 |
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| author | Dohmen, A Chiat, S Roy, P |
| author_facet | Dohmen, A Chiat, S Roy, P |
| author_sort | Dohmen, A |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Research in children with language problems has focussed on verbal deficits, and we have less understanding of children's deficits with nonverbal sociocognitive skills which have been proposed to be important for language acquisition. This study was designed to investigate elicited nonverbal imitation in children with specific language delay (SLD). It is argued that difficulties in nonverbal imitation, which do not involve the processing of structural aspects of language, may be indicative of sociocognitive deficits. Participants were German-speaking typically developing children (n=60) and children with SLD (n=45) aged 2-3 ½ years. A novel battery of tasks measured their ability to imitate a range of nonverbal target acts that to a greater or lesser extent involve sociocognitive skills (body movements, instrumental acts on objects, pretend acts). Significant group differences were found for all body movement and pretend act tasks, but not for the instrumental act tasks. The poorer imitative performance of the SLD sample was not explained by motor or nonverbal cognitive skills. Thus, it appeared that the nature of the task affected children's imitation performance. It is argued that the ability to establish a sense of connectedness with the demonstrator was at the core of children's imitation difficulty in the SLD sample. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T22:44:55Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:5cd71c2d-8ab4-4b50-a9e2-79ae6bf6c269 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T22:44:55Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:5cd71c2d-8ab4-4b50-a9e2-79ae6bf6c2692022-03-26T17:30:38ZNonverbal imitation skills in children with specific language delay.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:5cd71c2d-8ab4-4b50-a9e2-79ae6bf6c269EnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2013Dohmen, AChiat, SRoy, PResearch in children with language problems has focussed on verbal deficits, and we have less understanding of children's deficits with nonverbal sociocognitive skills which have been proposed to be important for language acquisition. This study was designed to investigate elicited nonverbal imitation in children with specific language delay (SLD). It is argued that difficulties in nonverbal imitation, which do not involve the processing of structural aspects of language, may be indicative of sociocognitive deficits. Participants were German-speaking typically developing children (n=60) and children with SLD (n=45) aged 2-3 ½ years. A novel battery of tasks measured their ability to imitate a range of nonverbal target acts that to a greater or lesser extent involve sociocognitive skills (body movements, instrumental acts on objects, pretend acts). Significant group differences were found for all body movement and pretend act tasks, but not for the instrumental act tasks. The poorer imitative performance of the SLD sample was not explained by motor or nonverbal cognitive skills. Thus, it appeared that the nature of the task affected children's imitation performance. It is argued that the ability to establish a sense of connectedness with the demonstrator was at the core of children's imitation difficulty in the SLD sample. |
| spellingShingle | Dohmen, A Chiat, S Roy, P Nonverbal imitation skills in children with specific language delay. |
| title | Nonverbal imitation skills in children with specific language delay. |
| title_full | Nonverbal imitation skills in children with specific language delay. |
| title_fullStr | Nonverbal imitation skills in children with specific language delay. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Nonverbal imitation skills in children with specific language delay. |
| title_short | Nonverbal imitation skills in children with specific language delay. |
| title_sort | nonverbal imitation skills in children with specific language delay |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT dohmena nonverbalimitationskillsinchildrenwithspecificlanguagedelay AT chiats nonverbalimitationskillsinchildrenwithspecificlanguagedelay AT royp nonverbalimitationskillsinchildrenwithspecificlanguagedelay |