Inferring Word Class and Meaning From Spoken and Written Texts: A Comparison of Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder.

Purpose: The aim of the study was to determine the ability of children with developmental language disorder (DLD) to infer word class and meaning from text and to document variations by word class (noun, verb, adjective) and modality (listening, reading). We also asked whether the children could integrate global cues across the entire passage as well as local cues from the immediate sentence frame to support inferences.

Method: Fourth graders with DLD ( = 28) and typical language development (TLD; = 41) read and listened to expository texts and guessed the noun, verb, and adjective removed from each.