Non-word repetition in Spanish-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI).

Background: A number of previous studies have revealed that children with Specific Language Impairment have limitations in Phonological Working Memory as revealed by a task that requires them to repeat non-words of increasing syllable length. However, most published studies have used non-words that are phonotactically English.

Aims: The purpose was to examine the repetition of non-words that are consistent with the phonotactic patterns of Spanish. The study also examined the relationship between non-word repetition performance and other language measures.

Methods & Procedures: Eleven Spanish-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment and 11 age-matched children with typical language development aged 8;3-10;11, who were part of a larger study of sentence processing, participated in the study. The primary data were the children's repetition of 20 non-words, four at each syllable length (one, two, three, four and five syllables). The children's productions were transcribed and scored for non-word, segmental and cluster accuracy as well as for error type.

Outcomes & Results: The children with Specific Language Impairment performed more poorly on almost all measures of accuracy, but particularly in their production of three-, four-, and five-syllable non-words. Substitutions were the most frequent error type for both groups. Likelihood ratios indicated that non-word repetition performance is a highly accurate identifier of language status in these preselected groups. The children's non-word repetition was highly correlated with most of the standardized language measures that were administered to the children.

Conclusions: The repetition of non-words consistent with Spanish phonotactics reveals word-length effects and error patterns similar to those found in previous studies. It extends these findings to older school-age Spanish-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment. Given the limited choices for instruments that can be used to identify children with Specific Language Impairment, a Spanish Non-word Repetition Task has the potential to be a valuable screening test for clinical and research purposes.