Prosodic problems in Swedish children with language impairment: towards a classification of subgroups

Abstract

Background: Symptoms of prosodic problems have been found in Swedish children with language impairment at word and phrase level and possibly also at discourse level.

Aims: The aim was twofold. First, to characterize a group of children with prosodic problems compared with children with normal language development. Second, to investigate the possibilities to classify subgroups of prosodic problems.

Methods & procedures: A new Swedish assessment procedure for prosody that captures prosodic features at word, phrase and discourse level was used. Twenty-five children with prosodic problems and 25 children with typically developing language matched by age, gender and regional dialect participated in the study. Pretesting included tests of language comprehension, grammatical skills and oral motor skills.

Outcomes & results: The difference between the experimental and control groups was highly significant in all parts of the procedure. The total score of the procedure significantly correlated with grammatical abilities measured in the pretesting procedure, but there was no correlation with the other linguistic abilities measured in the pretesting procedure.

Conclusions: The results indicate a possible differentiation into two different subgroups, one with primarily phonetic and/or linguistic problems, the other with prosodic problems at discourse level possibly related to pragmatic problems.