Nonadjacent Dependency Learning in Cantonese-Speaking Children With and Without a History of Specific Language Impairment

Abstract

Purpose: This study investigated nonadjacent dependency learning in Cantonese-speaking children with and without a history of specific language impairment (SLI) in an artificial linguistic context.

Method: Sixteen Cantonese-speaking children with a history of SLI and 16 Cantonese-speaking children with typical language development (TLD) were tested with a nonadjacent dependency learning task using artificial languages that mimic Cantonese.

Results: Children with TLD performed above chance and were able to discriminate between trained and untrained nonadjacent dependencies. However, children with a history of SLI performed at chance and were not able to differentiate trained versus untrained nonadjacent dependencies.

Conclusions: These findings, together with previous findings from English-speaking adults and adolescents with language impairments, suggest that individuals with atypical language development, regardless of age, diagnostic status, language, and culture, show difficulties in learning nonadjacent dependencies. This study provides evidence for early impairments to statistical learning in individuals with atypical language development.