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Abilities of children with developmental language disorders in perceiving phonological, grammatical, and semantic structures

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A Correction to this article was published on 29 March 2023

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Abstract

This study aims to investigate the perception of phonological, grammatical, and semantic structures by 8 children (age range: 8;2–9;5) with developmental language disorders (DLD). Another 8 age-matched (age range: 8;4–10;0) typically developing (TD) children served as controls. The results demonstrated that children with DLD had lower performance than children with TD in the phonology and grammar tests, corroborating earlier findings, which reported difficulties of children with DLD in discriminating voicing contrasts and perceiving grammatical structures. However, both groups had similar performance in the semantic test. The absence of semantic atypicality can be explained possibly due to the simplicity of the sentences included in the test. The study offers important clinical implications for the identification and treatment of the disorder.

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Acknowledgements

The study has been approved by the Cyprus Bioethics Committee [EEBK/EΠ/2021/28]. Both children and their parents/legal guardians gave their written consent for the participation of the former in the experiments.

Funding

This work has been funded by the Cyprus University of Technology under the postdoctoral scheme “Metadidaktor”, which was granted to the first author [no. 1/102]. The second author acted as the scientific director.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Languages and Literature, University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Georgios P. Georgiou PhD

  2. Department of Rehabilitation Science, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus

    Elena Theodorou PhD

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  1. Georgios P. Georgiou PhD
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  2. Elena Theodorou PhD
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Correspondence to Georgios P. Georgiou PhD.

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Georgiou, G.P., Theodorou, E. Abilities of children with developmental language disorders in perceiving phonological, grammatical, and semantic structures. J Autism Dev Disord 53, 4483–4487 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05548-5

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