A syntactically based treatment of relative clauses
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Silvia D’Ortenzio
Abstract
In this paper, we describe three case studies of a syntactic intervention given to three Italian-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs) to improve proficiency in the production and comprehension of relative clauses, and also their narrative skills. The methodology adopted for the syntactic intervention follows previous studies on aphasic patients with agrammatism and children with developmental language disorders (DLD). Indeed, these studies have shown that an explicit teaching of syntactic rules helps in the recovery and improvement of complex structures derived by syntactic movement. Results showed a general improvement in the production and comprehension of relative clauses, and generalization effects to untrained structures. Moreover, also narrative skills improved. Results were maintained several months after the end of the syntactic intervention.
Abstract
In this paper, we describe three case studies of a syntactic intervention given to three Italian-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs) to improve proficiency in the production and comprehension of relative clauses, and also their narrative skills. The methodology adopted for the syntactic intervention follows previous studies on aphasic patients with agrammatism and children with developmental language disorders (DLD). Indeed, these studies have shown that an explicit teaching of syntactic rules helps in the recovery and improvement of complex structures derived by syntactic movement. Results showed a general improvement in the production and comprehension of relative clauses, and generalization effects to untrained structures. Moreover, also narrative skills improved. Results were maintained several months after the end of the syntactic intervention.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
Relative clauses
- Case(mis)matching in German free relative clauses in the self-paced reading paradigm 11
- Integrating the filler 35
- When initial thematic role attribution lingers 57
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Empty categories
- Brain responses elicited by implausible fillers and filled object gaps in German 75
- Gone with a trace? 91
- Priming paradigmatic gaps 117
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Determiner Phrases
- A good-enough representation is not good enough 137
- Processing of pronoun gender by Dutch-Russian simultaneous bilinguals 153
-
Language impairment
- A syntactically based treatment of relative clauses 177
- Language impairment in an Italian child with Trisomy X 209
- Sentence reading in older adults with and without Mild Cognitive Impairment 239
- The comprehension of wh -questions and passives in German children and adolescents with Down syndrome 279
- Index 303
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
Relative clauses
- Case(mis)matching in German free relative clauses in the self-paced reading paradigm 11
- Integrating the filler 35
- When initial thematic role attribution lingers 57
-
Empty categories
- Brain responses elicited by implausible fillers and filled object gaps in German 75
- Gone with a trace? 91
- Priming paradigmatic gaps 117
-
Determiner Phrases
- A good-enough representation is not good enough 137
- Processing of pronoun gender by Dutch-Russian simultaneous bilinguals 153
-
Language impairment
- A syntactically based treatment of relative clauses 177
- Language impairment in an Italian child with Trisomy X 209
- Sentence reading in older adults with and without Mild Cognitive Impairment 239
- The comprehension of wh -questions and passives in German children and adolescents with Down syndrome 279
- Index 303
