Accurately repeating a sentence can be hard for children with language difficulties… Is this task more complex than we first thought?
Many researchers have noted that children with language impairment have great difficulty accurately repeating a spoken sentence that they have heard. Why is this? What exactly is the child required to do during this task? These are the questions that I am looking to investigate in my Master’s research project. This type of repetition task is called sentence repetition or sentence recall. It turns out that this task doesn’t just rely on a child’s ability to remember the sentence, but it also draws on his/her memory for language that they have already learnt. A child cannot repeat a sentence accurately if they haven’t learnt and stored the language previously! This is a useful tool for identifying children with language difficulties, however, there are still unanswered questions about what exactly this task is testing. A greater understanding of this task could help with early identification of language difficulties and is a simple, cost-effective way of screening children for any difficulties. I will have to see what the results suggest… watch this space!
Becky Harrison
Speech and Language Therapist