Table 2.
Studies using non-word repetition tasks (NRTs) in children with specific language impairments (SLI). All children are learning English as a native language unless otherwise noted
| Study | Purpose | Participants | Primary results |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kamhi and Catts (1986) | Examine how children with LI and children with process phonological information | Three groups of 12 children, aged 6;2–9;2 (LI, RI, and NL) | LI<RI<NL. Accuracy correlated with sentence repetition and morphological awareness, but not with phonological awareness |
| Kamhi et al. (1988) | Examine how children with LI and children with process phonological information and spatial information | Three groups of ten children, aged 6;8–8;10 (LI, RI, and NL) | LI<RI<NL. Children with LI repeated multi syllabic non-words less accurately, but per formed comparably with children with RI on spatial tasks |
| Taylor et al. (1989) | Examine phonological processing in children with learning disabilities | 24 children with learning disabilities(LD) aged 7–12 (probably some with LI) and 20 children with NL | NRT has good sensitivity and specificity in identifying children with LD. Children with LD repeated less accurately than children with NL, even after IQ was partialled out |
| Gathercole and Baddeley (1990) | Examine phonological memory capacity in children with LI | Six children with LI, aged 7;2–8;10, six language-matched controls, and six IQ-matched controls. One child with LI did not participate in the NRT | Children with LI were less accurate than both LA-and IQ-matched controls, with larger group differences for longer non-words. Follow-up tasks showed no group differences in speech perception, rate of articulation, or phonological encoding |
| James et al. (1994) | Examine phonological working memory and phonological processing in children with SLI with ‘central auditory processing difficulties (CAPD)’ | Six children with CAPD, aged 8;6–10;8, six CA-matched children, and six LA-matched children | Children with CAPD were less accurate than CA-matched and LA-matched controls. There were no group differences in phonological encoding or rate of articulation, but children with CAPD showed deficits in phoneme discrimination |
| Montgomery (1995a) | Examine the influence of phonological memory on sentence comprehension in children with SLI | 14 children with SLI, mean age 8;2, and 13 children with NL matched on language abilities, mean age 6;9 | Children with SLI repeated less accurately, even after receptive vocabulary was partialled out. |
| They also had trouble comprehending sentences containing extraneous words | |||
| Montgomery (1995b) | Examine phonological memory and related language abilities in children with SLI | 13 well-defined children with SLI, mean age 8;5, and 13 LA-matched children, mean age 6;9 | Children with SLI were less accurate when repeating longer non-words, in spite of no group differences in articulation and phonological encoding. Children with SLI were less able to discriminate longer non-words, probably because of poorer memory abilities |
| Bishop et al. (1996) | Use the NRT to examine the heritability of language impairments | 39 children with LI, 13 children with resolved LI, and 79 controls, all aged 7—9 | Children with SLI (including resolved LI) repeated less accurately than controls. The NRT may be a behavioural marker of language impairment |
| Stark and Blackwell (1997) | Use an NRT to examine speech production, in terms of volitional oral movements (VOM) | 15 children with LI and articulation impairments (LI-A), mean age 7;1, 16 children with just LI (LI-0), mean age 7;10, and 19 age-matched control children with NL | For the NRT and VOM tasks, NL>LI-0>LI-A Further, for all children with LI, repetition accuracy significantly correlated with both isolated and repeated VOMs, suggesting potential deficits in oral movements |
| Stothard et al. (1998) | Follow-up adolescents who had been diagnosed at age 4 with LI | 30 children with persistent SLI, 26 with resolved SLI, and 15 with general delay; mean age for all groups was 15;7 | Children with resolved SLI had age-appropriate vocabulary and language comprehension skills, but still experienced problems with phonological processing. Children with persistent SLI had difficulties in all areas of language, and continued to fall behind their peers |
| Edwards and Lahey (1998) | Explore why children with SLI are less accurate when repeating non-words | 54 children with SLI, aged 4;6–9;8, CA-matched controls, and LA-matched controls | Children with SLI were less accurate. Error analyses revealed potential problems in encoding, representation, or memory |
| Dollaghan and Campbell (1998) | Develop an NRT with minimal lexical influences to be used as a quick measure of phonological memory to identify children with SLI | 20 children with SLI, aged 6;0–9;9, and 20 CA-matched children | NRT provided good sensitivity and specificity and can be administered in less than 2 minutes |
| Sahlén et al. (1999a) | Examine prosodic influences on word and non-word repetition accuracy | 27 children with SLI learning Swedish, aged 4;11–5;11 | Swedish children with SLI repeated words more accurately dian non-words, and were more likely to omit or reduce unstressed syllables in pre-stressed versus post-stressed position |
| Sahlén et al. (1999b) | Examine the relationship between non-word repetition and receptive measures of vocabulary, syntax, and narrative | Same 27 children with SLI learning Swedish, aged 4;11—5;11, who participated in their previous study (Sahlén et al. 1999a) | Partial correlations revealed significant relationship between non-word repetition accuracy and receptive syntax, but not receptive vocabulary or narrative |
| Ellis Weismer et al. (2000) | Use likelihood ratio analyses to examine how the NRT might be used to assist in ruling in or ruling out language disorders | 581 second-grade children, aged 7;1—8;11, separated into four groups differing in language and cognitive abilities: [1] high language, high cognition; [2] high language, low cognition; [3] low language, high cognition (SLI); and [4] low language, low cognition (non-Specific language impairment, or NLI) | Children with SLI were less accurate, even for shorter non-words. The NRT provides good sensitivity and specificity, and does not over-identify children from non-standard linguistic backgrounds |
| Briscoe et al. (2001) | Examined language outcomes in children with known phonological difficulties: children with SLI and children with mild-to-moderate sensori-neural hearing loss(SNH) | 19 children with SNH, mean age 8;7, 20 children with SLI: younger group, mean age 9;0, older group, mean age 12;1, 20 CA-matched children and 15 LA-matched children | Children with SNH and children with SLI show similar levels of accuracy on NRTs, but only children with SLI show deficits at higher linguistic levels |
| Rodekohr and Haynes (2001) | Compare different processing tasks, including the NRT, in terms of potential cultural or dialectal biases | 40 children, aged 7;0–7;3, either white or African-American, and with either NL or LI | Children with LI repeated non-words less accu rately than children with NL, regardless of race |
| Conti-Ramsden et al. (2001) | Examine different processing tasks, including morphological-marking tasks and sentence and non-word repetition tasks, in order to compare their validity as psycholinguistic markers for LI | 160 children with SLI, mean age 10;9, and 100 children with NL, mean age 10;9 | NRT provided very good sensitivity and specificity, However, the sentence repetition task provided even better sensitivity and specificity |
| Botting and Conti-Ramsden (2001) | Compared the language abilities of children with good non-word repetition ability to children with poor non-word repetition ability | Two groups of 14 children with SLI, mean age 10;11, matched on non-verbal IQ | Children with SLI with better repetition abilities scored higher than those with lower repetition abilities on all language measures, except for vocabulary measures |
| Gray (2003) | Examine the validity and reliability of the NRT in identifying preschool children with SLI | 22 children with SLI, aged 4;0–5;11, and 22 CA-matched children with NL | NRT provided good sensitivity and specificity, and good test-retest reliability for children with SLI, but not as good for children with NL |
| Conti-Ramsden and Hesketh (2003) | Use the NRT to identify preschool children at risk for SLI | 32 children with SLI, aged 4;4–5;10, and 32 LA-matched children with NL, aged 2;4–3;7 | Children already identified at risk for SLI scored lower than children with NL on the NRT |
| Conti-Ramsden (2003) | Use the NRT to identify preschool children at risk for SLI | 32 children with SLI, aged 4;4–5;10, and 32 CA-matched children with NL | NRT (and a past-tense-marking task) provided good sensitivity and specificity in identifying children with SLI |
| Marton and Schwartz (2003) | Examine the interaction between working memory and language comprehension in children with SLI | 13 children with SLI, aged 7;0–10;0, and 13 CA-matched children with NL | Children with SLI repeated non-words less accurately than children with NL which they took as evidence for a deficit in phonological memory rather than phonological sensitivity |
| Horohov and Oetting (2004) | Compare different types of presentation methods in word learning by children with SLI | 18 children with SLI, aged 5–7, 18 CA-matched children with NL, and 18 LA-matched children | NRT differentiated groups, but did not account for unique variance in word learning |
| Montgomery (2004) | Examine the effects of working memory and input rate on sentence comprehension by children with SLI | 12 children with SLI, mean age 8;9, 12 CA-matched children with NL, and 12 LA-matched children with NL, mean age 6;10 | Children with SLI showed deficits in both non-word repetition and sentence comprehension However, input rate did not correlate with working memory, as tested by the NRT |
| Hansson et al. (2004) | Explore the roles of phonological working memory and complex working memory in a word-learning task | Three groups of Swedish-speaking children: (1) 27 children with SLI, aged 8;6–11;4; (2) 18 children with SNH, aged 9;1–13;3; and (3) 38 children with NL, aged 9;5–12;4 | Children with SLI and SNH did not differ in non-word repetition accuracy. For both groups, complex working memory accounted for variance in novel word learning, while phonological short-term memory, as measured by an NRT, did not |
| Gray (2004) | Examine the role of phonological memory and semantic knowledge in word learning | 20 preschoolers with SLI, aged, 4;0—5;11, and 20 age-matched children with NL | NRT predicted variance in the number of trials required to learn words |
| Munson et al. (2005) | (1) Examine the role of vocabulary size in non-word repetition accuracy. (2) The relative contributions of phonotactic probability and subjective word-likeness ratings to repetition accuracy | 16 children with SLI, mean age 11 ;3, 16 CA-matched children with NL, and 16 LA-matched children with NL, mean age 7;6 | Children with SLI were less accurate than CA matches, but not LA matches, indicating vocabulary size mediates accuracy. Also, children with SLI show a larger phonotactic frequency effect than children with NL |
| Stokes et al. (2006) | Examine an NRT and sentence repetition task as a potential clinical marker for SLI in children learning Cantonese, a phonologically less complex language | 14 children with SLI learning Cantonese, aged 4;2—5;7, 15 age-matched children with NL, and 15 younger language-matched children with NL, aged 2;11—3;6 | Cantonese children with SLI did not significantly differ from age-matched controls in the NRT, possibly because reintegration processes are more successful in the phonologically simpler language |
| Montgomery and Windsor (2006) | Examine the interrelations between speed of processing, working memory, non-verbal IQ, and broad-based language measures in children with SLI | 48 children with SLI, aged 6;8–11;0, and 48 CA-matched children with NL | Phonological working memory (NRT) correlated with broader measures of language knowledge and experience (as opposed to real-time language processing) |
| Coady et al. (2006) | Examine the role of phonotactic frequency in an NRT by children with SLI to see how well they are able to extract phonological regularities from their language input | 18 children with SLI, mean age 9;2, and 18 CA-matched children with NL | Children with SLI were less accurate overall, but showed the same phonotactic frequency sensitivity as children with NL |