Browsing by Author "Surakka, Susanna"

Target. There are currently few tools to evaluate young adults' linguistic abilities in the Finnish language. Previous studies have shown that nonword repetition, sentence repetition and grammaticality judgment are typically weak functions in language impairment in some languages. The aim of this study was to create a tool for evaluating grammaticality judgment and pilot that tool. The assessment tool developed here is based on Poll, Betz and Miller's (2010) study on identification of clinical markers of specific language impairment (SLI) in English-speaking adults. In addition, the studies of grammatical difficulties by Finnish-speaking children with specific language impairment were also considered when developing the new tool. Methods. Six young adults with the history of SLI and six young adults with typical language development, matched as closely as possible with the SLI persons, participated in this study. Participants were 19;2-20;8 years of age. This study started with creation of the new assessment tool. Data were then collected using the assessment tool. Altogether 108 sentences were created to evaluate grammaticality judgment. Out of these 50 sentences were translated from the study of English-speaking young adults, 48 sentences were created based on the studies of Finnish-speaking children having SLI and the remaining 10 sentences were training items. Participants listened to sentences and were asked to judge their grammaticality and by indicating whether the sentence was right or wrong. Data were analyzed mainly quantitatively due to the relatively small number of participants. Results and conclusions. The participants with SLI made more errors in this test than did their peers with typical language. However, the result was not found statistically significant. Participants with SLI also used more time running the test than their counterparts. SLI participants made most of the errors in sentences, which included accusative case or tense inflection. The results are similar to the study on English-speaking young adults. Therefore, examination on a larger test group is needed in the future.