Language & Cognition seminar - Dr Maria Garaffa

Cumulative learning of grammar in typical and atypical language development: language specific vulnerabilities and clinical perspectives.

Implicit learning mechanisms associated with detecting structural regularities have been proposed to underlie both the long-term acquisition of linguistic structure and a short-term tendency to repeat linguistic structure across sentences (structural priming) in typically developing children. Recent research has suggested that a deficit in such mechanisms may explain the inconsistent trajectory of language learning displayed by children with Developmental Learning Disorder (DLD). They may learn less from each linguistic experience than typically developing children, and so require more input to achieve the same learning outcome with respect to syntax. We will present studies on both typical and atypical grammatical development, supporting the idea that structural priming is an effective technique for manipulating both input quality and quantity to determine precisely how DLD is related to language input, and to investigate how input tailored to take into account the cognitive profile of this population can be optimised in designing interventions.