Metalinguistic Awareness in Children with Specific Language Impairment

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the characteristics of metalinguistic awareness of children with specific language impairment. Forty-five children participated in this study; 15 children with specific language impairment (SLI group) whose range of the language age was 4;6-6;6, 15 normal children chronological age matched (CA controls) and 15 normal children language age matched with the SLI group (CA controls). A metalinguistic task involving the identification and revision of syntactic, semantic, and phonologic errors was used. The SLI group performed significantly poorer than CA controls as well as LA controls in identifying and correcting error sentences, especially sentences with syntactic error. These results revealed the relation between language problems of children with SLI and metalinguistic abilities.