Pragmatic and Grammatical competence in Language Impairment: A Window onto Domain Specificity

The aim of present study is to assess modularity of language. To this end, we measured the ability of children with specific language impairment in pragmatic and grammar and compaired them with normal children. First we used narrative speech, language development and specific language impairment tests for diagnosis, then 6 children with specific language impairment were compared with 6 age-matched and 6 language-matched normal children in their grammar and pragmatics. Independent t-test, Man Whitney and Wilcox tests were used for analyzing data. It is shown that the children with SLI perform much lower their language-level with respect to grammatical properties (time agreement), but in pragmatic properties (reference) they don’t have meaningful differences. The result of this study shows that impairment in grammar beside good performance in pragmatic provides support for modularity of language.