Development of Clause Complexity in Children with Specific Language Impairment/Language Development Disorder: A Longitudinal Study

This paper addresses the grammatical challenges associated with development of clause complexity, focusing on performance a group monolingual Spanish-speaking schoolchildren Specific Language Impairment/Developmental Disorder (SLI/DLD) in longitudinal corpus oral narrative samples. The study examines presence interclause relations subordination and equivalence (hypotaxis parataxis) language samples two groups: an experimental made up 24 SLI/DLD control typical (TD). results show that while both groups use parataxis as most common relation between clauses all school grades, there is significant decrease paratactic increase hypotactic from first to fourth grade primary education. Although patterns are highly similar, shows greater difficulties mastering more complex (hypotactic) compared group, indicating it less sophisticated these types relations. These findings suggest focused support structures needed towards education, given demands academic register 6 7 years age potential problems complexity can cause school-age children.