The role of phonological salience in the acquisition of past tense morphology by Greek children with Specific Language Impairment

The aim of this study is threefold: firstly, to describe the acquisition patterns of Greek past tense by children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI); secondly, to investigate the relationship between the phonological salience of past tense in Greek and its acquisition by language impaired learners; thirdly, to establish an account on the nature of the impairment by comparing the acquisition patterns exhibited by SLI children with those presented by language unaffected ones. The performance of 10 SLI children in elicited past tense production is compared to that of chronological age matched (CA) and language development matched (LD) controls. Based on the claim that perceptual saliency aids acquisition (or learning), it is predicted that SLI children will perform better in the production of past forms of higher salience than less salient forms. The results confirm this prediction, providing support for the claim that perceptual salience does account for better performances in tense marking in Greek SLI.