Exploring duration and isochrony in nursery rhyme reciting for children with language impairments and typically developing children

Previous research shows that children with language impairments (LI) are significantly less rhythmic during motor tasks than typically developing children who are chronologically and linguistically agematched. This study aims to explore a speech rhythm task and to shed new light on the rhythmic abilities of children with LI. Specifically, the authors investigate whether children with LI are impaired during speech rhythm production in nursery rhyme reciting in a) an internally-generated rhythm task, b) a rhythmic copying task, c) a paced rhythmic entrainment task and d) an unpaced rhythmic entrainment task. Children with LI were found to be impaired in the internally-generated rhythm and copying tasks. However, they performed equally well as controls during nursery rhyme entrainment tasks (both paced and unpaced). Results are discussed as they relate to possible clinical implications for children with LI.