INT J LANG COMMUN DISORD, XXXX 2017,

VOL. 00, NO. 0, 1–16

Research Report
Grammaticality differences between Spanish-speaking children with specific
language impairment and their typically developing peers
Donna Jackson-Maldonado† and Ricardo Maldonado‡
†Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico
‡Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
(Received February 2016; accepted December 2016)

Abstract
Background: A limited number of studies have analyzed grammaticality in monolingual Spanish-speaking children
with specific language impairment (SLI). Most of the available data are based on bilingual speakers.
Aims: To extend previous studies by doing a more detailed analysis of grammatical types in monolingual Spanish-
speakers with and without SLI.
Methods & Procedures: Forty-nine Spanish-speaking children (18 with SLI, 17 age-matched typically developing
controls, 14 language-matched controls) were recruited from schools in Mexico and observed in a spontaneous
narrative task.
Outcomes & Results: The findings were inconsistent with those of previous studies. Significant differences were
found for article, connector and preposition omissions, and the per cent of ungrammatical utterances. There were
no significant differences found for clitics and verb phrases, though clitic substitutions were frequent. Language-
matched controls did not produce different frequencies of ungrammatical utterances.
Conclusions & Implications: Significant differences were found for three main items: the per cent of ungrammatical
utterances, the omission of articles and the omission of prepositions. Therefore, we propose these components be
taken into consideration when distinguishing typically developing children from children with SLI.

Keywords: grammaticality, specific language impairment (SLI), Spanish.

What this paper add

What is already known on the subject
Spanish-speaking children with SLI do not produce the same types of errors as do English speakers, and bilinguals are
different from monolingual children. In a few studies, several grammatical forms have been identified that distinguish
children with and without SLI in Spanish use of articles, clitics and function words. Most studies are based on
experimental designs.
What this paper adds to existing knowledge
This paper presents a study that uses a larger sample of monolingual Spanish speakers than have other studies. It also
uses a spontaneous narrative elicitation method and includes more diverse grammatical categories and processes than
have others. The findings show that the use of different elicitation methods may have distinct outcomes and, thus,
intervention should also use diverse techniques.

What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?

Oftentimes grammatical forms are considered as a group rather than identifying the specific process they undergo.
Language evaluations should determine whether the affected concepts are omitted, substituted or added. It is
important to determine how grammatical forms are used erroneously in order to guide the course of intervention
based on acquisition processes.

Address correspondence to: Donna Jackson-Maldonado, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico; e-mail:
djacksonqro@gmail.com
International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders
ISSN 1368-2822 print/ISSN 1460-6984 online  C 2017 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists

DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12312
2 Donna Jackson-Maldonado and Ricardo Maldonado
Introduction has determiners with similar functions, they are not
marked for gender or number as they are in Spanish. As
Most studies that analyze the grammaticality of struc-
a result, determiner substitutions or omissions might
tures of children with specific language impairment
be common in bilingual language-learner acquisition
(SLI) have identified clinical markers that differentiate
of Spanish. Thus, as processes may be different, more
these children from those who are typically developing
monolingual data are needed to describe fully language
(TD). The goal of the grammaticality studies has not
deviance in SLI. Few studies have been performed on
been to provide an in-depth description of grammati-
grammaticality in Spanish speakers, mostly with small
cal processes, but instead to identify some of the initial
middle-class samples of monolingual Spanish speakers.
markers of SLI by discriminant analysis. Most studies
It has been shown that grammatical errors occur
have centered on English. In recent years, studies based
across a select group of linguistic structures and yet
on Spanish and other Romance languages have begun to
seldom has an in-depth analysis been carried out to
be published (Andreu et al. 2012, Bortolini et al. 2006,
determine which forms are omitted or substituted.
Jacobson and Walden 2013, Jakubowicz et al. 1998,
In contrast, this study is descriptive in nature as it
Jakubowicz 2011, Morgan et al. 2009, 2012, Serrat and
identifies the types of ungrammatical structures used by
Aparici 2001, Simon-Cereijido and Gutiérrez-Clellen
children with SLI. Nevertheless, it follows the tenets of
2007). Bortolini et al. (2006) have indicated that clini-
cognitive approaches in which languages are analyzed
cal markers for Italian are not similar to English. These
from a usage-based perspective (Tomasello 2009,
authors posit that data from English are not readily ap-
Langacker 1987). Language use reflects conceptualiza-
plicable to languages with structures that differ from
tion (Langacker 1987, Bates and MacWhinney 1989)
English that have more flexibility in word order, richer
and, thus, the structures already acquired may be more
morphology and in case marking. In order to account
informative, having more language-specific weight and,
for form and function differences, studies should be lan-
as such, could be less cognitively demanding. At the
guage specific. For instance, whereas in English auxil-
same time, grammatical errors are not precisely pre-
iaries are highly vulnerable, in Romance languages it has
sented as clinical markers but rather as manifestations
been shown that articles, clitics, prepositions and con-
of higher cognitive demands that the child may take
nectors are most affected (Aguilar-Mediavilla et al. 2007,
longer to process. Therefore, errors are considered as
Andreu and Sanz-Torrent 2013, Bedore and Leonard
being within the process of acquiring different elements
2001, 2005, Bortolini et al. 2006, Dispaldro
rather than as being simple mistakes. Nevertheless, to be
et al. 2013, Eisenberg & Guo, 2013, Gutiérrez-
consistent with many studies we will use the term ‘error’
Clellen et al. 2006, Jacobson 2012, Jacobson
to describe these processes. By analyzing the errors
and Walden 2013, Leonard and Dispaldro 2013,
themselves, rather than proposing a discriminant anal-
Morgan et al. 2009, 2012, Restrepo and Gutiérrez-
ysis, the relation of the error to its function could aid in
Clellen 2012, Serrat and Aparici 2001, Simon-Cereijido
understanding language-specific processes that are weak
and Gutiérrez-Clellen 2007). The non-generalizability
areas in the development of Spanish. Although this is the
of language-specific indicators of SLI across all languages
basic framework of the study, it is not our goal to address
has been amply discussed by Weismer and Evans (2002)
the implications of different theoretical approaches.
and Weismer and Kaushanskaya (2010).
The goals of this paper focus on issues of gram-
Most grammaticality studies of Spanish-speaking
matical forms and processes of children with SLI: (1)
children are based on bilingual populations with
to describe grammaticality measures that differentiate
two structurally different languages (i.e., English and
Spanish-speaking monolingual children with and with-
Spanish versus Spanish and Catalan). Although these
out SLI; (2) to analyze grammatical forms and errors that
data are relevant, it is well known that bilinguals may
are produced by children with SLI; and (3) to extend
mix both languages or transfer from one language
the information provided by previous studies by using
to the other, and that these processes of mixing and
a larger number of children and eliciting spontaneous
transfer may affect language development and in a way
narrative productions. We ask the following research
not observed in monolinguals (e.g., Bialystok 2005,
questions:
Conboy 2012, Gathercole and Thomas 2009, Genesee
2006, Genesee et al. 2011, Kohnert 2010, Lanza 1997,
Odlin 1989, among others). For example, English has a
reduced number of clitics, whereas Spanish not only has r Which specific grammatical types differentiate
more clitic forms but also they cover a wider range of children with SLI from TD children?
grammatical functions. This difference between English r Are the sensitive grammatical categories identified
and Spanish could provoke clitic omissions in bilingual in other Spanish language studies consistent with
learners of Spanish. In addition, although English the findings of this population?
Grammaticality Spanish SLI
r Do children with SLI use the same grammati-
cal processes and grammatical components as TD
children?
To this end, we study monolingual Mexican Spanish
speakers. First, we describe how grammaticality is an-
alyzed and then summarize studies carried out with
Spanish-speaking children.
Grammaticality
There are different methods for studying grammatical-
ity. First, the notion of grammaticality should not be
confused with grammaticality judgment. In some gram-
maticality studies, the number of correct grammatical
forms is analyzed, while others count the number of un-
grammatical items. Both the terms ‘grammaticality’ and
‘agrammaticality’ have been used to refer to the study
of grammatical and ungrammatical forms (Eisenberg
et al. 2012, Gutiérrez-Clellen et al. 2006). Most of these
studies have used T- or C-units to analyze grammati-
cality rather than clauses. Different methods may yield
different results.
Results may also vary according to the observational
technique used to obtain data of the grammaticality of
children with SLI and, thus, should be analyzed accord-
ingly: sentence-completion probes, story retell, spon-
taneous language analysis (SLA) and spontaneous nar-
ratives may yield discrepant information. Testing for
grammaticality in a controlled structure, such as sen-
tence completion, implies obtaining a restricted type of
answer; likewise, a story retell, in which the story and
its elements have been heard by the child prior to the
child’s re-producing it, may be quite different from spon-
taneous samples in which the child will select what to
say and determine which events or objects/participants
of the story should be introduced. Given these differ-
ences in methodologies, the identification of grammati-
cal processes may also differ. For example, the omission
of components previously mentioned would not have
the same implication as omissions in which they were
not introduced in the current context. Levels of gram-
maticality have most frequently been computed based
on narrative samples. This method, even in narratives,
is not homogeneous. Story generation versus story retell
have been found to produce different types of errors as
well (Botting 2002, Duinmeijer et al. 2012).
Some studies include semantic irregularities in their
counts, while others do not. For instance, Lee (1974)
took into account the grammatical and semantic irreg-
ularities in utterances for the developmental sentence
scoring (DSS) procedure. Dunn et al. (1996) computed
structural errors over the number of utterances. A group
of researchers have used a measure that instead, com-
puted the per cent of grammatical (correct) utterances
3
(PGU) to investigate grammatical development in 3-
year-olds (Eisenberg et al. 2012, Guo and Schneider
2016), while Guo and Schneider (2016) counted both
correct and incorrect uses of grammatical forms. Other
studies that analyzed several components of the narra-
tive have also used grammaticality indexes to calculate
the number of correct of utterances (Duinmeijer et al.
2012).
A method for counting finite verbs, the finite
verb morphology composite (FVMC), was proposed by
Bedore and Leonard (1998) for English-speaking chil-
dren. A similar method identifies the number of correct
tense markers (Botting 2002). Data using the FVMC
on other samples have not shown consistent findings
(Moyle et al. 2011).
Spanish grammaticality indexes must be established
to be language specific and cannot be based on the
English systems. In this sense, Gutiérrez-Clellen et al.
(2006), Restrepo (1998), and Restrepo and Gutiérrez-
Clellen (2012) have proposed grammaticality indexes
consisting of the average number of grammatical errors
per T-unit. Unintelligible utterances or cohesion errors
are not included in the count, nor are lexical, phono-
logical or articulation errors. Each ungrammatical item
is given individual credit rather than counting the to-
tal number of ungrammatical utterances. The authors
propose that this index can differentiate children with
SLI and TD. Miller and Iglesias (2012) have proposed
a grammaticality index (utterance level errors or EU) by
counting the number of errors per utterance. A count of
3 or more errors per utterance is considered an EU.
In this study we use a unit to count ungrammatical
utterances, similar to the Gutiérrez-Clellen et al. (2006)
model, but with a more stringent criterion for what
is considered ungrammatical (see below). In order to
understand the types of errors to be analyzed, we will
offer a brief summary of findings for Spanish-speaking
children that have been published to date.
Review of studies based on monolingual
Spanish-speakers with SLI
Articles
Substitutions and omissions of articles have been re-
ported in elicitation tasks completed by Spanish-
speaking children with SLI between the ages of 3 and
7 (with SLI) (Morgan et al. 2009), in SLA (Anderson
and Souto 2005, Restrepo and Gutiérrez-Clellen 2001)
as well as in a story-retell task (Morgan et al. 2009). Us-
ing SLA, Anderson and Souto (2005) found that 4- and
5-year-olds made more omissions than substitutions of
articles. Andreu and Sanz-Torrent (2013) proposed that
only 5% of the utterances produced by the 5- and 6-year-
olds with SLI had determiner omissions. In contrast,
Restrepo and Gutiérrez-Clellen (2001) give evidence
4 Donna Jackson-Maldonado and Ricardo Maldonado
for both article omissions and gender substitutions. In
TD children, article productions may change with age
whereas 3-year-olds show both substitutions and omis-
sions, 4-year-olds use more substitutions, and both types
of errors decrease at age 5 (Castilla-Earls and Eriks-
Brophy 2012). This indicates that articles are vulnerable
since they undergo distinct grammatical processes result-
ing in errors (omissions and/or substitutions) and their
correct use changes with age. It is yet to be determined
whether omissions or substitutions are most frequent.
Clitics
Clitics in children with SLI have been of interest for
Romance language researchers (Bortolini et al. 2006,
Grueter and Crago 2012, Köppe 2001, Leonard and
Dispaldro 2013, Paradis et al. 2003) because they may
refer back to objects or participants previously men-
tioned and need to agree with them in person, gender
and number. Furthermore, they are unstressed forms
that need the phonological support of full words. The
most frequently analyzed types of clitics are the ac-
cusative (lo, la, los, las—masculine, feminine and plural)
and dative (le, les, lo/la—masculine, neutral and femi-
nine), which are object clitics. But clitics also have differ-
ent functions, though they are not usually differentiated
in most publications. Whereas object clitics must refer
back to the person or object they represent, middle cli-
tics emphasize or focus on a specific part of the event or
the type of action that is being carried out. Object clitics
are marked for gender, number and case (accusative, da-
tive). Thus, in the sentence el niño lo puso en la mesa (‘the
boy put it on the table’), the accusative pronoun lo is in-
flected for gender (masculine) and number (singular) as
it agrees with its masculine, singular antecedent object,
el libro (‘the book’). The middle clitic instead denotes
different types of actions (such as se cayó—‘it fell down
unexpectedly’ versus cayó—‘it fell down’) (Maldonado
1988, 1999).
In most child language studies, it has been shown
that in TD children clitics are acquired by 3 or
4 years of age, though they are not completely mas-
tered (Anderson and Souto 2005, De la Mora 2004,
Hernández Pina 1984, Jackson-Maldonado et al. 1998,
Montrul 2004, Silva-Corvalán 1994). Catalan–Spanish
bilinguals (Bosch and Serra 1997) have been reported to
omit these forms. Yet, the type of clitic function is not
always specified.
Children with SLI have been shown to omit and
substitute these forms in SLA between the ages of 4 and
7 (Andreu and Sanz-Torrent 2013, Castilla-Earls and
Eriks-Brophy 2012, Morgan et al. 2009). Andreu and
Sanz-Torrent (2013) found that only 7% of the utter-
ances produced by children with SLI had pronoun omis-
sions. In another SLA study, Bosch and Serra (1997)
reported more clitic omissions than substitutions in
7-year-olds. In contrast, De la Mora (2004) using a cloze
task and SLA found more substitutions for the full-noun
phrase than for the clitic, whereas Morgan et al. (2009)
reported omissions in a cloze task. In a language closely
related to Spanish, Italian-speaking children with SLI
between the ages of 3;7 and 5;6 had significantly more
direct object omissions than TD children in sentence-
completion probes (Bortolini et al. 2006).
Particularly with clitics, the data-collection tech-
nique used is critical. Whereas in elicitation tasks and
story retell the referent is active, in SLA and spontaneous
narratives the participant selects which referents to talk
about and, thus, there is less control over whether or
not the referent has been mentioned beforehand. The
difference in task demands could lead children to make
clitic omissions or substitutions because the preceding
referent may not be clear.
Prepositions and complex verb forms
Few publications with Spanish-speaking children have
addressed the use of prepositions and complex verb
forms that include prepositions. In this section we sum-
marize findings of both uses of prepositions, although
we are not implying that they are related. Most stud-
ies do not specify the function of the prepositions.
Bedore and Leonard (2005) administered an experi-
mental task to TD-emergent bilinguals and children
with SLI and found mostly preposition substitutions.
In contrast, Castilla-Earls and Eriks-Brophy (2012) and
Morgan et al. (2009) reported that children mostly omit
prepositions up until the age of 5, this being determined
by a cloze task, story retell and SLA.
Andreu and Sanz-Torrent (2013) studied Catalan
bilinguals and also found that between 8% and 10% of
the utterances in SLA included preposition omissions.
Prepositions have also been studied as part of the verb
argument structure. Andreu et al. (2012) as well as Sanz-
Torrent et al. (2011) found omissions and/or substitu-
tions in an experimental task in which children between
3 and 6 years of age were required to introduce a sen-
tence object. In another study using story retell, Auza
and Morgan (2013) mostly found omissions in story
retell for three types of multifunctional and polysemic
prepositions: a, con and en.
Contrary to findings in other languages (Rice and
Wexler 1996, Weismer and Evans 2002), verb errors
have been found to be infrequent at early ages for
Spanish speakers with SLI, and early verb productions do
not reflect optional infinitives. Errors have been found
at later stages in specific structures and mostly related to
complex forms. Several studies carried out with Spanish-
speaking children using cloze tasks and story retell have
shown errors in the use of subjunctive markings and
Grammaticality Spanish SLI
other complex verb forms in narratives, cloze tasks and
story retell (Holst 2014, Andreu et al. 2012, Jackson-
Maldonado 2012, Morgan et al. 2009, Sanz-Torrent
et al. 2011). Andreu and Sanz-Torrent (2013) found
that 14% of utterances of 5- and 6-year-olds were com-
plex sentences whereas 30% were simple sentences.
In summary, the above review of pertinent studies
has shown that Spanish-speaking children with and
without SLI have produced ungrammatical utterances
in which articles, clitics and prepositions are affected.
Verb structures have been studied to a lesser degree.
Results may vary according to the type of elicitation
task and the number of participants. There are
inconsistencies as to whether grammatical forms are
more affected by omissions or substitutions. Both entail
different processes and could affect the way errors are
interpreted and/or treated. Additional studies with dif-
ferent elicitation methods and more diverse samples are
needed.
Methods
Participants
A total of 49 children participated in the study. Some
of these children were included in a previous study
that addressed different goals (Jackson-Maldonado
2011). There were 18 participants identified as SLI
(12 male and six female), 17 age-matched TD children
(14 male and three female) and another 14 TD
children, matched for gender, who were added as
language-matched for the younger SLI group (seven
male and seven female). Language matches were
included as a contrast taking into consideration that
differences in grammaticality among children with
large age differences could represent differences of
cognitive and neurophysiological levels (Coady and
Evans 2008, French and O’Brien 2008, Gathercole
et al. 1999, Royle and Courteau 2013). The children
ranged in age from 5;1 to 9;3 (mean = 7;3, SD = 1;3)
in the SLI group, and from 5;0 to 9;3 (mean = 7;3,
SD = 1;3) in the TD age-matched group. For the
language controls of the younger children with SLI, ages
ranged from 3;0 to 4;11 (mean = 3;6, SD = 1;0). Mean
length of utterance-word (MLU-w) was used as the
language measure to contrast the groups. Although nar-
ratives are typically shorter than a full-language sample,
they are considered an appropriate measure for calculat-
ing MLU-w since only using the longest three utterances
has been shown to be adequate to determine language
levels and MLU has been used frequently in narratives
(Hoffman 2009, Jackson-Maldonado and Conboy
2007). Language controls were only contrasted for
grammatical index and not for all grammatical process
measures.
5
Each group of children was consistent in terms
of socio-economic status, measured by maternal
educational level: 51% of the sample had mothers with
a high-school education and 49% had mothers with a
lower level of education. For obvious reasons, language
controls were of different ages than their peers with SLI.
No significant differences were found for children’s age
(t(33) = –.818, p = .42) in the age control groups for
gender (t(33) = 1.2, p = .25) nor maternal education
(t(33) = .151, p = .88) across all groups. Also, the chil-
dren’s IQs were similar (t(33) = –.814, p = .421) across
groups. Most children with SLI were male (78.5%).
Language controls were contrasted by MLU-w scores
on the narrative task.
The SLI criteria for monolingual Spanish-speaking
children have been problematic and inconsistent across
studies and, especially difficult to determine in Spanish,
a language for which language assessment instruments
are limited. Because of these concerns, we were strict in
labelling a child as SLI. We based our criteria on the most
frequently used assessment instruments in recent studies
based on Spanish-speakers (Bedore and Peña 2008, Peña
2007) (see below). Criteria for group inclusion were
based on Tomblin et al. (1997). The language assess-
ment measures selected were based on Spanish-language
publications and we established a clear protocol for SLI
identification, which was also based on published stud-
ies and on extensive discussions with Hispanic experts
in the field.
In order to be included in the SLI group, the child
had to meet one of the first two criteria AND one or
both of the third and fourth criteria, as follows: (1) to
be on a speech and language therapist’s caseload be-
cause they had previously been identified with language
a delay/disorder (i.e., clinical judgment); and/or (2) to
have parental or teacher concern for expressive language
development (Restrepo 1998, Restrepo and Gutiérrez-
Clellen 2001), plus, (3) to fall below the 16th percentile
or 1.25 SD below the mean on at least two distinct
language assessment measures, using an adjusted score
based on a Mexican sample (developed for this study
with 35 TD children), and (4) to produce less than
80% of the phonemes on a non-word repetition task
correctly (see below). Furthermore, exclusionary criteria
included an IQ below 85 and any known auditory, cog-
nitive, emotional, neurological or developmental disor-
ders. All children had normal hearing based on a hearing
screening test.
Instruments
Language assessment measures were selected from those
mostly used in other published studies of Spanish-
speaking children. Norms were adjusted based on a
small-scale study with a monolingual Spanish-speaking
6 Donna Jackson-Maldonado and Ricardo Maldonado
population in Mexico, similar to that proposed by Procedure
Morgan et al. (2009).
Children were recruited by multiple means. Since many
An IQ score was obtained based on a non-verbal
children have not been previously identified with a lan-
intelligence measure the Test de Inteligencia No-Verbal
guage disorder in Mexico, research assistants visited pub-
(TONI-II; Brown et al. 2000).
lic and private schools in the metropolitan area of a
The most frequently used test to identify both
central state in Mexico and asked the teachers to iden-
monolingual and bilingual Spanish-speaking children
tify children who had trouble understanding instruc-
with SLI has been the Spanish Clinical Evaluation
tions, answering questions, explaining concepts as well
of Language Fundamentals 4th Edition (SCELF-4)
as those who frequently produced incomplete, unintel-
(Semel et al. 2006). In particular, two subscales are
ligible and/or ungrammatical sentences. We also asked
used: Estructura de Palabras (Word Structure) and
if there were children who were ‘dysphasic’, the fre-
Repetición de Oraciones (Sentence Repetition) (e.g.,
quently used term in Mexico for children with limited
Andreu and Sanz-Torrent 2013, Jacobson and Walden
communicative abilities. These children were tested for
2013, Morgan et al. 2009, 2012, Smyk et al. 2013,
the inclusionary criteria stated above. TD children were
Windsor et al. 2010, among others). The Technical
also recruited from the same schools. Other participants
Manual of the SCELF-4 (Semel et al. 2006) confirms
were recruited through clinics that serve children with
that it is appropriate for monolingual Spanish-speaking
language disorders. All parents signed an informed con-
children. Both scales were used in this study.
sent form and completed a clinical history to determine
To assess receptive and expressive vocabulary we used
group inclusion. Children were tested for hearing and
the Expressive and Receptive One-Word Picture Vo-
all had levels within normal ranges, except for one child
cabulary Tests, Bilingual-Spanish Editions (EOWPVT
who had a hearing loss and, thus, did not participate in
and ROWPVT; Brownell 2000a, 2000b). These tests
this study.
use a forced-choice (for receptive) or picture-naming
Evaluations were carried out in the school, clinic
(for expressive) format and include both nouns and
or the university laboratory and lasted over one or two
verbs.
sessions, depending on the child’s attention span. Pre-
Formal tests were complemented with informal
viously trained research assistants who were psychology
measures in the SLI identification process, as suggested
and/or linguistics students applied the standardized tests
by Simon-Cereijido and Gutiérrez-Clellen (2007) and
according to the test protocols. All test sessions were
Restrepo (1998). We used the per cent of correct
video or audio recorded to permit offline scoring by re-
phonemes criteria on a non-word repetition (NWR)
search assistants who were blind to group membership.
measure because its discriminant strength has been
Transcriptions were done in SALT (Miller and Iglesias
amply proven for Spanish-speaking bilingual children
2012). All transcripts followed strict reliability criteria
(e.g., Aguado et al. 2006, Calderón 2010, Ebert et al.
and were independently transcribed and coded by two or
2008, Girbau and Schwartz 2007, Gutiérrez-Clellen
more trained research assistants both for transcriptions
and Simón-Cereijido 2010, Summers et al. 2010,
as well as grammatical errors. All discrepancies were re-
among others). We developed a NWR task specifically
solved by another specialist. Inter-rater reliabilities were
for a larger research project. Although several studies
90% or above based on this method.
had developed similar tests, none was published at the
time that the data were collected for this study and non-
word lists were not available. Our task was developed
Analysis units and rules for determining errors
based on the Dollaghan and Campbell (1998) model of
minimum wordlikeness, but it also varied in articulatory We completed two levels of analysis: a general grammat-
complexity as suggested by Gathercole and Baddeley icality count index and an error-by-error description.
(1990). It consisted of 24 non-words: four instances Our first level, the grammaticality index, consisted of
for each of the six syllable lengths (see appendix A). In a count based on the number of utterances with one
this paper, the NWR task was used as one of several or more ungrammatical items. The index was the total
criteria for SLI identification. Comparisons of this number of ungrammatical utterances divided by the to-
study’s NWR test with the Aguado et al. (2006) list and tal number of utterances produced by the child. This
with Calderón’s (2010) list applied to a group of adults procedure follows the general proposal by Gutiérrez-
and a group of TD children showed the efficacy of the Clellen et al. (2006), Restrepo and Gutiérrez-Clellen
measure (Jackson-Maldonado et al. 2015, Rodrı́guez (2012) and Restrepo (1998) as well as Miller and Igle-
Hernández and Jackson-Maldonado 2009). sias (2012). One difference was that we counted total
Finally, a spontaneous narrative was elicited using number of utterances with errors rather than computing
the wordless picture story, Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer individual errors. Any utterance, in this case a T-unit,
1969) for the grammaticality count. with a grammatical error was given a count of 1. Thus,
Grammaticality Spanish SLI 7
Table 1. Grammaticality categories by error type

Type Example
Omissions
Article Se quitó EL pantalón y los zapatos (‘He/she took THE off pants and shoes’)
Noun Phrase Y el perro estaba persiguiendo A LA RANA (‘and the dog was chasing THE FROG’)
Clitic LO estaban buscando (‘IT was looking for’)
Prepositions Se asomó POR un árbol (‘peaked THROUGH a tree’)
Verb El perro ESTABA tratando de agarrar un panal de abejas (‘the dog WAS trying to grab a bee hive’)
Substitutions
Article Llevó al niño hasta UN montaña (‘(He) took the boy to a mountain’; masculine for feminine)
Clitic Y no lo encontraba (la rana) (‘and he didn’t find it’; masculine for feminine)
Verb El perro y el niño se DURMIÓ (‘the dog and the boy fell asleep’ (plural missing))
Preposition Gritaba por todo el bosque POR su ranita (‘he shouted throughout the woods for his frog’; por for a- for instead of to)
Additions
Article Lo tiró al UN charco de LA agua (‘he threw him down into the a puddle of the water’)
Preposition Se cayó DE el niño (‘of the boy fell’)
Word Order De noche estaba (‘nightime it was’; also verb substitution)
Unintelligible Y el niños gritaba una y otra donde vivı́a ahı́ (‘and the boys screamed one and again where (he) lived there’)
Note: Omissions are in CAPITALS; substitutions and additions are underlined.

in the utterance, ‘el niño se fue A buscar el A LA ranita’
(‘the boy went looking FOR THE frog’, i.e., where
capitals represent omissions) where there are multiple
errors, we would give a count of 1 for the grammatical-
ity index, and also each ungrammatical type would be
counted separately in the next level of analysis of gram-
matical categories: preposition omissions and article
substitutions.
Our second level of analysis, grammaticality types
and errors, was subdivided into omissions, substitutions
and additions. This level of errors was then further
classified according to grammatical criteria (articles,
prepositions, etc.). Thus, there was an error count
for general type (all omissions) and for grammatical
category (article omission, article substitution, etc.),
and also a composite by grammatical type that included
all types of errors within each grammatical category
(omissions and substitutions of articles together).
Table 1 presents the categories and examples of each
grammatical error type found in the data.
We established a criterion for scoring ungram-
matical forms based on obligatory contexts for both
linguistic form and discourse (in which context and
language use played an important part). Further
we took into consideration information from the
images and narrative situation to control for context
interpretation. Most importantly, for clitics, referential
distance, i.e., the number of words between the clitic
and the noun phrase it referred to, were fundamental for
grammaticality decisions. In the same vein, we also took
into account whether the clitic could refer back to an
explicit image in the story. This was crucial because the
visual image could operate as a contextual antecedent
for the clitic even if the child did not actually name
it in the narrative. Full phrases, when the referent was
previously mentioned, were considered as inappropriate
repetitions because clitics would be expected in that
context. Referent-clitic agreement (gender and number)
was always obligatory. To determine clitic appropriate-
ness, we also incorporated suprasegmental cues such
as intonation contours and pauses as these clues could
imply potential barriers to topic maintenance that
would affect clitic use (Du Bois 2003, Givón 1983).
Another important issue is that not all omissions
were considered errors. For example, auxiliary deletion,
el niño# comiendo versus está comiendo ‘eating versus
is eating’ with an intonation shift or a pause after
niño ‘boy’, would be an appropriate predicative form
that does not require an auxiliary and, thus, it was
not counted as ungrammatical. However, cases in
which the child omitted the auxiliary in a sequence
of events without an intonation shift were counted
as an error (Alarcos-Lorach 1978, Gutiérrez-Ordóñez
1986, Lope-Blanch 1984, Rodriguez-Espineira
1992).
The absence of the auxiliary in the direct command,
a comer! (‘Let’s eat’) was not accounted as an error either.
Most Spanish studies treat this as an error allegedly be-
cause the auxiliary of the periphrastic future vamos (for
vamos a comer, ‘go to eat’) is missing. A comer is a fixed
expression in Mexican Spanish, not an error. Also, the
absence of the plural form -s in the dative le (le di un
regalo a los niños, ‘I gave a gift to the children’, instead
of les di un regalo a los niños with number agreement) is
well established not only in Mexican Spanish but also
in several dialects of Latin American Spanish and, thus,
it was not counted as an omission error. It should be
noted that this accepted omission is not the case for all
dialects of Spanish.
To summarize, the forms that were considered un-
grammatical in this study were: (1) agreement er-
rors in gender number in determiner-noun and/or
8 Donna Jackson-Maldonado and Ricardo Maldonado
Table 2. Descriptive statistics for SLI and language controls

SLI 5–6 N = 8 TDlang1 N = 14 Effect SLI 7–8 N = 11 TDlang2 N = 9 Effect

∗ ∗
%UNGRA 31.9 (4–62) 16.1 (6.7–32) .480 23.7 (38.7–64) 11 (2.2–22.7) .535
%OMISS 18.73 (0–43.2) 8.46 (0–18.18) .379 13.18 (0–50)∗ 3.58 (0–16) .465
%SUBSTIT 7.14 (0–19.05) 4.08 (0–22.22) .232 8.47 (3.3–20) 7.1 (2.86–14) .12
%ADDIT 1.79 (0–14.29) 2.08 (0–10) .247 1.21 (0–13.3) 0 .178
#T UNIT 34.63 (15–69) 50.93 (27–94) n.a. 36.73 (14–58) 34 (19–56) n.a.
Notes: Means (ranges) effect size and significance of per cent error types. ∗p < .04.
UNGRA, ungrammatical; OMISS, omissions; SUBSTIT, substitutions; ADDIT, additions; SLI 5–6 or 7–8, specific language impairment 5–6- or 7–8-year-olds; TDlang1, language
controls for SLI group (5–6-year-olds); TDlang2: language controls for SLI group (7–8-year-olds).

adjective-noun phrase, (2) obligatory contexts where
subject–verb agreement was missing (in Spanish verb
agreement is obligatory but overt subject mention is op-
tional), (3) grammatical verb inflection errors, (4) verb
auxiliary omission with no pause or intonation pred-
icative contour (see above), and (5) clitics that did not
agree in gender and number with the preceding refer-
ent or with the image depicted in the story. Utterances
were considered unintelligible or incomplete if part of
the utterance could not be deciphered or if part of the
utterance was not completed, but did not correspond to
a specific omission or substitution.
Results
We first contrast children with SLI and language-
matched controls based on the grammaticality index
and general error types (omissions, substitutions and
additions) and then present a more in-depth analysis
comparing the children with SLI only with age con-
trols. The contrasts of children with SLI and language
controls were divided in two language groups based on
age. The first group consisted of the younger children
with SLI who were between the ages of 5 and 6 and
their language-matched controls (SLI = 8, TD = 14).
The second group included older children with SLI be-
tween the ages of 7 and 8 and their language-matched
peers (SLI = 10, TD = 9). Language controls were
based on MLU-w and were usually 2 years younger than
the SLI group. Homogeneity of variance was not estab-
lished and, thus, non-parametric analyses were carried
out. Based on the American Psychological Association’s
(APA) 5th Manual (2001) and proposals by Grissom
and Kim (2012) and Leech and Onwuegbuzie (2002),
in this study we report both effect sizes and p-values
given the sample size. Effect sizes were calculated for r
as: small ࣙ .10, medium ࣙ .30 and large ࣙ .50 based
on Cohen (1988).
In the first analysis we compared language controls
with children with SLI on grammaticality index and er-
ror type. Non-parametric analyses were significant for
the grammaticality index, while the younger group had
medium effect sizes (U = 23, Z = 2.25, p < .024,
r = .480) and the older group of children had strong
effects (U = 18, Z = 2.39, p < .016, r = .535)
(table 2).
Contrasts for per cent of general error types were
carried out with a Mann–Whitney U-test (table 2). For
the younger language control group, there were no sig-
nificant differences and effect sizes were medium for
omissions (U = 30, Z = 1.77, p < .082, r = .379), yet
negligible for other error types: substitutions (U = 40,
Z = 1.09, p < .297, r = .232) and additions (U = 42,
Z = 1.15, p < .365, r = .247). Thus, compared with
language controls at this young age, there are no signifi-
cant differences in omissions, though there is a medium
effect size, and there were no differences for substitu-
tions and additions. Language control comparisons for
the older age group were significant for omissions with
a medium effect size (U = 16, Z = 2.08, p < .04, r =
.465), and non-significant with small effects for substi-
tutions (U = 32.5, Z = .544, p < .587, r = .12) as well
as for additions (U = 35, Z = .79, p < .791, r = .178).
Thus, for both age groups, only omissions had medium
effects and they were significant for the older group.
The next level of analysis contrasted children with
SLI (N = 18) with TD (N = 17) age-matched con-
trols. Children with SLI were compared with TD chil-
dren on criterion measures: scores on vocabulary and
grammar tests as well as their scores on the NWR task
(see Instruments above). Homogeneity of variance across
these tests was established. A t-test for individual sam-
ples yielded significant differences for all expected mea-
sures. As a group, children with SLI had significantly
lower scores than the TD group on receptive vocabulary
(ROW) (t(33) = 2.79, p = .009), expressive vocabulary
(EOW) (t(33) = 3.42, p = .002), sentence repetition
(CELFEP) (t(32) = 4.55, p < .000), word structure
(CELFRO) (t(33) = 3.38, p = .002) and per cent of
correct phonemes produced during the non-word repe-
tition task (PPC) (t(32) = 5.81, p < .000) (table 3). In
this case, Cohen’s d effects were calculated (small ࣙ .20,
medium ࣙ .50, large ࣙ .80). All had high effect sizes at
or above (d = .98).
A test for homogeneity of variance showed that dis-
tributions of grammaticality measures were not normal
and, thus, only non-parametric analyses were carried out
Grammaticality Spanish SLI 9
Table 3. Results of a t-test for language, non-word (per cent p < .612, r = .264). Thus, as with the language controls,
phoneme correct) and IQ tests only general omissions were different between groups.
SLI (SD) TD (SD) Effect Cohen’s d As it can also be seen in table 4, a composite of
ROW 93 (15.8) ∗∗∗
105 (10) 0.908
grammatical types that summed errors (total articles,
EOW 98 (19.9)∗∗ 117 (16.7) 1.03 total clitics, etc.) had significant differences and strong
SCELFEP 80 (25.9)∗∗ 113 (13.9) 1.59 effect sizes for total article errors (U = 70, Z = 2.82,
SCELFRO 76 (23.1)∗∗∗ 105 (27.9) 1.13 p < .006, r = .564) while preposition and verb phrase
MLU-w 4.75 (0.98) 5.21 (0.79) 0.517 errors had medium effects and only prepositions were
PPC 71.4 (11.1)∗∗∗ 88.7 (4.5) 2.04
TONI-II 106.9 (16.3) 111.8 (19.1) 0.276
significant (prepositions U = 91.5, Z = 2.07 p < .04,
r = .418 and verb phrases U = 100.5, Z = 1.73, p <
Note: Mean score and (standard deviations). ∗∗ p < .002, ∗∗∗ p < .0001.
Percentile scores: ROW, Receptive One Word Test; EOW, Expressive One Word
.08, r = .346). Clitic errors only had small effect sizes
Test; SCELFEP, Spanish CELF-4 Estructura de Palabras; SCELFRO, Spanish CELF-4 (U = 112, Z = 1.37, p < .193, r = .267). Unintelligible
Repetición de Oraciones; MLU-w, mean length of utterance in words; PPC, per cent utterances and word order problems were negligible and,
phonemes correct on non-word task; TONI-II, Test of Non-verbal Intelligence, Spanish
Version. IQ Score. thus, not discussed.
A more in-depth analysis is presented in table 5.
Comparisons were not significant for grammatical cate-
gory combined with error type and medium effect sizes
for all grammaticality categories. As above, p-values and were found for several omission categories: noun phrases
effect sizes are provided to show significance. Table 4 ex- (U = 115, Z = 1.59, p < .230, r = .368), verb phrases
hibits means and ranges for the general variables studied (U = 111, Z = 1.6, p < .182, r = .315), articles (U =
and for each group of children. Differences in gram- 110, Z = 1.8, p < .172, r = .362), prepositions (U = 99,
maticality index scores between children with SLI and Z = 1.84, p < .082, r = .368), clitics (U = 144, Z = .36,
age-matched controls were calculated. We then com- p < .806, r = .320), and frequency of unintelligible or
pared groups by error types and grammatical categories. incomplete utterances (U = 114.5, Z = 1.77, p < .217,
Contrasts between children with SLI and age- r = .354.). Some substitution errors also had medium
matched controls based on a Mann–Whitney U-test effect sizes, but, again, were not significant: articles
yielded significant differences and a large effect size (U = 99.5, Z = 1.93, p < .082, r = .386), clitics (U =
for per cent of ungrammatical utterances (U = 49, 109.5, Z = 1.56, p < .61, r = .312), and verb phrases
Z = 3.412, p <. 001, r = .682). Also, both groups (U = 142, Z = .367, p < .756, r = .312). Curiously,
produced a similar number of utterances (M = 35.84 clitic substitutions were more frequent in TD children
and 33.25) (table 4). compared with children with SLI. No additions were
General omissions, substitutions and additions be- significantly different and effect sizes were negligible.
tween the SLI and TD age-matched groups were further These results of error types illustrate that language
analyzed (table 4). Effects for status (SLI or TD by age) and age-matched controls are distinct and, thus, it would
were considered to determine differences. Significant seem to be that comparing children with SLI with
differences were found and effect sizes were large for to- age-matched controls provides more information about
tal omissions (U = 70.5, Z = 2.74, p < .006, r = .548). grammaticality than contrasting children with SLI to
No significant differences were found and effect sizes language-matched controls. Most errors only had low
were low for total substitutions (U = 128.5, Z = .779, effect sizes when comparing children with SLI with
p < .44, r = .156) and additions (U = 136, Z = 1.32,

Table 4. Descriptive statistics of total per cent error types and total grammatical categories for SLI and age controls

SLI N = 18 SD TD N = 17 SD r
#T UNIT 35.84 (14–69) 15.21 33.25 (19–56) 9.32 .126
%UNGRAM 27.19 (9–64.3) 16.8∗∗ 11.41 (2.2–24) 6.63 .682
%OMISSION 15.52(0–50) 13.72∗∗ 4.9 (0–17.39) 6.7 .548
%SUBSTITUT 7.91 (0–20) 5.87 5.98 (0–13.5) 3.89 .156
%ADDITION 1.45 (0–14.29) 4.36 0 0 .264
%ARTICLES 8.07 (21.62) 7.83∗∗ 1.48 (0–6.9) 2.27 .564
%CLITIC 2.94 (0–14.29) 4.4 4.48 (0–10) 3.81 .267
%PREPOSITION 5.96 (0–28.57) 7.33∗ 2.04 (0–13) 3.67 .418
%VERB 4.58 (0–14.49) 4.08 2.24 (0–6.06) 2.33 .346
%UNINTEL 0.199 (0–2.33) 0.612 0.189 (0–3.03) 0.758 .354
%ORDER 0.198 (0–2.33) 0.613 0.168 (0–2.7) 0.675 .075
Notes: Means (ranges), standard deviation, effect size and significance. ∗ p < .04, ∗∗ p < .006.
SLI, primary language impairment; TD, typical development age control; SD, standard deviation.
10 Donna Jackson-Maldonado and Ricardo Maldonado
Table 5. Descriptive statistics of per cent error types by grammatical categories for SLI and age controls

SLI N = 18 SD TD N = 17 SD Effect
Omissions
%ARTICLE 3.71 (0–16.22) 5.77 0.369 (0–4) 1.07 .362
%CLITIC 1.36 (0–14.29) 2.95 1.24 (0–8.7) 2.83 .07
%PREPOSITION 5.68 (0–28.57) 7.37 1.78 (0–8.7) 2.87 .367
%NOUNPHRASE 1.9 (0–8.11) 2.95 0.62 (0–5.36) 1.70 .31
%VERB 2.86 (0–13.64) 4.04 0.9 (0–6.06) 1.82 .32
Substitutions
%ARTICLE 4.19 (0–20) 6.04 1.28 (0–6.9) 2.21 .386
%CLITIC 1.58 (0–9.09) 2.94 3.25 (0–10) 3.55 .312
%PREPOSITION 0.27 (0–2.63) 0.81 0.27 (0–4.35) 1.09 .076
%VERB 1.72 (0–8) 2.41 1.34 (0–5.41) 1.94 .312
Additions
%ARTICLE 0.175 (0–3.3) 0.76 0 .184
%CLITIC 0.175 (0–3.3) 0.76 0.17 (0–2.7) 0.68 .016
%PREPOSITION 1.28 (0–14.29) 3.89 0 .264
Note: Means (ranges), standard deviation and effect size.

language-matched controls (both groups). Although age
differences were large between children with SLI and
language controls, differences were not significant, al-
though there were medium effect sizes for some cate-
gories. Errors in children with SLI are similar to those
produced by children who are about two years younger.
Discussion
The aims of this study were to describe grammatical cat-
egories by omissions, substitutions and additions that
differentiate children with SLI from children who are
TD and relate these findings to other studies. First we
analyzed ungrammaticality. Then we carried out a more
detailed analysis by grammatical type. As mentioned
above, observational techniques may affect grammati-
cality results and, thus, we will centre our discussion on
results that have been obtained by narrative samples and
SLA in other studies.
Previous research has mostly been clinically based,
using discriminant analysis, to propose markers that
differentiate children with SLI from those without
SLI while not discussing the grammatical errors and
types themselves (Jacobson 2012, Morgan et al. 2009,
Simon-Cereijido and Gutiérrez-Clellen 2007). In con-
trast, this study is descriptive in nature and purposely
designed to illustrate several ungrammatical forms that
are produced in a spontaneous narrative task. Most
published studies have not shown consistent evidence
for one error type in particular, much less related to
grammatical categories. Although most studies concur
that the forms that are most affected in SLI are articles,
clitics and other function words, such as prepositions,
it is not clear whether they all undergo omissions,
substitutions or additions (Anderson and Souto 2005,
Andreu and Sanz-Torrent 2013, Bedore and Leonard
2005, Jacobson and Walden 2013, Morgan et al. 2009,
2012, Restrepo and Gutiérrez-Clellen 2001, 2012,
Simon-Cereijido and Gutiérrez-Clellen 2007).
A finding derived from the results of this study,
although not a research question per se, was that there
are differences between language and age-matched
controls. Our study, in line with most research, first
compared children with SLI with language-matched
controls who were matched based on the MLU-w
measure (as in Botting 2002, and Duinmeijer et al.
2012). Language controls were divided into two groups
(one compared with 5- and 6-year-olds with SLI and
a second group compared with 7- and 8-year-olds
with SLI). Language controls were, on average, 2 years
younger. Because of this large age difference, it could be
expected that there would be differences despite similar
language levels. There was a significant difference
between the 5–6-year-old group and the language
controls for the ungrammaticality index, and there were
medium effects for this variable, as well as for per cent
of omissions. Similarly, the results for the 7–8-year-old
group were significant for grammaticality, and also for
per cent omissions. In these cases effect sizes were strong
(if rounded). Thus, data from this study would agree
with researchers who have proposed that grammatical
errors change with age (Castilla-Earls and Eriks-Brophy
2012). Furthermore, it may be more methodologically
pertinent to include age-matched controls if the goal is
to illustrate grammatical errors. This methodological is-
sue can be considered since Bedore and Leonard (2001)
did not find differences when comparing children with
SLI with MLU-matched controls and may explain why
many studies mostly use age- rather than language-
matched controls. The need to compare age rather than
language controls is further evidenced by the fact that
children who are much younger than the experimental
group may be quite different because of maturation.
Grammaticality Spanish SLI
Thus, results could be confounding maturation and
language ability (Royle and Courteau 2013).
The detailed errors and grammatical category anal-
ysis compared children with SLI with age-matched con-
trols. Based on our research questions, the grammatical-
ity measure that most clearly differentiates children with
SLI from those without SLI is the general grammaticality
index, independently of whether TD language or age-
matched controls are used as contrasts with children with
SLI. Although many studies use different calculation
techniques (as explained above), researchers have consis-
tently shown that grammaticality is affected in children
with SLI. In this study we used a more conservative mea-
sure than previous studies in that we counted grammat-
icality by utterance rather than by each ungrammatical
form. Using this more conservative count we still found
that grammaticality persisted as the strongest measure.
The general grammatical errors (omissions, substi-
tutions and additions) across all grammatical categories
in children with SLI when compared with language-
matched controls yielded no significant differences,
though there were medium effect sizes for omissions.
Omissions were also the strongest error type that dif-
ferentiated SLI from the TD age control group. They
were significant differences and the effect size was strong.
Thus, an overall finding is that taking into considera-
tion all grammaticality, children with SLI omit forms
more frequently than they substitute them when com-
pared with TD children. It would seem, then, that these
grammatical forms (articles, clitics, prepositions) are not
yet part of the grammatical repertoire of children with
SLI.
When grammatical types were analyzed separately to
determine which form is most affected by SLI, we found
consistent evidence to support most published research
related to articles. Total article errors showed significant
differences with strong effect sizes and, though not sig-
nificant, medium effect sizes were found for both omis-
sions and substitutions. Studies that have used narratives
or SLA (Anderson and Souto 2005, Morgan et al. 2009)
have found evidence for both error types, though Andreu
and Sanz-Torrent (2013) only found article omissions
in SLA. Thus, articles are problematic for children with
SLI; however, it remains unclear which error type is the
most salient in these children.
Children with SLI in this study also had more
preposition errors. Differences were significant when
children with SLI were compared with age-matched
controls and there were medium effect sizes. Further-
more, prepositions that were omitted, though not with
significant differences, did show medium effect sizes.
We found no effects for substitutions. Moreover, prepo-
sition additions, which have seldom been discussed
in the existing literature, approximated medium effect
levels. Previous studies have suggested that prepositions
11
are mostly omitted and, less frequently, substituted
(Auza and Morgan 2013). In this sample, children also
added prepositions where they were not required. In
a study with a different sample, using a story-retell
method, additions of prepositions have also been found
(Stansbury and Jackson-Maldonado 2016a, 2016b) and
specific preposition types are analyzed. Thus, it appears
that prepositions are also susceptible to errors of all
types.
Verb productions have also been identified as clinical
markers of SLI. As mentioned above, verb errors are fre-
quent in English-speaking children with SLI and are the
basis of the Rice and Wexler (1986) model. Although
verb errors were found in this study, differences between
the SLI and TD groups were not significant and there
were only medium effects. Results also showed medium
effects for omissions and substitutions, though differ-
ences were not significant. In a limited number of studies
of Spanish-speaking children, verbs have been shown to
be a problematic structure, but more so when included
as part of the argument structure or in complex forms
(particularly the subjunctive). Our findings are similar to
other studies (Andreu and Sanz-Torrent 2013, Jackson-
Maldonado 2012, Sanz-Torrent et al. 2008). However,
in order to address verb-specific structures that are af-
fected by SLI, it is necessary to describe verb types, as
well as tense and mood inflexions, arguments, and to
contrast simple and complex forms. These analyses ex-
ceed the goals of this study, but findings suggest that
verbs do not appear to be as affected as other grammat-
ical categories.
Several researchers have addressed clitic productions
proposing that their use may differentiate children with
SLI from TD when they are observed in story-retell and
direct elicitation cloze tasks (Bedore and Leonard 2001,
Bosch and Serra 1997, De la Mora 2004, Jacobson
2012, Jacobson and Walden 2013, Morgan et al. 2009,
2012, Simon-Cereijido and Gutiérrez-Clellen 2007).
As mentioned above, results from cloze tasks may not
be relevant to the discussion of our data because the
referent is still active and processes would be different.
Taking this into account, clitic productions were not
significantly different when comparing both groups of
children and effects sizes fell below medium levels. This
finding differs from results presented from story-retell
and SLA studies. In our study, more clitic substitutions
were found for TD age-matched controls than for
children with SLI; differences were not significant
and medium effect sizes were found and no effects
were found for omissions. Thus, using spontaneous
narrative procedures, clitic errors do not seem to
be as strong as indicated by prior investigations in
which other methodologies are used. Some possible
explanations for this discrepancy could be that clitics
would more readily be expressed in a narrative retell
12 Donna Jackson-Maldonado and Ricardo Maldonado
where the characters or objects have been previously Clinical implications
established or in an elicitation task in which the referent
The findings of this study are particularly relevant for
is mentioned immediately before the required clitic
intervention strategies. Oftentimes grammatical forms
form. In this study there are multiple clitic omissions
are considered as a group rather than identifying the
and substitutions but statistical differences were not
specific error type. Thus, language evaluations should
established. What occurred is that clitic omissions and
determine not only which grammatical concepts are
substitutions were frequent in both groups of children.
affected, but also whether the affected concepts are
Yet, the TD group had more complex utterances
omitted, substituted or added. In other words, it is im-
(Jackson-Maldonado and Maldonado 2015) and the
portant to determine how grammatical forms are used
referential distance from antecedent (Givón 1983) was
erroneously in order to guide the course of intervention.
greater than for the children with SLI. A reanalysis of
Whereas substitutions entail basic grammatical knowl-
the data, based two experts’ reviews of the transcripts,
edge, such as identifying and inserting some tentative
showed differences in clitic recovery. In the TD group
form in the correct position but not necessarily knowing
clitics were more likely to appear than three utterances
all of its characteristics (gender and number agreement,
after the first mention and, thus, clitic installation for
for instance), omissions may imply that the child has
the TD group could be considered to be more complex
not yet identified that a form has a function and an
than for the SLI group. The children with SLI followed
obligatory place within an utterance. Therefore, in that
three basic strategies: (1) they would never state the ref-
case, children must learn the category in itself. The
erent bur rather merely look at the image; (2) they would
intervention for each type of error would be different,
state the referent at the beginning of the story, and not
but first a correct identification of the process involved
refer back to it; or (3) they would reinstall the referent in
is required. Working with prepositions that are omitted
the production with a complete noun phrase and avoid
is quite distinct than inserting a missing determiner or
using a clitic altogether. For example, they would refer
correcting its gender. Also, intervention should be based
to the frog with a masculine clitic lo rather than the fem-
on the individual characteristics of the child and not
inine clitic la, but they had never used the noun phrase
on broad programmes that do not address individual
la rana (‘the frog’) at the beginning of the story. Most
needs.
clitic errors in the TD group appeared when the referent
Findings from this study also emphasize the need
was not explicitly installed in the story or was more than
to base intervention methods on language-specific
three utterances after the initial reference. As distance
information and not to derive strategies from research
increases the initial referent can be lost as other parts of
based on speakers of other languages. Ungrammaticality
discourse may interfere. In contrast, children with SLI
in Spanish is manifested in very different forms and
are not particularly sensitive to tracking back the ref-
functions than is true for English. In particular, auxil-
erent in discourse. Children with SLI had trouble with
iaries are less sensitive to SLI in Spanish than in English.
clitics in all contexts and distances, though differences
In contrast, articles, clitics, prepositions and connector
were not significant when compared with their TD
words are more vulnerable in Spanish than in English.
peers. This issue requires a more in depth analysis with
As English is one of the primary languages for which
a larger sample of children in order to truly understand
intervention programmes have been developed, given
the nature of clitics. Furthermore, findings gathered
that there is more extensive research on this language,
from different observational techniques should not be
many therapists simply translate programmes and pub-
contrasted.
lications into Spanish without considering its specific
Our study supports some findings in previously
structures and needs. This strategy could be detrimental
published research on Spanish-speaking children with
to a child’s progress, as language-specific forms that are
SLI. Undoubtedly, articles are one of the most prob-
particularly vulnerable may not be targeted.
lematic grammatical forms in this group. Prepositions,
Finally, it is of utmost importance to understand
although often not analyzed, are also forms that are
that ungrammatical forms may be produced in differ-
difficult. The study of clitics requires more in-depth
ent scenarios. Elicitation techniques, as an intervention
analysis and we would propose that clitic functions
strategy, may instigate the child to produce distinct
and reference be considered. What remains clear, as
forms. It is recommended that therapist use multiple
has already been determined in the existing research
means to elicit problematic forms. For instance, both
base, is that Spanish-speaking children with SLI
story-retell and spontaneous narratives should be used
produce more ungrammatical utterances than their TD
with different goals, while sentence-completion exer-
peers. It is also clear that grammatical types specific
cises may yield still different results. These considera-
to the language under analysis should be considered
tions should also be taken into account when assessing
thoroughly.
children.
Grammaticality Spanish SLI
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a grant to the first author from
the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologı́a (grant numbers
CONACYT-60765 and CONACYT-NSF 2007–2008), an agency
of the Mexican government. The authors also thank the clinics and
schools and all the families who participated. They greatly appreciate
the extensive corrections of this manuscript done by Lauren Cycyk
and Daniel Stauffer. They also acknowledge the work performed by
Ma Lourdes Martı́nez Nieto, Alejandra Aguillón, Tania Rodrı́guez,
Jan Holst and Ana Susana Mejı́a Villalobos. Declaration of interest:
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are
responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
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Appendix A: Non-Word Repetition Test

One syllable Two syllables Three syllables Four syllables Five syllables
Tar Piadur Numetia Dicastelo Empuleconi
Fun Muca Tablecó Catı́fago Acubénipo
Sil Dantú Etibo Depolima Milocadunte
Fol Quiesa Jemipa Alefico Kiyatanidul

Note: Words are by syllable length (Jackson-Maldonado 2011).