Publications

2006
Marshall, C. R., & van der Lely, H. K. (2006). A challenge to current models of past tense inflection: The impact of phonotactics. Cognition , 100, 302-320.Abstract

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Gardner, H., Froud, K., McClelland, A., & van der Lely, H. K. (2006). Development of the Grammar and Phonology Screening (GAPS) test to assess key markers of specific language and literacy difficulties in young children. Int J Lang Commun Disord , 41, 513-40. WebsiteAbstract

BACKGROUND: Despite a large body of evidence regarding reliable indicators of language deficits in young children, there has not been a standardized, quick screen for language impairment. The Grammar and Phonology Screening (GAPS) test was therefore designed as a short, reliable assessment of young children's language abilities. AIMS: GAPS was designed to provide a quick screening test to assess whether pre- and early school entry children have the necessary grammar and pre-reading phonological skills needed for education and social development. This paper reports the theoretical background to the test, the pilot study and reliability, and the standardization. METHODS: This 10-min test comprises 11 test sentences and eight test nonsense words for direct imitation and is designed to highlight significant markers of language impairment and reading difficulties. To standardize the GAPS, 668 children aged 3.4-6.6 were tested across the UK, taking into account population distribution and socio-economic status. The test was carried out by a range of health and education professionals as well as by students and carers using only simple, written instructions. RESULTS: GAPS is effective in detecting a range of children in need of further in-depth assessment or monitoring for language difficulties. The results concur with those from much larger epidemiological studies using lengthy testing procedures. CONCLUSIONS: The GAPS test (1) provides a successful screening tool; (2) is designed to be administered by professionals and non-professionals alike; and (3) facilitates identification of language impairment or at-risk factors of reading impairment in the early educational years. Thus, the test affords a first step in a process of assessment and targeted intervention to enable children to reach their potential.

Gardner, HilaryFroud, KarenMcClelland, Alastairvan der Lely, Heather K J063713/Wellcome Trust/United KingdomResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tValidation StudiesEnglandInternational journal of language & communication disorders / Royal College of Speech & Language TherapistsInt J Lang Commun Disord. 2006 Sep-Oct;41(5):513-40.

2005
van der Lely, H. K. (2005). Grammatical-SLI and the Computational Grammatical Complexity hypothesis. , Frequences , 17, 13-20.Abstract

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van der Lely, H. K. (2005). Domain-specific cognitive systems: insight from Grammatical-SLI. Trends Cogn Sci , 9 53-9. WebsiteAbstract

Specific language-impairment (SLI) is a disorder of language acquisition in children who otherwise appear to be normally developing. Controversy surrounds whether SLI results from impairment to a "domain-specific" system devoted to language itself or from some more "domain-general" system. I compare these two views of SLI, and focus on three components of grammar that are good candidates for domain-specificity: syntax, morphology and phonology. I argue that the disorder is heterogeneous, and that deficits of different subgroups potentially stem from different underlying causes. Interestingly, although poor sensory or non-verbal abilities often co-occur with SLI, there is no evidence that these impairments cause the grammatical deficits found in SLI. Moreover, evidence suggests that impairment in at least one subgroup is specific to grammar.

van der Lely, Heather K JResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tReviewEnglandTrends in cognitive sciencesTrends Cogn Sci. 2005 Feb;9(2):53-9.

2004
van der Lely, H. K., Rosen, S., & Adlard, A. (2004). Grammatical language impairment and the specificity of cognitive domains: relations between auditory and language abilities. Cognition , 94, 167-83. WebsiteAbstract

Grammatical-specific language impairment (G-SLI) in children, arguably, provides evidence for the existence of a specialised grammatical sub-system in the brain, necessary for normal language development. Some researchers challenge this, claiming that domain-general, low-level auditory deficits, particular to rapid processing, cause phonological deficits and thereby SLI. We investigate this possibility by testing the auditory discrimination abilities of G-SLI children for speech and non-speech sounds, at varying presentation rates, and controlling for the effects of age and language on performance. For non-speech formant transitions, 69% of the G-SLI children showed normal auditory processing, whereas for the same acoustic information in speech, only 31% did so. For rapidly presented tones, 46% of the G-SLI children performed normally. Auditory performance with speech and non-speech sounds differentiated the G-SLI children from their age-matched controls, whereas speed of processing did not. The G-SLI children evinced no relationship between their auditory and phonological/grammatical abilities. We found no consistent evidence that a deficit in processing rapid acoustic information causes or maintains G-SLI. The findings, from at least those G-SLI children who do not exhibit any auditory deficits, provide further evidence supporting the existence of a primary domain-specific deficit underlying G-SLI.

van der Lely, Heather K JRosen, StuartAdlard, AlanResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tNetherlandsCognitionCognition. 2004 Dec;94(2):167-83.

van der Lely, H. K. (2004). Evidence for and implications of a domain-specific grammatical deficit. In L. Jenkins (Ed.), J. Rooryck & P. Pica (Ed.), The genetics of language (Vol. 1-Chapter 6, pp. 117-144.) . Elsevier, Oxford.Abstract

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Fonteneau, E., & van der Lely, H. K. (2004). Event-related potentials of semantic and filler-gap violations. Society for Neuroscience . San Diego.Abstract

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Fonteneau, E., & van der Lely, H. K. (2004). Non-local dependencies in sentence processing in adults: An ERP investigation. " Conference. Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLAP) . Aix en Provence, France.Abstract

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2003
van der Lely, H. K., & Battell, J. (2003). Wh-movement in children with grammatical SLI: A test of the RDDR hypothesis. Language , 79, 153-181.Abstract

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van der Lely, H. K. (2003). Do heterogeneous SLI deficits need heterogeneous theories? SLI subgroups, G-SLI and the RDDR hypothesis. In Y. Levy & J. Schaeffer (Ed.), Towards a definition of specific language impairment (pp. 109-134) . Lawrence Erlbaum.Abstract

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Marshall, C., Harris, J., & van der Lely, H. K. (2003). The nature of phonological representations in children with Grammatical-Specific Language Impairment (G-SLI). In D. Hall, T. Markopoulos, A. Salamoura, & S. Skoufaki (Ed.), The University of Cambridge First Postgraduate Conference in Language Research (pp. 511-517) . Cambridge University, Cambridge: Cambridge Institute of Language Research.Abstract

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Ebbels, S. H., van der Lely, H. K., & Dockrell, J. E. (2003). Argument structure performance on an elicited production task: Comparison of SLI and normally developing children. Child Language Seminar July 10-11, 2003 . University of Newcastle, UK.Abstract

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Ebbels, S., van der Lely, H. K., & Dockrell, J. (2003). Phonologcial and morphosyntactic abilities in SLI: Is there a causal relationship? Boston University Conference on Language Development . Boston, USA.Abstract

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2002
van der Lely, H. K. (2002). SLI and deficits in the computational syntactic system: Control and cross-domain mental computations: Evidence from language breakdown. Computational Intelligence, , 18, 39-42.Abstract

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Marshall, C. R., Ebbels, S., Harris, J., & van der Lely, H. K. (2002). Investigating the impact of prosodic complexity on the speech of children with Specific Language Impairment. In R. Vermeulen & A. Neeleman (Ed.), UCL Working Papers in Linguistics (Vol. 14, pp. 43-68).Abstract

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2001
van der Lely, H. K., & Ullman, M. T. (2001). Past tense morphology in specifically language impaired children and normally developing children. Language and Cognitive Processes , 16, 113-336.Abstract

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Ebbels, S., & van der Lely, H. (2001). Meta-syntactic therapy using visual coding for children with severe persistent SLI. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders , 36, 345-350. Publisher's VersionAbstract

The results of a pilot study into meta-syntactic therapy using visual coding for four children (age 11-13 years) with severe receptive and expressive specific language impairment (SLI) are presented. The coding system uses shapes, colours and a system of arrows to teach grammatical rules. A time-series design established baseline pre-therapy measures of comprehension and production of both passives and 'wh' questions. All participants made progress with passives and this was significant in three cases of the four. Comprehension and production of 'wh' questions also improved in all participants, although this did not always reach statistical significance. The results indicate that meta-syntactic therapy of grammatical rules, capitalising on visual strengths, can improve both comprehension and production in secondary age children with severe persistent SLI.

Suppl. S430YXTimes Cited:11Cited References Count:11

2000
van der Lely, H. K., & Christian, V. (2000). Lexical word formation in children with grammatical SLI: a grammar-specific versus an input-processing deficit? Cognition , 75, 33-63. WebsiteAbstract

An ongoing controversy is whether an input-processing deficit or a grammar-specific deficit causes specific language impairment (SLI) in children. Previous studies have focussed on SLI childrens' omission of inflectional morphemes or impaired performance on language tasks, but such data can be accounted for by either theory. To distinguish between these theories we study compound formation in a subgroup of SLI children with 'grammatical (G)-SLI'. An input-processing account (e.g. Leonard, L. (1998). Children with specific language impairment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), in which perception and production of inflections requires extra processing resources, would predict that G-SLI children will omit the regular plural -s in compounds (e.g. rat-eater). A grammar-specific deficit account (e.g. Ullman, M. & Gopnik, M. (1994) The production of inflectional morphology in hereditary specific language impairment. The McGill Working Papers in Linguistics, 10, 81-118; van der Lely, H. K. J. & Ullman, M. (1996). The computation and representation of past-tense morphology in normally developing and specifically language impaired children. In A. Stringfellow, D. Cahana-Amitay, E. Hughes & A. Zukowski, Proceedings of the 20th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 816-827). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press), in which G-SLI children are impaired in regular inflectional morphology, would predict that G-SLI children will produce regular plural -s forms inside compounds (e.g. *rats-eater). We compared the responses of 16 G-SLI subjects (aged 10 years 4 months to 18 years) with those of 36 normally developing control children (24 matched on language ability and 12 matched on age and cognitive ability). All the groups produced irregular plural nouns in compounds (mice-eater). The normally developing children and teenagers rarely, if ever. produced regular plural nouns inside compounds (*rats-eater), whereas the G-SLI subjects did so often. This pattern of results conflicts with the predictions ofthe input-processing deficit account. The findings support the grammar-specific deficit hypothesis. The data rovide further evidence that specialized grammatical abilities may be differentially impaired within the language system.

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0010-0277Journal Article

van der Lely, H. K. (2000). Verb Agreement and Tense Test (VATT). WebsiteAbstract

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An expressive test of English tense marking and third person verb agreement.

Published by www.dldcn.com

Rosen, S., van der Lely, H., Adlard, A., & Manganari, E. (2000). Backward masking in children with and without language disorders. British Journal of Audiology , 34, 124-124. WebsiteAbstract

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309LDTimes Cited:3Cited References Count:2

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