The production of Dutch finite verb morphology: A comparison between hearing-impaired CI children and specific language impaired children

•We study 4- to 7-year-old hearing impaired CI children and specific language impaired (SLI) children.•We compare both clinical groups on MLU, finite verb production and subject-verb agreement errors.•Both clinical groups showed significant difficulties in the accurate production of verbal agreement.•Low MLU and low finite verb production were mainly found in the group of SLI.•Morphosyntactic deficits are more severe in SLI children as compared to CI children.

BackgroundThis study compares 4- to 7-year-old cochlear implanted (CI) and specific language impaired (SLI) children in the production of finite verb morphology and mean length of utterance (MLU). It has been hypothesized that, due to reduced exposure to grammatical elements in the ambient language, both groups are delayed in their acquisition of morphosyntax.MethodSpontaneous language samples were analyzed for Dutch monolingual CI (N = 48) and SLI children (N = 38) on MLU, number of finite verbs, and number of errors in the target-like production of verbal agreement. CI and SLI children were compared on their linguistic profiles, including MLU and finite verb production, using the norms of typically developing (TD) children.ResultsStatistical differences between CI and SLI children were found only for finite verb production at ages 5 and 6, in the direction of better outcomes for CI children. Both groups produced significant numbers of verbal agreement errors. Weak linguistic profiles were found for 75% of the SLI children and 35% of the CI children.ConclusionCI and SLI children show both weak performances on the target-like production of verbal agreement. Nevertheless, CI children produce more finite verbs and have stronger linguistic profiles as compared to SLI children.