Syntax
Syntax refers to the set of rules “that pertain to the ways in which words can be combined to form sentences in a language.” Language impairment affecting syntax may cause a child to have difficulty understanding and using correct sentence structure elements when listening, speaking, reading, and/or writing (“Language In Brief,” n.d.). The article Impact of Prematurity on Language Skills at School Age discusses the following analyses, which were used to assess the children’s syntactical skills. Mean length of utterance in C-units (MLU-C) was estimated for all of the language samples taken. MLU-C is calculated by dividing the total number of morphemes by the total number of utterances, using all of a child’s whole intelligible utterances …show more content…
Pragmatics are known as “the rules associated with the use of language in conversation and broader social situations.” A child who is language impaired may have difficulty understanding “the social aspects of spoken language, including conversational exchanges, the social use of spoken language, including production of cohesive and relevant messages during conversations, understanding point-of-view and the needs of the audience, and conveying point-of-view or the intended message” (“Language In Brief,” n.d.). A child who is lacking pragmatic skills may say inappropriate or irrelevant things in a conversation, tell jumbled, confusing stories, or have little variation in language use (“Social Language Use (Pragmatics),” n.d.). After researching the topic of prematurity effecting language, prematurity was not found to have any outstanding effects on pragmatics of …show more content…
With this information, it has been concluded that preterm born children are at a more increased risk of language acquisition delay than children born full term(Schirmer et al., 2006). With this knowledge SLPs can prepare to detect language impairments at a much younger age and provide intervention sooner to children who were born prematurely!
Limitations of research