Subject relatives in typical and atypical language development

In the present research we aim to determine whether relative clauses are successful in distinguishing Italian-speaking children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) from their typically developing peers. Ninetheen preschool-aged children with SLI participated in the study. They were matched to ninetheen typically developing (TD) children on the basis of the age. Children were tested by means of an elicitation task. The results show that among the types of relative clauses tested, subject relatives, but not object relatives, proved successful in distinguishing the SLI and TD children. On the basis of the results, we propose that subject relatives could be a marker for SLI at preschool-age. Research should be pursued to replicate and extend these findings acrosslanguages.