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This study compared the abilities of children with specific language impairment (SLI; n = 10) and typically developing (TD) children (n = 13) to access and participate in an ongoing interaction between two unfamiliar peer partners. Results revealed that all children in the study accessed by either making an unprompted initiation toward their peers (access initiation) or by responding to a question or play invitation directed toward them (access response). However, 4 children with SLI were unsuccessful in achieving successful access initiation during the 10-min play period. Children with SLI required a longer period of time to achieve access initiation. Following access, children with SLI were addressed significantly less by their play partners, participated in less group play, and engaged in more individual play and onlooking behavior. Among the SLI group, language levels were negatively related to the time children required to achieve their first successful access and first access initiation. Expressive language levels were positively related to the percentage of utterances children produced postaccess and the percentage of utterances they were addressed postaccess by their play partners. Differences in receptive skills among SLI children were less strongly related to the time they required in achieving their first access and were unrelated to their ability to participate in the interaction.
KEY WORDS: specific language impairment, peer interaction, access abilities, pragmatic skills
The ability to interact successfully with peers is an important communicative skill that is critical to the establishment and maintenance of healthy social relationships. In typically developing (TD) children, good language skills have been shown to mediate children's facility with a variety of important social tasks, including sharing information, expressing feelings, directing behavior, and negotiating misunderstandings (Fujiki, Brinton, & Todd, 1996). Children with specific language impairment (SLI) who have weak expressive and receptive language skills as their primary developmental disability often experience social rejection (Guralnick, Connor, Hammond, Gottman, & Kinnish, 1996).
Studies that have focused on the peer interactions of children with SLI present a troubling picture of these children's early social experiences. For example, Fujiki et al. (1996) found that school-age children with SLI rated themselves as lonelier at school and less satisfied with their peer relationships than did their TD classmates. Studies using peer-rating measures have found that school-age children with...