Tapping toddlers' evolving semantic representation via gesture

Lexical skills and gesture use: A comparison between expressive and receptive/expressive late talkers

BACKGROUND

Studies on late talkers (LTs) highlighted their heterogeneity and the relevance of describing different communicative profiles.

AIMS

To examine lexical skills and gesture use in expressive (E-LTs) vs. receptive-expressive (R/E-LTs) LTs through a structured task.

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

Forty-six 30-month-old screened LTs were distinguished into E-LTs (n= 35) and R/E-LTs (n= 11) according to their receptive skills. Lexical skills and gesture use were assessed with a Picture Naming Game by coding answer accuracy (correct, incorrect, no response), modality of expression (spoken, spoken-gestural, gestural), type of gestures (deictic, representational), and spoken-gestural answers' semantic relationship (complementary, equivalent, supplementary).

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

R/E-LTs showed lower scores than E-LTs for noun and predicate comprehension with fewer correct answers, and production with fewer correct and incorrect answers, and more no responses. R/E-LTs also exhibited lower scores in spoken answers, representational gestures, and equivalent spoken-gestural answers for noun production and in all spoken and gestural answers for predicate production.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Findings highlighted more impaired receptive and expressive lexical skills and lower gesture use in R/E-LTs compared to E-LTs, underlying the relevance of assessing both lexical and gestural skills through a structured task, besides parental questionnaires and developmental scales, to describe LTs' communicative profiles.

Object Shape and Depth of Word Representations in Preschoolers

This study examined the effect of a shape cue (i.e., co-speech gesture) on word depth. We taught 23 preschoolers (M = 3;5 years, SD = 5.82) novel objects with either shape (SHP) or indicator (IND) gestures. SHP gestures mimicked object form, but IND gestures were not semantically related to the object (e.g., an upward-facing palm, extended toward the object). Each object had a unique IND or SHP gesture. Outcome measures reflected richer semantic and phonological learning in the SHP than in the IND condition. In the SHP condition, preschoolers (a) expressed more semantic knowledge, (b) said more sounds in names, and (c) generalized more names to untaught objects. There were also fewer disruptions to prime picture names in the SHP condition; we discuss the benefit of a co-speech shape gesture to capitalize on well-established statistical word learning patterns.

Do Spoken Vocabulary and Gestural Production Distinguish Children with Transient Language Delay from Children Who Will Show Developmental Language Disorder? A Pilot Study

The literature on the role of gestures in children with language delay (LD) is partial and controversial. The present study explores gestural production and modality of expression in children with LD and semantic and temporal relationships between gestures and words in gesture + word combinations. Thirty-three children participated (mean age, 26 months), who were recruited through a screening programme for LD. Cognitive skills, lexical abilities, and the use of spontaneous gestures in a naming task were evaluated when the children were 32 months old. When the children were 78 months old, their parents were interviewed to collect information about an eventual diagnosis of developmental language disorder (DLD). According to these data, the children fell into three groups: children with typical development (n = 13), children with LD who did not show DLD (transient LD; n = 9), and children with LD who showed DLD (n = 11). No significant differences emerged between the three groups for cognitive and lexical skills (comprehension and production), for number of gestures spontaneously produced, and for the sematic relationships between gestures and words. Differences emerged in the modality of expression, where children with transient LD produced more unimodal gestural utterances than typical-development children, and in the temporal relationships between gestures and words, where the children who would show DLD provided more frequent representational gestures before the spoken answer than typical-development children. We suggest a different function for gestures in children with T-LD, who used representational gestures to replace the spoken word they were not yet able to produce, and in children with LD-DLD, who used representational gestures to access spoken words.

Can Gestures Give us Access to Thought? A Systematic Literature Review on the Role of Co-thought and Co-speech Gestures in Children with Intellectual Disabilities

This systematic review analyzes the differential use of gestures in learning by children with intellectual disability (ID) compared to typically developing ones (TD). Eleven studies published between 2000 and 2020 fulfilled the inclusion criteria (N = 364 participants). The results identify three key elements: (1) Children with ID accompany their spoken language with more gestures than TD children; (2) Specifically, they produce more iconic gestures that provide access to the conceptualization process and understanding in students with ID; (3) Children with ID rely on gesture more than TD children to carry meaning (i.e., produce unimodal gestural utterances without accompanying speech). Possible implications for teaching and guidelines for future research are proposed.

An investigation into the relationship between Quality of pantomime gestures and visuospatial skills

While children with developmental language disorder or Williams syndrome appear to use hand gestures to compensate for specific cognitive and communicative difficulties, they have different cognitive strength-weakness profiles. Their semantic and visuospatial skills potentially affect gesture quality such as iconicity. The present study focuses on untangling the unique contribution of these skills in the quality of gestures. An explicit gesture elicitation task was presented to 25 participants with developmental language disorder between 7 and 10 years of age, 25 age-matched peers with typical development, and 14 participants with Williams Syndrome (8-23 years). They gestured pictures of objects without using speech (pantomime). The iconicity, semantic richness, and representation technique of the pantomimes were coded. Participants' semantic association and visuospatial skills were formally assessed. Iconicity was slightly lower in individuals with Williams syndrome, which seems related to their visuospatial deficit. While semantic saliency was similar across participant groups, small differences in representation technique were found. Partial correlations showed that visuospatial skills and semantic skills were instrumental in producing clear pantomimes. These findings indicate that clinicians aiming to enhance individuals' natural iconic gestures should consider achieved iconicity, particularly in individuals with low visuospatial skills.

Making Object Shape Explicit for Toddlers With Late Language Emergence

Purpose Toddlers with late language emergence have difficulty acquiring an object vocabulary that is well defined by shape early in development. Without object words, subsequent language growth is delayed. The current study tested an intervention scaffold that highlights object shape during word teaching so that toddlers with late language emergence may establish themselves in the early stages of object word learning. Method Four toddlers with late language emergence participated in a brief dose of two interventions that differed only in semantic scaffold-a co-speech shape gesture or a co-speech indicator gesture. Co-speech refers to the word model and gesture occurring simultaneously. Shape gestures explicitly conveyed object form, whereas indicator gestures directed attention to the object. A single-subject experimental design tracked naming of taught objects and untaught exemplars. The study compared the mean number of phonemes produced in names between conditions. Results The four participants (a) extended more names to novel exemplars, (b) named more exemplar types, and (c) named more exemplar tokens when learned with shape gestures than with indicating gestures. The shape gesture advantage was confirmed with "percentage of nonoverlapping data" analysis. Not only did the shape gesture increase naming over the indicator gesture but more sounds were also mapped on average in the shape condition. Conclusion The current study used a semantic approach to the word learning problem in toddlers with late language emergence. We conclude that co-speech shape gestures led to semantic enrichment and facilitated phonological binding of the word representation. Future experiments should focus on a component analysis in parent-implemented interventions for greater carryover in the child's natural environment (i.e., external validity).

Communication dynamics between mothers and their children with cochlear implants: Effects of maternal support for language production

This study examined (a) the functions and modalities of maternal and child communication during interaction between mothers and children with cochlear implants (CIs), comparing them with mothers and normally hearing (NH) children, and (b) the effectiveness of maternal support strategies in eliciting adequate answers in children with CI. Twenty preschoolers with CIs (M = 40 months) and 40 NH children - 20 matched by chronological age (CANH, M = 40 months) and 20 matched by hearing age (HANH, M = 25 months) - were videotaped during shared book reading and toy play with their mothers. Child and maternal utterances were coded for communicative functions and modalities (vocal, gestural, bimodal), including gesture types; maternal repairs were examined for type of support provided, and child answers for adequacy. Mothers in the CI group and in the CANH group displayed higher proportions of Informative Repairs than mothers of HANH children. However, unlike the mothers of NH children, mothers of children with CIs used bimodal utterances significantly more than vocal utterances. Sequential analysis revealed that maternal Informative Repairs elicited the production of Adequate Answers in both children with CIs and CANH. Interestingly, in the CI group this association was found only when Informative Repairs were accompanied by gestures. These findings offer suggestions for intervention programs focused on parent-child conversation.

Gesture Production in Language Impairment: It's Quality, Not Quantity, That Matters

PURPOSE

The aim of this study was to determine whether children with language impairment (LI) use gesture to compensate for their language difficulties.

METHOD

The present study investigated gesture accuracy and frequency in children with LI (n = 21) across gesture imitation, gesture elicitation, spontaneous narrative, and interactive problem-solving tasks, relative to typically developing (TD) peers (n = 18) and peers with low language and educational concerns (n = 21).

RESULTS

Children with LI showed weaknesses in gesture accuracy (imitation and gesture elicitation) in comparison to TD peers, but no differences in gesture rate. Children with low language only showed weaknesses in gesture imitation and used significantly more gestures than TD peers during parent-child interaction. Across the whole sample, motor abilities were significantly related to gesture accuracy but not gesture rate. In addition, children with LI produced proportionately more extending gestures, suggesting that they may use gesture to replace words that they are unable to articulate verbally.

CONCLUSION

The results support the notion that gesture and language form a tightly linked communication system in which gesture deficits are seen alongside difficulties with spoken communication. Furthermore, it is the quality, not quantity of gestures that distinguish children with LI from typical peers.

Spontaneous Gesture Production and Lexical Abilities in Children With Specific Language Impairment in a Naming Task

PURPOSE

The purpose of the study was to investigate the role that cospeech gestures play in lexical production in preschool-age children with expressive specific language impairment (E-SLI).

METHOD

Fifteen preschoolers with E-SLI and 2 groups of typically developing (TD) children matched for chronological age (n = 15, CATD group) and for language abilities (n = 15, LATD group) completed a picture-naming task. The accuracy of the spoken answers (coded for types of correct and incorrect answers), the modality of expression (spoken and/or gestural), types of gestures, and semantic relationship between gestures and speech produced by children in the different groups were compared.

RESULTS

Children with SLI produced higher rates of phonological simplifications and unintelligible answers than CATD children, but lower rates of semantic errors than LATD children. They did not show a significant preference for spoken answers, as TD children did. Similarly to LATD children, they used gestures at higher rates than CATD, both deictic and representational, and both reinforcing the information conveyed in speech and adding correct information to co-occurring speech.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings support the hypotheses that children with SLI rely on gestures for scaffolding their speech and do not have a clear preference for the spoken modality, as TD children do, and have implications for educational and clinical practice.

Early communicative behaviors and their relationship to motor skills in extremely preterm infants

Despite the predictive value of early spontaneous communication for identifying risk for later language concerns, very little research has focused on these behaviors in extremely low-gestational-age infants (ELGA<28 weeks) or on their relationship with motor development. In this study, communicative behaviors (gestures, vocal utterances and their coordination) were evaluated during mother-infant play interactions in 20 ELGA infants and 20 full-term infants (FT) at 12 months (corrected age for ELGA infants). Relationships between gestures and motor skills, evaluated using the Bayley-III Scales were also examined. ELGA infants, compared with FT infants, showed less advanced communicative, motor, and cognitive skills. Giving and representational gestures were produced at a lower rate by ELGA infants. In addition, pointing gestures and words were produced by a lower percentage of ELGA infants. Significant positive correlations between gestures (pointing and representational gestures) and fine motor skills were found in the ELGA group. We discuss the relevance of examining spontaneous communicative behaviors and motor skills as potential indices of early development that may be useful for clinical assessment and intervention with ELGA infants.

Gesture and speech during shared book reading with preschoolers with specific language impairment

This study examined (a) the relationship between gesture and speech produced by children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing (TD) children, and their mothers, during shared book-reading, and (b) the potential effectiveness of gestures accompanying maternal speech on the conversational responsiveness of children. Fifteen preschoolers with expressive SLI were compared with fifteen age-matched and fifteen language-matched TD children. Child and maternal utterances were coded for modality, gesture type, gesture-speech informational relationship, and communicative function. Relative to TD peers, children with SLI used more bimodal utterances and gestures adding unique information to co-occurring speech. Some differences were mirrored in maternal communication. Sequential analysis revealed that only in the SLI group maternal reading accompanied by gestures was significantly followed by child's initiatives, and when maternal non-informative repairs were accompanied by gestures, they were more likely to elicit adequate answers from children. These findings support the 'gesture advantage' hypothesis in children with SLI, and have implications for educational and clinical practice.

Noun and predicate comprehension/production and gestures in extremely preterm children at two years of age: Are they delayed?

Extremely low gestational age (ELGA, GA<28 weeks) preterm children are at high risk for linguistic impairments; however, their lexical comprehension and production as well as lexical categories in their early language acquisition have not been specifically examined via direct tools. Our study examines lexical comprehension and production as well as gestural production in ELGA children by focusing on noun and predicate acquisition. Forty monolingual ELGA children (mean GA of 26.7 weeks) and 40 full-term (FT) children were assessed at two years of corrected chronological age (CCA) using a test of noun and predicate comprehension and production (PiNG) and the Italian MB-CDI. Noun comprehension and production were delayed in ELGA compared with FT children, as documented by the low number of correct responses and the large number of errors, i.e., incorrect responses and no-response items, and by the types of incorrect responses, i.e., fewer semantically related responses, in noun production. Regarding predicate comprehension and production, a higher frequency of no responses was reported by ELGA children and these children also presented a lower frequency of bimodal spoken-gestural responses in predicate production than FT children. A delayed vocabulary size as demonstrated by the MB-CDI, was exhibited by one-fourth of the ELGA children, who were also unable to complete the predicate subtest. These findings highlight that noun comprehension and production are delayed in ELGA children at two years of CCA and are the most important indexes for the direct evaluation of their lexical abilities and delay. The types of incorrect responses and bimodal spoken-gestural responses were proven to be useful indexes for evaluating the noun and predicate level of acquisition and to plan early focused interventions.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

After reading this manuscript, the reader will understand (a) the differences in noun and predicate comprehension and production between ELGA and FT children and the indexes of lexical delays exhibited by ELGA children at 2;0 (CCA); (b) the relevance of evaluating errors (incorrect response and no response), the types of incorrect responses (semantically related and unrelated) and the modality of the responses (unimodal spoken and bimodal spoken-gestural) in noun and predicate production to understand the difficulties experienced by ELGA children in representing and expressing meanings; and (c) the need to plan specific interventions to support spoken and gestural modalities in lexical comprehension and production in ELGA children by focusing on noun and predicate acquisition.

Experimentally-induced Increases in Early Gesture Lead to Increases in Spoken Vocabulary

Differences in vocabulary that children bring with them to school can be traced back to the gestures they produce at 1;2, which, in turn, can be traced back to the gestures their parents produce at the same age (Rowe & Goldin-Meadow, 2009b). We ask here whether child gesture can be experimentally increased and, if so, whether the increases lead to increases in spoken vocabulary. Fifteen children aged 1;5 participated in an 8-week at-home intervention study (6 weekly training sessions plus follow-up 2 weeks later) in which all were exposed to object words, but only some were told to point at the named objects. Before each training session and at follow-up, children interacted naturally with caregivers to establish a baseline against which changes in communication were measured. Children who were told to gesture increased the number of gesture meanings they conveyed, not only during training but also during interactions with caregivers. These experimentally-induced increases in gesture led to larger spoken repertoires at follow-up.

Nouns and predicates comprehension and production in children with Down syndrome

Our study investigated the lexical comprehension and production abilities as well as gestural production taking into account different lexical categories, namely nouns and predicates. Fourteen children with DS (34 months of developmental age) and a comparison group of 14 typically developing children (TD) matched for gender and developmental age were assessed through a test of lexical comprehension and production (PiNG) and the Italian MB-CDI. Children with DS showed a general weakness in lexical comprehension and production that appeared more evident when the lexicon was assessed through a structured test such as the PiNG that requires general cognitive skills that are impaired in children with DS. As for the composition of the lexical repertoire, for both groups of children, nouns are understood and produced in higher percentages compared to predicates. Children with DS produced more representational gestures than TD children in the comprehension tasks and above all with predicates; on the contrary, both groups of children exhibited the same number of gestures on the MB-CDI and during the subtests of PiNG production. Children with DS produced more unimodal gestural answers than the control group. Theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

Externalizing the private experience of pain: a role for co-speech gestures in pain communication?

Despite the importance of effective pain communication, talking about pain represents a major challenge for patients and clinicians because pain is a private and subjective experience. Focusing primarily on acute pain, this article considers the limitations of current methods of obtaining information about the sensory characteristics of pain and suggests that spontaneously produced "co-speech hand gestures" may constitute an important source of information here. Although this is a relatively new area of research, we present recent empirical evidence that reveals that co-speech gestures contain important information about pain that can both add to and clarify speech. Following this, we discuss how these findings might eventually lead to a greater understanding of the sensory characteristics of pain, and to improvements in treatment and support for pain sufferers. We hope that this article will stimulate further research and discussion of this previously overlooked dimension of pain communication.

The changing role of gesture in linguistic development: a developmental trajectory and a cross-cultural comparison between British and Finnish children

We studied how gesture use changes with culture, age and increased spoken language competence. A picture-naming task was presented to British (N = 80) and Finnish (N = 41) typically developing children aged 2-5 years. British children were found to gesture more than Finnish children and, in both cultures, gesture production decreased after the age of two. Two-year-olds used more deictic than iconic gestures than older children, and gestured more before the onset of speech, rather than simultaneously or after speech. The British 3- and 5-year-olds gestured significantly more when naming praxic (manipulable) items than non-praxic items. Our results support the view that gesture serves a communicative and intrapersonal function, and the relative function may change with age. Speech and language therapists and psychologists observe the development of children's gestures and make predictions on the basis of their frequency and type. To prevent drawing erroneous conclusions about children's linguistic development, it is important to understand developmental and cultural variations in gesture use.

Can semantic enrichment lead to naming in a word extension task?

PURPOSE

This study examined the relationship between semantic enrichment and naming in children asked to extend taught words to untrained exemplars.

METHOD

Sixteen typically developing children ( M = 32.63 months, SD = 4.02) participated in 3 word learning conditions that varied semantic enrichment via iconic (shape, function) or point gesture. At test, children named taught referents and 2 exemplars of each taught object: shape similar and shape dissimilar. Naming accuracy and errors were analyzed between conditions.

RESULTS

The point condition never outperformed the shape or function conditions. In naming taught words, the shape condition was superior to the point condition, whereas the function condition was only marginally superior to the point condition. However, in naming untrained exemplars, only the shape condition was superior to the point condition, and there were fewer indeterminate errors in the shape condition.

CONCLUSION

Semantic enrichment supports naming, but shape cues appear to be particularly effective in using words beyond just-taught referents.

The role of gestures in the transition from one- to two-word speech in a variety of children with intellectual disabilities

BACKGROUND

Over the past decades the links between gesture and language have become intensively studied. For example, the emergence of requesting and commenting gestures has been found to signal the onset of intentional communication. Furthermore, in typically developing children, gestures play a transitional role in the acquisition of early lexical and syntactic milestones. Previous research has demonstrated that, particularly supplementary, gesture-word combinations not only precede, but also reliably predict the onset of two-word speech. However, the gestural correlates of two-word speech have rarely been studied in children with intellectual disabilities.

AIMS

The primary aim was to investigate developmental changes in speech and gesture use as well as to relate the use of gesture-word combinations to the onset of two-word speech in children with intellectual disabilities. A supplementary aim was to investigate differences in speech and gesture use between requests and comments in children with intellectual disabilities.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

Participants in this study were 16 children with intellectual disabilities (eight girls, eight boys). Chronological ages at the start of the study were between 3;1 and 5;7 years; mental ages were between 1;5 and 3;3 years. Every 4 months within a 2-year period children's requests and comments were sampled during structured interactions. All gestures and words used communicatively to request and comment were transcribed.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

Although children's use of spoken words as well as the diversity in their spoken vocabularies increased over time, gestures were used with a constant rate over time. Temporal tendencies similar to those described in typically developing children were observed: gesture-word combinations typically preceded, rather than followed, two-word speech. Furthermore, gestures (deictic gestures in particular) were more often used to request than to comment.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

Overall, gestures were used as a transitional tool towards children's first two-word utterances. This result highlights gesture use as a robust phenomenon during the early stages of syntactic development across populations. The observed differences in gesture use between requests and comments might be explained by differences in interactional as well as in procedural context.

Gesture and motor skill in relation to language in children with language impairment

PURPOSE

To examine gesture and motor abilities in relation to language in children with language impairment (LI).

METHOD

Eleven children with LI (aged 2;7 to 6;1 [years;months]) and 16 typically developing (TD) children of similar chronological ages completed 2 picture narration tasks, and their language (rate of verbal utterances, mean length of utterance, and number of different words) and gestures (coded for type, co-occurrence with language, and informational relationship to language) were examined. Fine and gross motor items from the Battelle Developmental Screening Inventory (J. Newborg, J. R. Stock, L. Wneck, J. Guidubaldi, & J. Suinick, 1994) and the Child Development Inventory (H. R. Ireton, 1992) were administered.

RESULTS

Relative to TD peers, children with LI used gestures at a higher rate and produced greater proportions of gesture-only communications, conventional gestures, and gestures that added unique information to co-occurring language. However, they performed more poorly on measures of fine and gross motor abilities. Regression analyses indicated that within the LI but not the TD group, poorer expressive language was related to more frequent gesture production.

CONCLUSIONS

When language is impaired, difficulties are also apparent in motor abilities, but gesture assumes a compensatory role. These findings underscore the utility of including spontaneous gesture and motor abilities in clinical assessment of and intervention for preschool children with language concerns.

Sex differences in language first appear in gesture

Children differ in how quickly they reach linguistic milestones. Boys typically produce their first multi-word sentences later than girls do. We ask here whether there are sex differences in children's gestures that precede, and presage, these sex differences in speech. To explore this question, we observed 22 girls and 18 boys every 4 months as they progressed from one-word speech to multi-word speech. We found that boys not only produced speech + speech (S+S) combinations ('drink juice') 3 months later than girls, but they also produced gesture + speech (G+S) combinations expressing the same types of semantic relations ('eat' + point at cookie) 3 months later than girls. Because G+S combinations are produced earlier than S+S combinations, children's gestures provide the first sign that boys are likely to lag behind girls in the onset of sentence constructions.

Lexical and grammatical abilities in deaf Italian preschoolers: the role of duration of formal language experience

We evaluated language development in deaf Italian preschoolers with hearing parents, taking into account the duration of formal language experience (i.e., the time elapsed since wearing a hearing aid and beginning language education) and different methods of language education. Twenty deaf children were matched with 20 hearing children for age and with another 20 hearing children for duration of experience. Deaf children showed a significant delay in both vocabulary and grammar when compared to same-age hearing children yet a similar development compared to hearing children matched for duration of formal language experience. The delay in linguistic development could be attributable to shorter formal language experience and not to deafness itself. Deaf children exposed to spoken language accompanied by signs tended to understand and produce more words than children exposed only to spoken language. We suggest that deaf children be evaluated based on their linguistic experience and cognitive and communicative potential.

The count-mass distinction in typically developing and grammatically specifically language impaired children: new evidence on the role of syntax and semantics

By the age of three, typically developing children can draw conceptual distinctions between "kinds of individual" and "kinds of stuff" on the basis of syntactic structures. They differ from adults only in the extent to which syntactic knowledge can be over-ridden by semantic properties of the referent. However, the relative roles of syntax and semantics in determining the nature of the count-mass distinction in language acquisition are still not well-understood. This paper contributes to this debate by studying novel noun acquisition in a subgroup of children, aged 8-15 years, with specific language impairment, whose core deficits are limited to within the grammatical system (G-SLI), We conducted two experiments: a production task and a word extension task. Such children might be expected to rely to a greater extent than their age-matched peers on semantic properties of referents in order to assign noun interpretations, since by hypothesis they have greater difficulty in accessing and utilizing syntactic category distinctions than typically developing children. In the production task, the Children with G-SLI demonstrated rigid over-application of a pluralization rule which masked even basic knowledge of semantic information about individuated objects versus non-individuated substances. Age-matched control children only performed in this way when all syntactic and conceptual/perceptual cues were neutralized. In the word extension task, which required a non-verbal response, the Children with G-SLI showed evidence of only very limited abilities to use syntactic or semantic information for word-learning. Thus, developmental deficits in the grammatical system can be seen to impact on lexical acquisition as well as syntactic development.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

As a result of this activity, the reader will be able to: (1) describe how syntactic (grammatical) impairment affects the ability to use syntactic cues for lexical acquisition, resulting in difficulties representing the structure of even simple phrases; (2) discuss the interaction between language components throughout development, and the cumulative impact of impairment in one or more aspect of language, which results in secondary impairments in other parts of the system; (3) consider the effects of an impairment in the ability to use syntactic cues for narrowing down word meanings, and how this can result in a much bigger problem affecting the subtle semantics of words and word classes.