The underlying nature of developmental language disorders, particularly specific
language impairment, is still an unresolved empirical and clinical issue, with much
unexplained data and conflicting interpretations in the research. Nevertheless,
recent developments in language acquisition theory have led to a characterization of
disordered child language which provides clinicians with a deeper understanding of
the linguistic deficits of many of the children within this heterogeneous
population. The authors have formulated a variety of elicitation techniques for
research, based on these developments. The focus of this paper is the verb system of
language-impaired children and the techniques were designed for data gathering and
as intervention paradigms. The elicitation techniques are described in detail and
conclusions are drawn about the strengths, limitations and future implications of
such methods in clinical application.
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