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Description of the PhD research project

In september 2011, I started working on the PhD-project entitled ‘Persistent problems in SLI; rule learning or rule implementation’. Within this project, we aim to test a theoretical claim about the basis of Specific Language Impairments (SLI), namely that a processing problem impedes the initial acquisition of grammatical rules in SLI, but also affects the implementation of these rules once the rules have been learned. It is hypothesized that as children with SLI become older, their grammatical knowledge will increase, but performance will persistently fall short in contexts where the processing load is high.

Bishop (1994) already proposed the idea that grammatical markers in children with SLI are more vulnerable in specific contexts that involve a heavier cognitiveload, such as increased sentence length or complexity. Several studies have been published since that seem to confirmthis idea of performance problems in SLI when cognitive demands exceed.

Using three grammatical variables that have been shown to be vulnerable in SLI (verbal inflection, gender assignment and wh-movement), I will try to determine whether children with SLI and typically developing (TD) children have knowledge of the grammatical rule concerned and to what extent implementation of the rule is affected by processing load. Experimental tasks will be administered to two groups of Dutch children with SLI (7-8 years and 11-12 years) and two groups of TD children in the same age range. It is hypothesized that children with SLI will be more affected by processing load than TD children, and that the older children will show a larger gap between knowledge and performance (with knowledge increasing but performance persistently falling short).

By performing this project, we hope to gain more insight into the basis of Specific Language Impairment and the persistent problems within this disorder. More generally, the project will contribute to insights in the learnability of language, by making a distinction between implementation and knowledge. Furthermore, results of this project are expected to be valuable for clinical practice.

Publications and presentations

Rispens, J.E., Baker, A.E. & Duinmeijer, I. (in preparation). Phonological representations in children with language and reading impairment 

Duinmeijer, I., de Jong, J. & A.R. Scheper (to appear). Narrativeabilities andmemory and attention inchildren with a Specific Language Impairment, International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders

Weerman F., I. Duinmeijer & A. Orgassa (2011). Effecten van SLI op Nederlandse congruentie, Nederlandse Taalkunde. 16, 1, 30-55

Duinmeijer, I. & Scheper, A.R. (september 2011). 'Pragmatische ontwikkeling', lecture Kwaliteitskring voor Kinderrevalidatie, Leiden, The Netherlands (presentation)

Duinmeijer, I., Scheper, A.R., de Jong, J. de & Wal, A. ter (july 2011). '(Re)telling astory; the role of auditory attention and memory in Dutch children with SLI', International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL), Montréal, Canada (poster)

Weerman, F., Duinmeijer, I. & Orgassa, A. (may, 2011). Inflectional problems in older children with SLI, EUCLDIS 2011, Chalkidiki, Greece (presentation)

Scheper, A.R. & Duinmeijer, I. (november 2010). 'Aan de haal met een verhaal. Vertelvaardigheid van kinderen met en zonder taalstoornis', NVLF-congres Logopedie, Ede, The Netherlands (presentation)

Duinmeijer, I. & Scheper, A.R. (september 2010). 'Ging de bus rije en de kikker stiekem eruit. Een vergelijking van vertelvaardigheid bij kinderen met SLI en leeftijdgenoten', Lustrum Symposium Vereniging voor Klinische Linguïstiek (VKL), Utrecht, The Netherlands (presentation)

Duinmeijer, I. (february 2010). 'Vertelvaardigheid van kinderen met een taalstoornis', WAP-conferentie 'Taalontwikkeling en de maatschappij, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (presentation)

Duinmeijer, I. (january 2010). 'Narrative abilities, auditory attention and verbal short term memory in children with SLI and their TD peers', Anéla Juniorendag, Leiden, The Netherlands (poster)

Escudero, P., Duinmeijer, I., Velde, H. van den & Adank, P. (july 2009). 'Predicting and explaining problems in L2 vowel perception: the case of Spanish learners of Dutch', 7th International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB7), Utrecht, The Netherlands (presentation)

Education and working experience

january 2010 - present                           Clinical linguist, Speech & Language Centre, Koninklijke Kentalis, Eindhoven

september 2007 - january 2010           Research MA Linguistics (cum laude), UvA

september 2005 - august 2007             BA General Linguistics, UvA

september 2004 - august 2007             BSc Beta-Gamma, UvA