ABSTRACT
Learning problems related to speech and language processing affect approximately 1 child in 12 who is otherwise unimpaired. These children, numbering over 3.5 million in the United States (U.S. Department of Education, 1995), have extreme difficulties producing and understanding spoken language. This disorder, referred to as specific language impairment (SLI), can impede the academic performance and social interactions of affected children, and, consequently, can have a profound negative impact on their adult lives. Several years ago, my colleagues and I reported that children with SLI have markedly abnormal patterns of auditory masking. In the first half of this chapter I briefly review the background for that experiment, summarize our data, and describe how our results relate to the question of whether perceptual impairments contribute to the speech perception deficits associated with SLI.
