Repair behavior in children with intellectual impairments: Evidence for metalinguistic competence

This paper tested the prediction that children with cognitive impairments who can use language intentionally will be able to carry out the metalinguistic operations involved in speech monitoring and repair. The specific linguistic characteristics of responses to requests for clarification given by 4 children with lower than normal IQ, ages 3 years 5 months to 6 years 10 months, were investigated. The analysis focused on children's ability to locate the specific errors that provoked neutral requests for clarification and produce repair. Three children could locate their errors and partly succeed in providing repair. It is suggested that ability to perform metaprocedures such as are implicated in repair behavior may be preserved in children with intellectual disabilities and that this ability does not implicate conscious awareness, nor does it depend on mature linguistic competence.