Resumen de Primary Language Impairment and Developmental Dyslexia: A two-case study

Francesca Marra

• Primary Language Impairment (PLI) and Developmental Dyslexia (DD) are developmental disorders which primarily affect language (and language-related abilities) from childhood onwards. Recent studies on DD have evidenced morphosyntactic weaknesses, in conjunction with a core phonological impairment. Therefore, compelling parallelism between children with DD and PLI is inferred. In the present paper, we will address the trivial issue of the relationship between the two disorders by discussing Italian data from a two-case study. In order to do so, we collected, transcribed and analyzed samples of spontaneous and elicited speech of two Italian speaking children. In addition, we proved their linguistic abilities by conducting standardized tests in order to evaluate the disruption of any linguistic level, with particular reference to phonology and morphosyntax. We intend to support the Comorbidity Model, which holds the view that PLI and DD are distinct but potentially comorbid developmental disorders.