Investigating conversational patterns: Self-repetition and response complexity in English school-age children with a history of late talking

Self-repetition is a critical linguistic process in language acquisition, aiding developmental and pragmatic functions. While typically developing children use self-repetition to reinforce understanding and organise discourse, its persistence in school-age children with a late-talking history remains underexplored beyond early childhood. This study examines whether 5-year-old children with a history of late talking continue to exhibit elevated self-repetition in naturalistic conversations and how self-repetition correlates with response complexity. Using the Clinical English Ellis Weismer Corpus, this study analysed spontaneous speech samples from 73 children (36 with a history of late talking, 37 typically developing) aged 5 years and 6 months. Self-repetition was categorised into syllable, word, and phrase types, with comparisons across groups and genders. Additionally, response structures were examined to determine how self-repetition interacts with verbal output and repetition measures. Results showed that children with a history of late talking exhibited significantly higher self-repetition rates, particularly at the syllable level. Gender differences were found, with males with a history of late talking displaying more frequent self-repetition. Lexical analysis indicated that both children with a history of late talking and typically developing children showed balanced noun–verb use in repetitive contexts. Both groups frequently used function words (e.g. pronouns, conjunctions, and adverbs) in repetitive contexts. Additionally, children with a history of late talking produced simpler, incomplete responses, whereas typically developing children displayed greater syntactic diversity. Correlation analysis revealed a negative relationship between self-repetition and response complexity in children with a history of late talking, suggesting that self-repetition may serve as a compensatory mechanism for linguistic deficits. These findings suggest a potential persistent compensatory role for self-repetition in children with a history of late talking, underscoring the need for interventions targeting lexical and syntactic growth to enhance communicative competence.