The communicative functions of lexical usage by language impaired children

This study examines the communicative functions served by the lexical usage of normal and language impaired children whose speech was limited to single-word utterances. The two groups were similar in the frequency with which they produced utterances serving most of the functions. However, naming was more frequent in the normal children's speech, while answering was more frequent in the speech of the language impaired children. The two groups were indistinguishable in terms of the number of different lexical items they used in the service of each of the communicative functions.