Production and Processing of the French Categorical Liaison in Children with Expressive Developmental Language Disorder: Behavioral Data from a Cross-Sectional Study

This cross-sectional study investigates the developmental dissociation between perception and production of categorical liaison in oral language among 24 French-speaking children aged 6 to 10 years diagnosed with expressive Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), encompassing both readers and pre-readers. A battery of nine tasks was used to assess both the perception and production of categorical liaison across various linguistic contexts (words, pseudowords, noun phrases, and sentences). Categorical liaison refers to the obligatory pronunciation of a latent word-final consonant when followed by a vowel-initial word or a word beginning with a silent “h” (e.g., des‿ours [dezuʁs]). Mastery of categorical liaison is considered a reliable linguistic marker of expressive DLD, as children with this neurodevelopmental disorder frequently omit it. Results showed that children with expressive DLD performed comparably to their typically developing peers in perceiving unrealized categorical liaisons, yet exhibited significantly more omissions in production, regardless of linguistic context or age. Moreover, production deficits were significantly associated with reduced working memory and inhibitory control. Taken together, these findings reinforce the view that persistent difficulties in categorical liaison production beyond the age of five may serve as a clinically relevant marker of expressive DLD, providing useful guidance for diagnosis and intervention.