Elicited imitation of language was used as a technique to identify the performance characteristics on this task of a population of severely mentally handicapped subjects (n = 108; mean CA = 136.3 months, s.d. 36.6 months; mean vocabulary age (English Picture Vocabulary Test) 39.8 months, s.d. 22.4 months). The results indicate that such a psycholinguistic assessment technique is useful in identifying language ability levels in this population and can complement other more traditional epidemiological data. The study also has implications for the design of language intervention programmes in particular areas of deficiency for this group.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.