Identifying the Latent Profiles of Language Ability in 5- to 7-Year-Old Children

Abstract

Objectives: Classifying children into two language ability groups, with and without language impairment, may underestimate the number of groups with distinct language ability patterns. In this study, we tried to classify the children based on their language performance. The purpose of this study was to identify the number and characteristics of latent language ability groups in Korean children. Methods: An unclassified sample of 147 Korean children aged 5 to 7 years participated in the study. Oral language skills in phonological (phonological awareness task), semantical (receptive vocabulary test), and syntactical (sentence repetition task) areas; language processing skills in processing capacity (non-word repetition task); and processing speed (rapid automatized naming task) were assessed. Latent profile analysis was conducted on the language measures. Results: Results indicated that a four-group model best represented the data, characterized by high performance in one group (15.7%), average skills in another group (65.8%), low processing speed in a third group (12.3%), and low grammaticality in a fourth group (6.2%). Conclusion: The latent profiles of language ability in Korean children seemed to be largely divided according to their level of language performance. However, in the group of children with low performance, the existence of different profiles was identified. This suggests that children with low performance may have difficulties learning language for two reasons: difficulties with either grammar or processing speed. Thus, assessing language abilities without testing both areas could potentially lead to misdiagnosis.