Language profiles and literacy outcomes of children with resolving, emerging, or persisting language impairments

Abstract

BackgroundChildren with language impairment (LI) show heterogeneity in development. We tracked children from pre‐school to middle childhood to characterize three developmental trajectories: resolving, persisting and emerging LI.MethodsWe analyzed data from children identified as having preschool LI, or being at family risk of dyslexia, together with typically developing controls at three time points: t1 (age 3;09), t3 (5;08) and t5 (8;01). Language measures are reported at t1, t3 and t5, and literacy abilities at t3 and t5. A research diagnosis of LI (irrespective of recruitment group) was validated at t1 by a composite language score derived from measures of receptive and expressive grammar and vocabulary; a score falling 1SD below the mean of the typical language group on comparable measures at t3 and t5 was used to determine whether a child had LI at later time points and then to classify LIs as resolving, persisting or emerging.ResultsPersisting preschool LIs were more severe and pervasive than resolving LIs. Language and literacy outcomes were relatively poor for those with persisting LI, and relatively good for those with resolving LI. A significant proportion of children with average language abilities in preschool had LIs that emerged in middle childhood – a high proportion of these children were at family risk of dyslexia. There were more boys in the persisting and resolving LI groups. Children with early LIs which resolved by the start of formal literacy instruction tended to have good literacy outcomes; children with late‐emerging difficulties that persisted developed reading difficulties.ConclusionsChildren with late‐emerging LI are relatively common and are hard to detect in the preschool years. Our findings show that children whose LIs persist to the point of formal literacy instruction frequently experience reading difficulties.

Language growth in children with heterogeneous language disorders: a population study

“…; Zhang & Tomblin, ) and that those with ‘resolved’ language disorder likely maintain language performance at the boundaries of diagnostic cut‐offs and remain vulnerable to increasing language challenges as they get older (cf. Snowling, Duff, Nash, & Hulme, ).…”

Subgroups in language trajectories from 4 to 11 years: the nature and predictors of stable, improving and decreasing language trajectory groups

“…low birth weight; lower family literacy; and neurodevelopmental diagnoses) and the low‐increasing group with environmental factors (i.e. NESB; young mother; few children's books in the home; lower SEIFA scores) (Snowling et al., ; Zambrana et al., ). Larger samples and/or meta‐analyses are likely to be required to yield sufficient power to test these findings and those of previous studies.…”

“…() and Snowling et al. () examined ‘trajectories’ of DLD in early to middle childhood (3–5 and 3–8 years respectively). They suggest a ‘late emerging’ trajectory may be most influenced by genetic mechanisms, as indicated by family history of language or literacy difficulties, and a ‘persisting’ trajectory may reflect multiple accumulative risks (Zambrana et al., ) including social disadvantage (Snowling et al., ).…”

Language disorder from infancy to adulthood: predictors and outcomes

“…Secondly, the criteria applied to determine language 'impairment' also vary across studies. Previous work has included more mild cut-offs of 1 standard deviation (SD) below the population mean (Schoon et al, 2010;Snowling, Duff, Nash, & Hulme, 2015), others specify 1.25 SD (Reilly et al, 2010), and some are more stringent applying a 2 SD (Poll & Miller, 2013) criterion. This variability in terms of the measures, the areas of language focused upon, and the criteria employed, creates challenges for reviewing language studies and understanding the current evidence base surrounding language impaired populations.…”

“…Its subtests are combined to generate overall scores for Core Language, Receptive Language, and Expressive Language, which are standardised around a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. In a manner similar to Snowling et al (2015) and Rice et al (2008), low language was defined on the basis of receptive or expressive composite scores falling more than 1 SD below the population mean (equivalent to standard scores less than 85 …”