Nonword Repetition – A Clinical Marker for Specific Language Impairment in Swedish Associated with Parents’ Language-Related Problems

Abstract

First, we explore the performance of nonword repetition (NWR) in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing children (TD) in order to investigate the accuracy of NWR as a clinical marker for SLI in Swedish-speaking school-age children. Second, we examine the relationship between NWR, family aggregation, and parental level of education in children with SLI. A sample of 61 children with SLI, and 86 children with TD, aged 8–12 years, were administered an NWR test. Family aggregation, measured as the prevalence of language and/or literacy problems (LLP) in parents of the children with SLI, was based on family history interviews. The sensitivity and specificity of nonword repetition was analyzed in a binary logistic regression, cut-off values were established with ROC curves, and positive and negative likelihood ratios reported. Results from the present study show that NWR distinguishes well between Swedish-speaking school-children with and without SLI. We found 90.2% sensitivity and 97.7% specificity at a cut-off level of −2 standard deviations for binary scoring of nonwords. Differences between the SLI and TD groups showed large effect sizes for the two scoring measures binary (d = 2.11) and percent correct consonants (PCC) (d = 1.79). The children with SLI were split into two subgroups: those with no parents affected with LLP (n = 12), and those with one or both parents affected (n = 49). The subgroup consisting of affected parents had a significantly lower score on NWR binary (p = .037), and there was a great difference between the subgroups (d = 0.7). When compared to the TD group, the difference from the subgroup with affected parents was almost one standard deviation larger (d = 2.47) than the difference from the TD to the subgroup consisting of non-affected parents (d = 1.57). Our study calls for further exploration of the complex interaction between family aggregation, language input, and phenotypes of SLI.

A Quasi-Universal Nonword Repetition Task as a Diagnostic Tool for Bilingual Children Learning Dutch as a Second Language

“…ContiRamsden, Botting, & Faragher, 2001), others report sensitivity and specificity above 90%, indicating high accuracy in identifying children with LI and TD respectively (e.g. Dispaldro et al, 2013;Gray, 2003;Kalnak, Peyrard-Janvid, Forssberg, & Sahlén, 2014).…”

Development of a language screening instrument for Swedish 4‐year‐olds

“…In addition, non‐word repetition tasks have been proposed as clinical markers of DLD—a task considered to measure phonological processing skills (e.g., Conti‐Ramsden ; Kalnak et al . ). Performance on this task has been found to be associated with vocabulary and grammatical development in children with typical language development (Adams and Gathercole ).…”

The clinical examination of non-word repetition tasks in identifying Persian-speaking children with primary language impairment

“…However, there are several studies concerning diagnostic measures of NWR in other Latin languages. Non-word repetition showed good diagnostic accuracy, i.e., sensitivity and specificity equal or over than 90%, in Swedish school-aged children [3]. Diagnostic measures of NWR have been reported to be between 80% and 90% accurate for French preschool children [13] and between 70% and 80% accurate for Spanish preschool children [14], which shows the insufficient ability of the NWR to diagnose children with PLI in these languages, according to Sacket and Haynes's level of optimal diagnostic accuracy [15].…”

“…The term is used interchangeably with primary language impairment (PLI), which emphasizes that the problem is specifically related to language and not to other aspects of a child's development [2]. The prevalence of PLI/SLI is estimated to be about 7%, and it is more observed in males than in females [1,3].…”

“…Studies have shown that children with PLI consistently perform more poorly on non-word repetition (NWR) tasks as compared to their typically developing language (TDL) peers. Non-words, by definition, are "made up words without meaning that (are) constructed according to the phonotactic rules of the target language" [3]. Non-word repetition measures phonological working memory, which is assumed to be related to language impairment in PLI [6].…”