TY - JOUR
T1 - Expressive language in preschoolers born preterm
T2 - Results of language sample analysis and standardized assessment
AU - Imgrund, Caitlin M.
AU - Loeb, Diane F.
AU - Barlow, Steven M.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders PhD Scholarship and the ASHA Foundation Student Research Grant in Early Childhood Language Development. The children in the preterm group were recruited from a larger study supported by National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Grant R01 DC003311 (awarded to Steven M. Barlow). The authors would like to thank the children and parents who participated in the study. Assistance with data collection and analysis was provided by Cintamy Budiardjo, Veronica Fox, Abby Hill, and Callie Flading.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/4
Y1 - 2019/4
N2 - Purpose: Preschoolers born preterm are at an increased risk for the development of language impairments. The primary objective of this study was to document the expressive language skills of preschoolers born preterm through 2 assessment procedures, language sample analysis, and standardized assessment. A secondary objective was to investigate the role of nonlinguistic factors in standardized assessment scores. Method: The language skills of 29 children born preterm (mean gestational age of 31 weeks) were compared to a group of 29 preschoolers born full term. Language samples were collected during free play and objective measures of semantic and grammatical skills were calculated. Likewise, grammatical and semantic measures of language were obtained from a standardized assessment. Information on nonlinguistic factors, including attention, hyperactivity, and nonverbal intelligence quotient, was also collected. Results: The results of analyses of variance indicated that the children in the PT group had significantly poorer performance than the children born full term on all of the measures of language skill obtained from the language sample analysis. Group differences were found for only 1 measure of language skill obtained from the standardized assessments. Nonverbal factors were not found to account for group differences in assessment scores. Conclusions: Generally, the children born preterm performed more poorly when language skill was measured via language sample analysis than standardized assessment. These findings underscore the importance of using language sample analysis in conjunction with standardized assessment in the evaluation of children’s developing language skills.
AB - Purpose: Preschoolers born preterm are at an increased risk for the development of language impairments. The primary objective of this study was to document the expressive language skills of preschoolers born preterm through 2 assessment procedures, language sample analysis, and standardized assessment. A secondary objective was to investigate the role of nonlinguistic factors in standardized assessment scores. Method: The language skills of 29 children born preterm (mean gestational age of 31 weeks) were compared to a group of 29 preschoolers born full term. Language samples were collected during free play and objective measures of semantic and grammatical skills were calculated. Likewise, grammatical and semantic measures of language were obtained from a standardized assessment. Information on nonlinguistic factors, including attention, hyperactivity, and nonverbal intelligence quotient, was also collected. Results: The results of analyses of variance indicated that the children in the PT group had significantly poorer performance than the children born full term on all of the measures of language skill obtained from the language sample analysis. Group differences were found for only 1 measure of language skill obtained from the standardized assessments. Nonverbal factors were not found to account for group differences in assessment scores. Conclusions: Generally, the children born preterm performed more poorly when language skill was measured via language sample analysis than standardized assessment. These findings underscore the importance of using language sample analysis in conjunction with standardized assessment in the evaluation of children’s developing language skills.
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U2 - 10.1044/2018_JSLHR-L-18-0224
DO - 10.1044/2018_JSLHR-L-18-0224
M3 - Article
C2 - 30986137
AN - SCOPUS:85064921818
SN - 1092-4388
VL - 62
SP - 884
EP - 895
JO - Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders
JF - Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders
IS - 4
ER -