title: A system for the diagnosis of specific language impairment in kindergarten children.
abstract: A valid and reliable diagnostic standard for language impairment is required for the conduct of epidemiologic research on specific language disorder. A rationale is provided for such a diagnostic system labeled the EpiSLI system. This system employed five composite scores representing norm-referenced performance in three domains of language (vocabulary, grammar, and narration) and two modalities (comprehension and production). Children who have two or more composite scores below-1.25 standard deviations were considered as children with language disorder. The performance of the EpiSLI diagnostic system was examined on a sample of 1,502 kindergarten children and it was shown that this diagnostic system yielded results that were consistent with clinician rating and previous research results.
authors.affiliation: University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA. J-TOMBLIN@UIOWA.EDU
authors.forename: J B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Tomblin
authors.forename: N L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Records
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D007807:Language Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results