Subtypes of severe speech and language impairments: psychometric evidence from 4-year-old children in The Netherlands.
Most, if not all, of the studies of subtypes of children with language impairments have been conducted with English-speaking children. The possibility and validity of identified subtypes for non-English clinical populations are, as yet, unknown. This study was designed to provide cross-linguistic evidence of language subtypes. A broad battery of tests was administered to measure the phonological, lexical, morphosyntactic, semantic, discourse, and pragmatic abilities of a representative sample of 110 4-year-old Dutch children who had been previously diagnosed as severely speech and language impaired. Principal components analyses revealed 4 subtypes of speech and language impairments, which were labeled lexical-semantic, speech production, syntoctic-sequential, and auditory perception. These results were consistent with recent theoretical claims about the classification of English-speaking children with speech and language impairments.
van Daal
John
J
University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. j.v.daal@sintmarie.nl
Verhoeven
Ludo
L
van Balkom
Hans
H
D002675:Child, Preschool; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000145:classification* / Q000503:physiopathology; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000145:classification* / Q000503:physiopathology; D014944:World Health Organization