Pro-nominal reference skills of second and fourth grade children with language impairment.
Pro-nominal referencing was evaluated in a sample of 569 children comprising four diagnostic subgroups: typical language (TL), specific language impairment (SLI), nonspecific language impairment (NLI), and typical language with low nonverbal IQ (LNIQ). Participants generated oral narratives in second grade and again in fourth grade. The narratives of the females in the TL group included a significantly higher rate of pro-nominal references than the narratives of both the males in the TL group and the females in the NLI group. A higher percentage of complete pro-nominal references was found in the TL group compared to the SLI group. These findings suggest that pro-nominal referencing measures are not sensitive enough to differentiate school-aged children with typical language development from those with language impairment.


OBJECTIVE
The reader will: (1) become familiar with narrative language measures and (2) learn how groups of children with varying language and cognitive profiles perform on measures of referential cohesion.
Finestack
Lizbeth H
LH
Department of Hearing and Speech, University of Kansas Medical Center, 3901 Rainbow Blvd., Kansas City, Kansas 66160-7605, USA. lfinestack@kumc.edu
Fey
Marc E
ME
Catts
Hugh W
HW
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012737:Sex Factors; D014705:Verbal Behavior