title: Language skills in 5-8-year-old children with 22q11 deletion syndrome.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Language impairment and delayed language onset have been described, although not investigated in detail, in children with 22q11 deletion syndrome.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To investigate different areas of language: the ability to retell a narrative, phonology, syntax and receptive vocabulary in a group of 5-8-year-old children with 22q11 deletion syndrome regardless of whether or not they had a history of speech and language difficulties. Gender differences were also investigated.
  
  
  METHODS
  Nineteen consecutively referred children with 22q11 deletion syndrome, ten girls and nine boys, between the ages of 5 and 8 years, participated in the study. The mean full-scale IQ of the group was 78. Six children had an autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or a combination of these. Three different language tests were used: (1) the Bus Story - a test of narrative speech and language; (2) an articulation test including all Swedish phonemes in different positions; and (3) the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Revised (PPVT-R).
  
  
  RESULTS
  All but two children had an information score in the retelling task of 1 SD below the population mean. A negative correlation between age and the information score implied that the older the children, the more severe the problems. One child had an average sentence length within the normal limits and five children had subordinate clauses within normal limits. A median of 4% of the utterances included grammatical errors. About 50% of the children had a complete consonant inventory. The phonological process analysis implied delayed rather than deviant development. The group had a moderately low score for receptive vocabulary.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Language difficulties in all investigated areas of language were found. It is suggested that speech-language impairment is a common feature of 22q11 deletion syndrome. An implication of these results is that follow-ups of language skills are important not only for pre-school children, but also for school age children and adolescents with 22q11 deletion syndrome.
authors.affiliation: Department of Logopedics and Phoniatrics, The Sahlgrenska Academy at Göteborg University, Sweden. christiana.persson@logopedi.gu.se
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Persson
authors.forename: Lena
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Niklasson
authors.forename: Sólveig
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Oskarsdóttir
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Johansson
authors.forename: Radi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jönsson
authors.forename: Ewa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Söderpalm
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002872:Chromosome Deletion; D002892:Chromosomes, Human, Pair 22 / Q000235:genetics*; D032882:Comprehension; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000235:genetics*; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011594:Psychometrics; D012737:Sex Factors; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000235:genetics; D013577:Syndrome; D014825:Vocabulary