title: Differentiating School-Aged Children With and Without Language Impairment Using Tense and Grammaticality Measures From a Narrative Task.
abstract: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of the finite verb morphology composite (FVMC), number of errors per C-unit (Errors/CU), and percent grammatical C-units (PGCUs) in differentiating school-aged children with language impairment (LI) and those with typical language development (TL).
  
  
  
  Participants were 61 six-year-olds (50 TL, 11 LI) and 67 eight-year-olds (50 TL, 17 LI). Narrative samples were collected using a story-generation format. FVMC, Errors/CU, and PGCUs were computed from the samples.
  
  
  
  All of the three measures showed acceptable to good diagnostic accuracy at age 6, but only PGCUs showed acceptable diagnostic accuracy at age 8 when sensitivity, specificity, and likelihood ratios were considered.
  
  
  
  FVMC, Errors/CU, and PGCUs can all be used in combination with other tools to identify school-aged children with LI. However, FVMC and Errors/CU may be an appropriate diagnostic tool up to age 6. PGCUs, in contrast, may be a sensitive tool for identifying children with LI at least up to age 8 years.
authors.forename: Ling-Yu
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Phyllis
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schneider
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D007807:Language Tests; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D033262:Narration; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity