Production of grammatical morphemes was examined in free speech samples from 34 4-year-olds with history of slow expressive language development (SELD) and control group. Both the SELD children who had caught up in mean length of utterance by age four and those who had not had acquired fewer grammatical morphemes than controls, though acquisition…

A natural language sample of babble and words was obtained for 47 2-year-old children and compared with expressive language scores 5 months later. More than 50 percent of the variance in language outcome test scores was accounted for by rate of word use, rate of vowel babble, and behavior problems. (Author/DB)

Twenty-one apparently normal children (ages 18 to 34 months) with slow expressive language acquisition were evaluated initially and again at age 3. The late talkers also scored significantly lower in receptive communication and socialization. Followup showed nearly half the group remained delayed in expressive communication and socialization,…

This longitudinal investigation charted the course of cognitive and language development from the prelinguistic period to multiword productions in 19 typically developing toddlers and 4 toddlers who were subsequently identified as having a late onset of expressive language. Three different developmental profiles were identified, and predictors of…

This longitudinal study assessed the narrative language development of primary grade children with slow expressive language development (SELD) as toddlers who either had or had not moved into the normal range of expressive language by early school age. Deficits in narrative skills tended to disappear in children with a history of SELD, though…

This study of 44 late-talking and normally speaking toddlers with and without histories of middle ear involvement revealed no differences in expressive language outcome attributed to history of middle ear involvement. There seemed to be intergroup differences in outcome on measures of articulation that were associated with history of middle ear…

Comparison of spontaneous language samples of 30 toddlers diagnosed with specific expressive language impairment (SLI) and language samples of typically developing toddlers found the SLI toddlers vocalized significantly less often, had proportionately smaller consonantal and vowel inventories, and used a more restricted and less mature array of…

The effectiveness of two language treatment methods, modeling versus modeling plus evoked production, in promoting productive vocabulary in three late-talking toddlers was compared. Two subjects differed as to which particular treatment method was associated with better performance. Neither treatment method was effective for the third subject.…

This study evaluated an Extended Optional Infinitive theory of specific language impairment (SLI) in children, which suggests that SLI children omit finiteness markers longer than do normally developing children. Comparison of 18 SLI 5-year olds with 2 normally developing groups (ages 5 and 3) found that SLI subjects omitted finiteness markers…

This study assessed the family history of speech, language, and school problems in 62 young children (mean age 28 months) with developmental expressive language delay (ELD). Comparison with normally developing children indicated no strong familial component of ELD. (Author/DB)

This study found that the speech of mothers (n=28) of toddlers slow to acquire expressive language tended to differ only in the frequency of use of lexical contingency devices (specifically expansion and extension of child speech), when compared to mothers of normally speaking toddlers. (Author/DB)

Twenty-eight toddlers with slow expressive language development were compared to normally speaking age-mates and found to show delayed rather than deviant development in the average level of complexity of their syllable structures, the number of different consonant phonemes produced, and the percentage of consonants correctly produced in…

This study explored effects of training 25 mothers to administer focused intervention to teach specific target words to their toddlers with expressive vocabulary delays. Following treatment, mothers' language input was slower, less complex, and more focused. The children used more target words, more words during play, and had larger vocabularies…