HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal My Folders Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Skarakis-Doyle, E. Articles by Lee, C. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Skarakis-Doyle, E. Articles by Lee, C.

Identifying Language Comprehension Impairment in Preschool Children

Contact author: Elizabeth Skarakis-Doyle, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Elborn College, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6G 1H1. E-mail: eskaraki{at}uwo.ca.

Purpose: This study examined the validity of 3 discourse comprehension measures for preschool children and the ability of a combination of them to classify children with and without language impairment.

Method: Thirty-seven children with typical language and 12 children with language impairment completed 3 measures of oral story comprehension: the Joint Story Retell task, the Expectancy Violation Detection task, and comprehension questions.

Results: Discriminant analyses revealed that each measure successfully classified pre-identified groups. The clinical combination of all 3 measures resulted in 96% accurate identification of the language status of this cohort.

Conclusion: Results support these procedures as valid measures of discourse comprehension and monitoring and provide preliminary evidence that their combination can be validly employed for identifying young children with language comprehension impairment.

KEY WORDS: discourse comprehension, preschool children, comprehension impairment, sensitivity, specificity

This article has been cited by other articles:

				E. Skarakis-Doyle and L. Dempsey The Detection and Monitoring of Comprehension Errors by Preschool Children With and Without Language Impairment J Speech Lang Hear Res, October 1, 2008; 51(5): 1227 - 1243. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]