Chiat Shula, Roy Penny
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2013 Dec;56(6):1824-36. doi: 10.1044/1092-4388(2013/12-0249).
In this study, the authors aimed to evaluate hypotheses that early sociocognition will predict later social communication and early phonology will predict later morphosyntax in clinically referred preschoolers.
Participants were 108 children ages 9-11 years who had been referred to clinical services with concerns about language at age 2½-3½ years. Predictors at Time 1 (T1) were measures of sociocognition, word/nonword repetition, and receptive language. Outcome measures at Time 3 (T3) included a social communication questionnaire completed by parents and tests of nonword repetition, morphosyntax, and receptive language.
Group- and case-level analyses revealed early sociocognition to be the strongest predictor of social communication problems, which by T3 affected almost one third of the sample. At the group level, early phonology, which was a significant problem for the majority of children at T1, was a weak predictor of morphosyntax at T3. However, at the case level the majority of children with poor morphosyntax and nonword repetition at outcome had had very low repetition scores at T1.
In early language referrals, it is important to identify and address sociocognitive problems, a considerable risk for later social communication and autism spectrum disorders. The majority of early-referred children had phonological problems, often severe, but these require further investigation to determine their longer term significance for language.
在本研究中，作者旨在评估以下假设：在临床转诊的学龄前儿童中，早期社会认知能力可预测后期的社会沟通能力，早期语音能力可预测后期的形态句法能力。
参与者为108名9至11岁的儿童，他们在2岁半至3岁半时因语言问题被转诊至临床服务机构。时间1（T1）的预测指标包括社会认知、单词/非单词重复以及接受性语言的测量。时间3（T3）的结果指标包括家长填写的社会沟通问卷以及非单词重复、形态句法和接受性语言测试。
组间和个案水平分析显示，早期社会认知是社会沟通问题的最强预测指标，到T3时，近三分之一的样本受到影响。在组水平上，早期语音在T1时是大多数儿童的一个显著问题，但在T3时它对形态句法的预测能力较弱。然而，在个案水平上，大多数在结果测量中形态句法和非单词重复较差的儿童在T1时的重复分数非常低。
在早期语言转诊中，识别并解决社会认知问题很重要，这是后期社会沟通和自闭症谱系障碍的一个相当大的风险因素。大多数早期转诊儿童存在语音问题，且往往较为严重，但这些问题需要进一步研究以确定其对语言的长期影响。
