Avelar Daniela, Singletary Britt, Dale Philip S, Justice Laura M
Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy, The Ohio State University, Columbus.
Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2025 May 8;68(5):2453-2467. doi: 10.1044/2025_JSLHR-24-00637. Epub 2025 Apr 23.
Children who have late language emergence, or are late talkers (LTs), have substantially lower vocabulary levels than their peers, on average. Notably, differences in how researchers define comprises LTs can lead to inconsistencies across findings. The current study examined how the number of children identified as LTs differs when using different parameters for identification in a low-socioeconomic status (SES) sample.
Low-SES mothers ( = 238) completed the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories: Words and Sentences (CDI:WS) as part of a larger longitudinal study. Using percentile scores, children were identified as LTs or non-LTs using different sets of parameters. Descriptive and chi-square analyses were used to examine how the different parameters changed the percentages of children identified as LTs.
Depending on the parameters used, the prevalence of LTs in our low-SES sample ranged from 28% to 43%, which is higher than the prevalence in population-based studies (10%-20%). Using 3rd edition norms by sex for children ages 24-30 months and using a 10th percentile cutoff value, the prevalence of LTs was 29%.
Reporting and agreeing upon the most robust parameters for LT identification is critical both for (a) research replicability and comparison across studies and (b) researchers and practitioners to accurately identify LTs and provide the appropriate support to them and their families.
语言发育迟缓的儿童，即学语迟缓儿童（LTs），平均词汇量显著低于同龄人。值得注意的是，研究人员对学语迟缓儿童的定义差异可能导致研究结果不一致。本研究调查了在低社会经济地位（SES）样本中，使用不同的识别参数时，被认定为学语迟缓儿童的数量有何不同。
作为一项更大规模纵向研究的一部分，238名低社会经济地位的母亲完成了《麦克阿瑟-贝茨交流发展量表：单词和句子》（CDI:WS）。利用百分位数得分，使用不同的参数集将儿童确定为学语迟缓儿童或非学语迟缓儿童。描述性分析和卡方分析用于检验不同参数如何改变被认定为学语迟缓儿童的百分比。
根据所使用的参数，我们低社会经济地位样本中学语迟缓儿童的患病率在28%至43%之间，高于基于人群的研究中的患病率（10%-20%）。使用24至30个月儿童按性别划分的第三版常模，并使用第10百分位数作为临界值，学语迟缓儿童的患病率为29%。
报告并就最可靠的学语迟缓儿童识别参数达成一致，对于（a）研究的可重复性和跨研究比较，以及（b）研究人员和从业者准确识别学语迟缓儿童并为他们及其家庭提供适当支持都至关重要。
