Patterns of Language Behavior in Children with Developmental Language Disorders

Tests to measure comprehension, formulation, and repetition of certain phonologic, syntactic, and semantic aspects of language were administered to 47 children who had developmental language disorders. A factor analysis of the resultant scores indicated that three factors were present in the data. These factors are presented as six patterns of language performance, one for high loadings on the factor and one for low loadings. The six patterns are (1) repetition strength (Factor I, high); (2) nonspecific formulation-repetition deficit (Factor I, low); (3) generalized low performance (Factor II, high); (4) phonologic comprehension-formulation-repetition deficit (Factor II, low); (5) comprehension deficit (Factor III, high); and (6) formulation-repetition deficit (Factor III, low). Possible relations among these patterns and nonlinguistic measures (sex, race, age, nonverbal intelligence, socioeconomic status, and status of the peripheral speech mechanism) were investigated. Two of the patterns of language performance were found to be related significantly to age. On Factor II, the younger children tended to get high loadings (generalized low performance) while the older children tended to get low loadings (phonologic comprehension-formulation-repetition deficit).