PSYCHOLINGUISTIC AGE-PROFILES OF LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT: A COMPARISON BETWEEN CHILDREN WITH TYPICAL AND ATYPICAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Background: Assessment of language is very important to detect atypically developed children. In this sense, psycholinguistic abilities are predictors of developmental functioning. The aim of this study was to compare ages of psycholinguistic processes between atypically and typically developed children. Material/Methods: In this cross-sectional study, six-, seven- and eight-year-old children from Cordoba (Argentina) (n= 28) were evaluated with the Spanish version of Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (S-ITPA). Statistical analysis included Student’s t-test in order to find differences between groups. Results: In the six-year-old sample, those with atypical language showed significantly lower psycholinguistic ages in: global psycholinguistic age, auditory association, and verbal expression, auditory reception, auditory sequential memory, grammatical closu re, and auditory closure, manual expression. In seven-year-old sample differences were found in grammatical closure and auditory closure. In eight-year-old group, atypical language sample showed lower psycholinguistic ages in auditory association, verbal expression and auditory sequential memory. Conclusions: This evidence establishes a limit stage corresponding to 6 years of age, which reflects the consolidation and integrity of language and the aptitudes involved. In later ages (e.g. seven and eight years), results may be biased by acquired formal learning abilities.