Profile of communicative abilities of the children with specific language impairments

Abstract

Children with specific language impairment show significant limitation in language ability, with no signs of hearing loss, neurological impairments or intellectual disability. It is generally agreed that this label applies to very heterogeneous group of children. The objective of this research is to determine discriminative properties of the Children's Communication Checklist (CCC-2), as well as common profile of communicative abilities in children with specific language impairments. The sample consisted of 1344 typically developing children and 22 children with specific language impairment, of both sexes, aged from 4 to 16. It was revealed that all children, but/except one, achieved GCC scores below cut-offs of 55. All of them showed significant limitations on at least three scales. In addition, two children achieved scaled scores below 6th percentile on Social Interaction and Interests scales. Their Pragmatic Composite is also low, which suggests the existence of semantic-pragmatic disorder in addition to specific language impairment.

Deca sa specifičnim poremećajem jezika ispoljavaju značajna ograničenja jezičke sposobnosti, koja se ne mogu objasniti gubitkom sluha, neurološkim poremećajima ili intelektualnom ometenošću. Postoji opšta saglasnost da se ova oznaka odnosi na veoma heterogenu kategoriju dece. Cilj ovog istraživanja je utvrđivanje diskriminativne vrednosti Komunikacione čekliste za decu (CCC-2), kao i zajedničkog profila komunikacionih sposobnosti dece sa specifičnim poremećajem jezika. Uzorak čini 1344 ispitanika urednog govorno-jezičkog razvoja i 22-oje dece sa specifičnim poremećajem jezika, oba pola, uzrasta između 4 i 16 godina. Rezultati pokazuju da, osim jednog ispitanika, sva deca imaju vrednosti GCC skora niže od granične i da sva deca imaju značajna ograničenja na najmanje tri skale. Osim toga, dva ispitanika imaju vrednosti skaliranih skorova na skalama Socijalni odnosi i Interesovanja niže od šestog percentila. Njihov pragmatski skor je takođe nizak, što ukazuje na semantičko-pragmatski deficit pridružen specifičnom poremećaju jezika.