TRACKING CHILDREN FROM POVERTY AT RISK FOR SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT - A 3-YEAR LONGITUDINAL-STUDY

A 3-year longitudinal study of the language performance of children fr om poverty was designed to address the problem of separating children with a specific language impairment (SLI) from low-scoring normal chil dren in the borderline area on the continuum of language performance w here normal ends and abnormal begins. Two approaches to definition wer e compared: an experimental approach (using story-retelling, rote-memo ry ability, and invented-morpheme learning) and a traditional approach (using standardized-test discrepancy scores). Results indicated that 6 of 34 children tracked from kindergarten through second grade appear ed to be SLI at the end of the study. The best kindergarten predictor for the outcome status of these 6 children was a combination of the sc ore on the Oral Vocabulary subtest of the TOLD-2P and the score on a c ombination of the experimental tasks. The best single kindergarten pre dictor of the academic status of the 15 children in the study who rece ived academic remediation was story-retelling. Children's scores on th e experimental and standardized tests of language performance and nonv erbal intelligence were profiled over the 3 years of the study, and pa tterns of change in many instances reveal the lifting of the early inf luences of poverty.