NONWORD REPETITION AS A BEHAVIORAL MARKER FOR INHERITED LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT - EVIDENCE FROM A TWIN STUDY

The Children's Nonword Repetition Test (CNRep) was given to 39 childre n with persistent language impairment (LI), 13 with a history of havin g received speech-language therapy (resolved LI), and 79 controls, all aged from 7 to 9 years. The children with LI were twins who had parti cipated in a previous genetic study. Children with resolved LI, as wel l as those with persistent LI, were significantly impaired on the CNRe p. Comparisons of MZ and DZ twins indicated significant heritability o f a CNRep deficit. It is concluded that CNRep provides a marker of the phenotype of heritable forms of developmental language impairment. Co pyright (C) 1996 Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry.