Classification of children with specific language impairment: Longitudinalconsiderations

This paper reports on the longitudinal results of a large project involving 242 seven-year-old children attending language units in England. Following our work outlining 6 subgroups of children with language impairment (Conti -Ramsden, Crutchley, & Betting, 1997), we examine the stability of the 6 su bgroups of children with specific language impairment already identified, u sing data collected from the same children at age 8 years. The findings sug gest there is considerable stability in the patterns of difficulties deline ated by the classification system involving 6 subgroups. Poorer stability w as evident in the classification of the children across time with 45% of ch ildren moving across subgroups. The membership stability of the proposed cl assification system was very similar to that found when the children were c lassified into 3 subgroups following another well-known system (Rapin, 1996 ). The findings are discussed with particular reference to issues surroundi ng the classification of children with SLI.