[Concerning specific language impairment: intelligibility in expressive language].

BACKGROUND

Even in the age of two years toddlers with Expressive Language Impairment (SLI-E) differ regarding their phonetic inventories compared with an age-matched group developing normally.

METHOD AND PATIENTS: PCC-R scores of 19 children with expressive language disorder, aged between four and six years, are compared with age and sex matched controls with normal language acquisition.

RESULTS

There are significant differences between PCC-R scores, children with expressive language disorder show lower scores than children with normal language acquisition. Age, sex and nonverbal intelligence do not influence performance measured with PCC-R. Analysis regarding early, middle and late consonants shows, that expressive language disordered children show bigger problems in aquiring late than early and middle consonants.