Differentiating school-aged children with and without language impairment using tense and grammaticality measures from a narrative task

Purpose: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of the finite verb morphology composite (FVMC), number of errors per C-unit (Errors/CU), and percent grammatical C-units(PGCUs) in differentiating school-aged children with language impairment (LI) and those with typical language development (TL).Method: Participants were 61 six-year-olds (50 TL, 11 LI)and 67 eight-year-olds (50 TL, 17 LI). Narrative samples were collected using a story-generation format. FVMC, Errors/CU, and PGCUs were computed from the samples. Results: All of the three measures showed acceptable to good diagnostic accuracy at age 6, but only PGCUs showed acceptable diagnostic accuracy at age 8 when sensitivity, specificity, and likelihood ratios were considered. Conclusion: FVMC, Errors/CU, and PGCUs can all be used in combination with other tools to identify school-aged children with LI. However, FVMC and Errors/CU may be an appropriate diagnostic tool up to age 6. PGCUs, in contrast, may be a sensitive tool for identifying children with LI at least up to age 8 years.