Language Error Type Evaluation in Developmental Delay Preschool Children by PLS-C

Purpose:

To assess age and gender effect in the language error type (semantics, syntax and pragmatics)of developmental delay preschool aged children, a standardize tool "Preschool Language Scale Corrected edition(PLS-C), Lin" was adopted for evaluation.

Methods:

This is a retrospective chart study enrolled 55 children aged 3, 4 and 5 in department of rehabilitation in Taipei Medical University Hospital from 2011 Jan to 2014 Dec whose average PLS-C score was at least 1.5 SD below normal. Those normal or PLS-C score was less than 1.5SD below normal were excluded. We recorded correct percentage in pragmatics, syntax, and semantics in different age group separately in auditory comprehension, language expression as well as overall performance. All wrong questions answered in PLS-C were recorded. We used SAS 9.4 (Anova, t-test) to analyze the results in age differences, gender differences, and language components differences

Results:

In overall performance, expression, and comprehension, there was no difference between boy and girl by t-test in all ages. By one-way Anova Bonferroni t test, age 5 was better than age 4 and age 3 significantly in pragmatics, syntax and semantics (p<0.005).

We further separated into groups of 5YR boy, 5YR girl, 4YR boy, 4YR girl, and 3YR boy.

In overall performance, by Duncan's multiple analysis, only 5 YR boy had significant better performance than 4 YR girl and 3 YR boy in pragmatics. In age 5, boys had better performance in pragmatics than girls (p<0.05). In age 4, no differences are showed between boy and girl.

In comprehension, in age 5, boys have better performance in pragmatics than girls(p<0.05).

In expression, there was no difference between boys and girls. Pragmatics was better than syntax (p=0.0202<o.o5) in age 5.

Conclusion:

We found age had more effect than gender in language delay children. Age 5 boys had better performance in pragmatics conflicted with some previous studies and may need more exploration in the future.

Key words:

Development Delay, Preschool aged children, Language Development Delay, Semantics, Syntax, Pragmatics, Language error type