Classification Skills and Language Development in Language Impaired Children

Abstract

The classification assessment procedure developed by Denney (1972) was administered to 30 subjects: 10 language impaired children, 10 normal children matched to the language impaired children on the basis of chronological age, and 10 normal children matched to the language impaired children on the basis of MLU. The results indicated that the age-matched subjects performed the task significantly belter than either the language-impaired or the MLU-matched subjects. The performance of the language impaired children was not different from that of the MLU matched children. Correlational analysis revealed that classification performance was significantly correlated with language production. These findings are discussed in terms of the various cognitive hypotheses of language development and also in terms of previous findings regarding the cognitive skills of language impaired children.