Predicting language outcomes in children who at age two are "late talkers" is a concern of Speech Language Pathologists. Currently, there is no conclusive data allowing specialists to predict which children will outgrow their delays and which children will not. The purpose of the present study is to analyze the effect of a receptive language delay on the outcome of the slow expressive language delayed child, and determine whether or not it is a viable predictor of poor outcomes. The subject information used in this project was compiled from the data collected and reported by Paul (1991) during the Portland Language Development Project (PLDP). Children in the PLDP first participated in the longitudinal study between the ages of twenty to thirtyfour months. They were categorized as being slow in expressive language development if they produced fewer that fifty intelligible words during this age range. They were then subgrouped into an expressive-receptive delayed group if they scored more than one standard deviation below the mean on the Reynell Developmental Language Scales. Of the twenty-five subjects with complete data over the five years of the study, nineteen were considered to be solely expressively delayed, while the remaining six were classified as having both an expressive and a receptive language delay. Lee's Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) (1974) was used to track the subject's expressive language abilities to the age of seven. DSS scores were analyzed yearly, using the Mann-Whitney nonparametric statistical test. This would determine whether the subjects considered to be both expressively and receptively delayed were exhibiting more difficulties in their expressive language abilities than those subjects with expressive delays alone. The results of the study indicated that significant differences did not exist between the two groups. Therefore, there was insufficient evidence to conclude that a receptive language delay at twenty to thirty-four months of age is a feasible predictor of lasting expressive language delays. This leads to the recommendation that additional research be conducted focusing on areas other than receptive language abilities as being predictors of poor expressive language outcomes.

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The purpose of this study was to describe the relationship between language use and play level of three-, four-, and five-year-old middle socio-economic status children.The subjects were sixteen children who attended preschool programs at a midwestern university. The sixteen subjects were randomly selected from a population of fifty-five children.There were three age groups with approximately one-third of the subjects in each group. Half of the subjects were girls and half of the subjects were boys.It was estimated seventy-five percent of the subjects had above average verbal ability, nineteen percent of the subjects had average verbal ability, and six percent of the subjects had below average verbal ability.The socio-economic status of the subjects was determined through classification of parents' occupations.The Play Observation Instrument (POI), and the Language Observation Instrument (LOI) were developed by the researcher. The POI included four levels of play developed by Smilansky: functional, constructive, dramatic, and socio-dramatic. Fifty play observations were recorded on the POI. The LOI included seven categories of language use developed by Tough: self-maintaining, directing, reporting, logical reasoning, predicting, projecting, and imagining. Fifty utterances were recorded on the LOI during play.The data were analyzed for all subjects, for age groups, and by sex. Further, the data on the LOI were analyzed for language use in play situations. Narrative data were also presented.The subjects engaged in constructive, dramatic, or socio-dramatic play during the free choice play periods observed. Levels of play were not highly related to age. Boys engaged in constructive and dramatic play most often, and girls engaged in socio-dramatic play most often.The subjects used imagining language more than other language during the free choice play periods observed. Imagining language was used most often for reporting, directing, and logical reasoning. No clear sex differences existed for language use.The house, climber, and block situations elicited the most language. Most frequently occurring language uses in these situations were imagining, directing, and reporting.Imagining language during socio-dramatic play was the most frequently occurring relationship between language use and play level. Imagining language during dramatic play-was next most often occurring, and third most often occurring was reporting language during constructive play or directing language during socio-dramatic play.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-107). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Behavioral and Neural Sciences." Includes bibliographical references (p. 254-271).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-93). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

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