Children with severe language disorder six years later: A follow-up study from language preschool to grade 4 and 5

Nine children with specific and severe developmental language disorder (DLD) were assessed on language, reading and spelling tasks in grades four and five. The DLD children had earlier attended a language preschool program. Four children performed within normal limits on a standardized reading test but only one child reached a normal performance on a spelling test. The best readers and spellers in the group were the most proficient on semantic measures in the present investigation and in preschool. Their language production (phonology and grammar) at age 5 was also more developed than in the other children (with one exception). Our results further strengthens the concept of "hierarchical vulnerability of language" in children (Bishop and Edmundsson, 1987).