Establish the developmental trajectories of speech sounds, receptive and expressive vocabulary, and morphosyntax among neglected children during the preschool years and compare them with those of non-neglected children.
Participants are 69 neglected children and 99 same age non-neglected peers (37 and 46 males respectively) recruited at 36 months of age. Data were collected at home.
Data were collected at six-month intervals between the ages of 3 and 5.5 years using psychometrically robust tools. Neglected and control groups were compared according to age using repeated measures ANOVAs on all variables. A discrete mixture model for clustering longitudinal data was used for testing the heterogeneity of the language trajectories among neglected children.
The language development of the neglected children as a whole group is lower than that of the control group for all variables. Two subgroups are identified within the neglected group: one with a developmental trajectory similar to that of the non-neglected children, and another whose trajectory is far below that of the control group. The effect sizes of these differences vary between 1.4 and 3 standard deviations under the mean.
A large proportion of neglected children present significant speech and language difficulties from the age of 3, but some of them catch up and develop similarly to non-neglected children.
目的:建立语音的发展轨迹,接受和表达词汇,以及学龄前被忽视儿童的形态语法,并将其与未被忽视儿童的形态语法进行比较。
方法:参与者是在36个月大时招募的69名被忽视儿童和99名同龄非被忽视同龄人(分别为37名和46名男性)。数据是在家里收集的。
方法:使用心理测量工具在3至5.5岁之间以六个月为间隔收集数据。根据年龄使用所有变量的重复测量ANOVA比较被忽视组和对照组。使用用于聚类纵向数据的离散混合模型来测试被忽视儿童之间语言轨迹的异质性。
结果:对于所有变量,被忽略的儿童作为一个整体组的语言发育均低于对照组。在被忽视的群体中确定了两个亚组:一个具有与非被忽视的儿童相似的发展轨迹,另一个轨迹远低于对照组。这些差异的效应大小在平均值下在1.4和3个标准偏差之间变化。
结论:很大一部分被忽视的儿童从3岁起就表现出明显的言语和语言障碍,但其中一些儿童的成长速度与未被忽视的儿童相似。