Morphology and Syntax in Late Talkers at Age 5

Purpose: This study reports age 5 morphology and syntax skills in late talkers identified at age 2 (n = 34) and typically developing comparison children (n = 20). Results: The late talkers manifested significant morphological delays at ages 3 and 4 relative to comparison peers. Based on the 14 morphemes analyzed at age 5, the only significant group difference was on the third person regular -s inflection. This was also the only significant difference when we compared late talkers with continuing delay, late bloomers (who scored within 1 standard deviation of the comparison group in mean length of utterance), and typically developing peers. The late talker and comparison children differed greatly in mean total scores on the Index of Productive Syntax (Scarborough, 1990), a measure of syntactic complexity. The group with continuing delay scored significantly lower on the IPSyn than the late bloomer and typically developing groups, which did not differ from each other. Conclusions: Findings are consistent with the higher order language group differences found through adolescence in these late talkers relative to comparison peers with similar socioeconomic status and similar nonverbal abilities, supporting the notion that late talkers have an ongoing weakness in language endowment that manifests differently over the course of development.