Differentiation ability of the language level test for children between 3 and 5 years of age

Background Language disorders are one of the more common conspicuous childhood developmental disorders. Different components of language can be affected. The language level test for children between 3 and 5 years of age (SET 3-5) is a general language test with current normative data collected in 2014/2015. Objective The present study examined the ability of the SET 3-5 to differentiate between different characteristics (e.g. age, maternal level of education, parent reported noticeable problems in grammar and linguistic background) for children aged 4-5 years old. Method Based on data of the normative sample (N= 776), different cohorts were compared by multivariate analysis of variance. Results The SET 3-5 identified the expected age-related increase in language performance. The mean values of children with grammatical deficits observed by the parents and attending speech therapy, children of mothers with a low school graduation levels and bilingual children were significantly lower in all linguistic subtests than those of the comparison group. Conclusion The results provide evidence that the SET 3-5 is able to differentiate between different language levels in German-speaking children at the age of 4 and 5 years.