Other impairment associated with developmental language delay in preschool-aged children

The aim of this study was to investigate developmental impairment in several domains that might be associated with developmental language delay. The records of 56 preschool children with developmental language delay and 31 nonimpaired children were reviewed. Children with language delay were more likely than those in the nonimpaired group to have cognitive developmental delay (Mental Development Index < 70) (P < .001) and gross and fine motor delay (gross: 28 [50%] versus 5 [16%], P = .002; fine: 34 [62%] versus 11 [35%], P = .02). Children with language delay were significantly more likely to have impairment than were nonimpaired children in gross motor, fine motor, comprehension-conceptual and personal-social (P = .01, P = .02, P = .01, P = .02, respectively) functional domains. Our findings indicate that preschool children with language delay have wide-ranging difficulties in development and function.