Which Preschool Children With Specific Language Impairment Receive Language Intervention?

Area of Science:

• Child development
• Speech-language pathology
• Educational psychology

Background:

• Specific language impairment (SLI) affects preschool children's communication development.
• Early intervention is critical for children with SLI, but access may be inequitable.
• Understanding biases in service provision is essential for improving early intervention access.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore potential biases in service provision for preschool children with SLI.
• To identify demographic and developmental factors associated with receiving treatment for SLI.
• To investigate whether teacher awareness of service provision influences their assessments.

Main Methods:

• Study 1 compared children with SLI receiving treatment (SLI-T) to those not receiving treatment (SLI-NT) on demographics and development.
• Study 2 included children with articulation disorders receiving treatment (ARTIC-T) to control for bias.
• Teacher ratings of executive functioning and maternal education levels were collected.

Main Results:

• Children with SLI receiving treatment (SLI-T) had teachers who rated their executive functioning as poorer compared to SLI-NT children.
• Higher maternal education levels were associated with the SLI-T group.
• These factors predicted group membership with 84% accuracy, and teacher bias was not found to influence ratings.

Conclusions:

• Preschool children with SLI are more likely to receive intervention when they present with poorer executive functioning and come from families with higher maternal education.
• These findings highlight significant service delivery biases in early intervention.
• Addressing these biases is critical for ensuring equitable access to services for all children with SLI.