TOPIC

Paediatric language research

Everything we have read on paediatric language. Each paper is summarised from the full article rather than its abstract, so the limitations are in there too, and the funding wherever the paper declares it.

479 PAPERS · PAGE 10 OF 10 · NEWEST FIRST

• SLPOther2026Analysis of play in children aged 2 to 4 with developmental language disorder.CoDASOf 37 children with developmental language disorder, 35 played at least one level below what is expected for their age. Better play went with better fine motor skills, but not with language, cognition, income or gestational age.
• SLPQualitative2026Multilingual Parents' Experiences of an Early Language and Literacy Intervention: A Qualitative Study Using the Behaviour Change Wheel.Folia phoniatrica et logopaedica : official organ of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP)Gift packs and home visits from a library 'language starter' showed parents who spoke another language at home how to start reading, singing and playing with their child earlier. They valued being told their child could learn both languages. Parents' accounts only.
• SLPRCT2026Short-Term Effects of a Caregiver-Mediated Intervention for Preschoolers at Risk for Developmental Language Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRCoaching parents to model sentences during play gave preschoolers better grammar scores at 42 months than usual care, but the study's main vocabulary analysis at 36 months found no group difference. Grammar remained well below age expectations in both groups.
• SLPRCT2026Augmentative and Alternative Communication Generative Language Intervention: A Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRPreschoolers with severely unintelligible speech built longer, correctly ordered symbol sequences on an iPad in twice-weekly sessions over four months, gaining about 0.26 symbols per utterance each month. Children given only the device and workshop made no significant gains. COVID left the trial underpowered.
• SLPRCT2025The Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) System in Toddlers With Early Indicators of Autism: Test-Retest Reliability and Convergent Validity With Clinical Language Assessments.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchConversational turn counts from an in-home wearable recorder lined up with autistic toddlers' language scores, even after accounting for how much the child vocalized. Plain adult-word and child-vocalization counts did not. Repeat recordings of the same child agreed moderately well.
• SLPSystematic Review2024Low language capacity in childhood: A systematic review of prevalence estimates.International journal of language & communication disordersPublished estimates of how many children have low language range from 0.4% to 25.2%. Where researchers applied explicit diagnostic criteria and standardised tests, figures clustered at 3.3% to 7.6%; parent or teacher report gave 9.5% to 25.2%.
• SLPRCT2025A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing the Efficacy of Pre-School Language Interventions-Building Early Sentences Therapy and an Adapted Derbyshire Language Scheme.International journal of language & communication disordersBoth Building Early Sentences Therapy and an adapted Derbyshire Language Scheme improved preschool children's language. BEST produced larger gains in talking, and kept gaining after the intervention ended. The two were equal on understanding during the intervention and on communicative participation.
• SLPSystematic Review2026Exploring the Potential of Matching-to-Sample-Based Training Protocols to Enhance Language Abilities in Individuals with Language Impairments: A Scoping Review.International journal of language & communication disordersTeaching people with language impairments to match pictures, spoken words and printed words led to correct answers on untrained language relations in most participants across ten of the sixteen studies, but all were small, none randomised, and none included DLD.
• SLPOther2026Influence of Semantic Richness on Word Form Learning in Children With Developmental Language Disorder.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRAdding rich, story-like meaning to new words made preschoolers with developmental language disorder less accurate in how they said those words, and made both groups produce more varied word forms. Sound accuracy did not improve over sessions for either group.
• SLPPilot2026Early Identification of DLD in Paediatric Practice: A Pilot Validation of the CLAP Screening Tool in Italian Outpatient Settings.International journal of language & communication disordersA brief Italian screening tool for language difficulties in primary care worked well in the youngest children and fairly up to 54 months, but it failed above 60 months, where no usable cut-off could be found after item reduction.
• SLPSystematic Review2022Efficacy, model of delivery, intensity and targets of pragmatic interventions for children with developmental language disorder: A systematic review.International journal of language & communication disordersFive of eleven studies found significant gains in pragmatic language after intervention, but the targets, measures, and doses varied so much that no single approach can be recommended. The evidence is too thin to change how you treat a child's conversational or narrative skills.
• SLPRCT2023One size does not fit all for parent-mediated autism interventions: A randomized clinical trial.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceMothers taught responsive language strategies showed greater improvement than those taught directive strategies. Mothers' subclinical autism-like traits made no difference on their own, but whether they helped or hurt depended on how much strategy use the mother already had before training.
• SLPOther2026Assessing Sentences in Young Children: A Comparison of the Sentence Diversity Priming Task and Play-Based Language Samples.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRA structured priming task gave more diverse third-person subjects and verbs in about 10 minutes than a 10-minute play sample, and both methods separated late talkers from typically developing peers. It is a valid, time-efficient alternative for assessing sentence diversity in 30- to 38-month-olds.
• SLPOther2026A Response to Blanc and Colleagues' Viewpoint on Gestalt Language Processing and the Natural Language Acquisition Protocol: Concerns and Common Ground.Perspectives of the ASHA special interest groups
• SLPCohort2026Longitudinal Study of Language of Twins at Ages 9 and 14 Years: Twinning, Zygosity, and Heritability.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRTwins still score below age-matched singletons on language and nonverbal IQ at 9 and 14 years. The gap narrows for vocabulary but widens for broader language. Genes account for a large share of language differences. Boys outscore girls in vocabulary at both ages.
• SLPOther2026Action on waiting list for Speech Therapy in the Unified Health System (SUS) in a medium-sized Brazilian municipality.CoDASOf 246 people on a waiting list for speech-language-hearing care, 147 no longer needed help and 162 were scheduled. The list was dominated by boys under 12 with language complaints.
• SLPOther2026The use of the Labyrinth Scale in the differential diagnosis of children aged 2 to 4 with a history of psychological distress, autism and different language outcomes.CoDASThe Labyrinth Scale separates ASD from typical development and delayed language acquisition, but the DLD group mean (12.7) sits above the ASD cutoff (12). A high score does not confirm ASD in a child with a language disorder.
• SLPOther2026Labyrinth scale in the differential diagnosis between autism spectrum disorder and language disorder.CoDASThe Labirinto Scale separated children with autism from those with a language disorder on all four symptom subscales. Social Interaction was the one subscale where the language-disorder group looked the same as typically developing children.
• SLPPilot2026Speech Perception and Phonological Awareness Skills in Thai-Speaking Children with Speech Sound Disorders.Folia phoniatrica et logopaedica : official organ of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP)Thai-speaking preschoolers with mild-to-moderate speech sound disorders scored the same as typically developing peers on five speech perception and phonological awareness tasks once age and vocabulary were taken into account. A few individual children fell below the typical range.
• SLPPilot2026Assessing pragmatic abilities of small children with and without ASD diagnosis.CoDASChildren with confirmed ASD scored higher (more impaired) than children whose ASD suspicion was ruled out, across all four pragmatic domains measured. The pilot involved 22 toddlers aged 18 to 36 months.
• SLPOther2026Disentangling Bilingualism and Developmental Language Disorder in the Acquisition of Spanish Verbal Agreement Morphology.Journal of child languageTypical children produced more correct verb endings than children with DLD, in both bilingual and monolingual groups. But the errors they made looked the same across all four groups, so the type of error won't help you tell DLD from typical bilingual development.
• SLPOther2026An Early Lexical Screening Tool for British English: Psychometric Properties and Clinical Utility.International journal of language & communication disordersMost children with language difficulties were caught, but some children without difficulties were also flagged. The tool gives SLTs sex-specific cut-off scores for direct vocabulary screening of 19–36-month-old British English toddlers.
• SLPSurvey2026Participation of Children With Developmental Language Disorders in Educational Settings-Parents' Perspectives on Patterns, Environmental Influences and Support Strategies.Child: care, health and developmentChildren with DLD participated at similar levels in preschool and school, with high involvement across activities. The biggest gaps were in extracurricular clubs and special roles. Most parents saw the environment as neutral rather than a barrier.
• SLPSurvey2026Exploring Concepts of Understanding in the Working Practice of Speech and Language Therapists in the UK: A Preliminary Survey.International journal of language & communication disordersA UK survey of 77 speech therapists found that 92% regularly face disagreements with families and other staff about a patient's understanding, and that most assess attention and vocabulary while largely ignoring prosody and the communication partner's role.
• SLPOther2026Words for clinical use in speech-language pathology in Brazilian portuguese-speaking children: a focus on familiarity and representativeness from expert judges.CoDASTwenty-one judges rated 480 candidate words and 146 were kept for a word bank targeting Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children aged 18-36 months. It is a selection of words, not a test of whether using them changes a child's progress.
• SLPSurvey2026Group performance differences in reading, math, and science by fourth graders with and without communication disorders.CoDASFourth graders receiving speech-language therapy scored lower than peers without therapy on reading, math, and science. Science was the weakest subject for all groups. SLPs should expect cross-subject academic difficulties and consider referring underperforming students for language screening.
• SLPCohort2026Clinical Relevance of NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery Developmental Change in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Associations with Verbal Reasoning.American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilitiesOver two years, NIH Toolbox Crystallized Cognition scores tracked growth in verbal knowledge and verbal reasoning in 263 people with intellectual disabilities. The brief iPad test is a valid outcome measure for monitoring verbal cognitive development in this population.
• SLPSurvey2026Uptake and Evaluation of a Crosslinguistic Nonword Repetition Test in Clinical and Research Contexts.International journal of language & communication disordersA survey of 109 users of the Crosslinguistic Nonword Repetition Test found 92% considered it useful, mostly for screening multilingual children for DLD. It still lacks norms and practical guidance, so treat it as one part of a battery, not a standalone diagnosis.
• SLPRCT2026Investigating the Effects of Adding Explicit Teaching and/or Signing to Story-Based Vocabulary Intervention for School-Aged Children With (Developmental) Language Disorder.International journal of language & communication disordersAdding explicit teaching or signing to story-based vocabulary lessons helped school-aged children with DLD learn more verbs and adjectives than stories alone. Combining both added no extra benefit and may have slightly hindered learning.