The Variability in Children with Specific Language Impairment Compared to Children with Typical Language Development

The purpose of this study was to determine whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) are more or less variable than children with typically developing language. In addition, the within child variability for children with SLI was analyzed to consider how heterogeneity influenced identification of areas of linguistic strengths and weaknesses in this population. Fifty seven children with SLI, 7:0–11:0, and fifty seven of their peers with typically developing language were assessed using five subtests and a composite language score from the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL) (Carrow-Woolfolk, 1999). The children with typically developing language were significantly more variable as a group than the children with SLI. The heterogeneity of the children with SLI did not allow for the creation of subgroups based on language strengths and weaknesses.