Comparison of communicative-linguistic indices between Late Talkers and typically developing children through the Dynamic Communication Evaluation coding scheme

Late Talkers (LTs) are at risk for persistent developmental language disorders and show a slowdown in the acquisition of both language and communication skills. The Dynamic Communication Evaluation (DCE) is an event-based coding scheme for the analysis of intentional communicative acts produced via parental interaction, including categories of socio-communicative pragmatics and structural linguistic complexity. This cross-sectional observational study compares the communicative-linguistic competencies detected through the DCE of LTs with those of typical development children. The participants included 19 LT children (24–38 months old) with a vocabulary size lower than the 5th percentile on the Italian version of the MacArthur-Bates CDI, and the findings were compared to the performance of 19 typically developing (TD) children (25–37 months old). The groups were matched for chronological age. Correlations between communicative and linguistic labels and age were found in the LT group in greater numbers than in the TD group. A comparison between the two groups revealed lower abilities in LT than TD children in communicative-pragmatic indices–such as joint attention, responsiveness, and request of information–and in linguistic indices. Socio-communicative pragmatic, lexical, morphosyntactic, and phonological skills influenced each other during development in children with slow language emergence. The findings have clinical implications regarding early identification. Systematic observations appear to have clinical value because they support quantitative and qualitative data collection and guide intervention.