Constraints in the Production of Written Text in Children with Specific Language Impairments

The writing performance of 64 elementary school children with a history of specific language impairment was examined to evaluate both the nature of the children's difficulties with writing and the relationship between oral language, reading, and writing. Children were assessed at age 8 on a range of language, literacy, and cognitive measures and reassessed at age 10 when they completed a standardized writing measure. At age 10 the children continued to experience problems with oral language and language levels were significantly poorer than nonverbal skills. Writing was characterized by short texts with poor sentence structure and little evidence of ideas and organization. Both concurrent measures of receptive vocabulary and reading skill were significant factors in explaining levels of written language.