The persistence of language disorders in a group of disadvantaged grade 3 learners.

A strong correlation between early language impairment and academic failure has been suggested by past research. This followup cohort study of 25 monolingual, disadvantaged grade 3 learners investigated whether the language impairments diagnosed in their preschool year were still evident after 3 years of school attendance, maturation and speech-language therapy. The results verified the persistence of preschool language impairments, which have been associated with poor reading and academic failure.