Recommending Intervention for Toddlers With Specific Language Learning Difficulties

This paper presents a review of the literature designed to identify child behaviors that shape a profile of toddlers who should receive intervention. The review presents empirically documented predictors of language change and risk factors for language impairment. It examines research addressing the children having difficulty learning language and children developing typically. The argument presented is that toddlers who exhibit few positive predictors of change and many risk factors are more likely to have a true impairment and need intervention than toddlers who exhibit many predictors of change and few risk factors. The review attempts to paint a profile of toddlers for whom treatment should be recommended and those for whom a watch and see approach should be followed.