Social and Behavioral Characteristics of Preschoolers With Specific Language Impairment

This study examined the social and behavioral characteristics of children with specific language impairment (SLI) as compared with a group of children with typically developing language skills (TL). The participants were 45 children (17 girls and 28 boys) with SLI and 53 children (27 girls and 26 boys) with TL. Maternal ratings of participants' social and behavioral characteristics were obtained using the Social Skills Rating System (Gresham & Elliott, 1990) and the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1995). Analyses of variance revealed differences between the two groups of children in all areas of social skills as well as in specific indices of internalizing behaviors, although no differences were observed for externalizing behavior. The prevalence of clinically significant difficulties was significantly high in the area of social skills but not for behavioral problems. Implications of the results are discussed.