Identifying Developmental Language Disorder in Vietnamese Children

• Published in: Journal of speech, language, and hearing research language, and hearing research, 2019-05, Vol.62 (5), p.1452-1467
• Main Authors: Pham, Giang T, Pruitt-Lord, Sonja, Snow, Catherine E. Snow, Nguyen, Yen Hoang Thi, Pham, Ben, Dao, Thuy Bich Thi, Tran, Ngoc Bich Thi, Pham, Linh Thuy, Hoang, Hien Thu, Dam, Quynh Diem
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: At Risk Persons; Bilingualism; Child; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; Communication; Correlation; Developmental Disabilities; Disability; Early childhood education; Economic indicators; Error Patterns; Expressive Language; Female; Foreign Countries; Grammar; Humans; Kindergarten; Kindergarten students; Language; Language Acquisition; Language Aptitude; Language Development Disorders - diagnosis; Language disorders; Language Impairments; Language Skills; Learning disabilities; Learning Processes; Male; Mean length of utterance; Morphology; Parent Attitudes; Parents & parenting; People with disabilities; Preschool Children; Preschool education; Receptive Language; Speaking; Special education; Standardized Tests; Surveys; Teacher Attitudes; Teacher evaluation; Teachers; Vietnam; Vietnamese; Vocabulary
• ISSN: 1092-4388; 1558-9102; 1558-9102
• DOI: 10.1044/2019_JSLHR-L-18-0305

Purpose: Developmental language disorder (DLD), defined by low language performance despite otherwise normal development, can negatively impact children's social and academic outcomes. This study is the 1st to examine DLD in Vietnamese. To lay the foundation, we identified cases of DLD in Vietnam and explored language-specific characteristics of the disorder. Method: Teacher ratings of 1,250 kindergarteners living in Hanoi, Vietnam, were used to recruit children with and without risk for DLD. One hundred four children completed direct measures of vocabulary and language sampling, and their parents completed in-depth surveys. We examined convergence and divergence across tasks to identify measures that could serve as reliable indicators of risk. Then, we compared performance on direct language measures across ability levels. Results: There were positive associations between teacher and parent report and between report and direct language measures. Three groups were identified based on convergence across measures: DLD, some risk for DLD, and no risk. The DLD group performed lowest on measures of receptive and expressive vocabulary, mean length of utterance, and grammaticality. Although children with DLD exhibited a greater number of errors, the types of errors found were similar across DLD and No Risk groups. Conclusions: Similar to rates found globally, 7% of the kindergarten population in Vietnam exhibited risk for DLD. Results highlight the importance of parent and teacher report and the value of multiple measures to identify DLD. We discuss potential clinical markers for DLD in the Vietnamese language and outline future directions.