Backgroud & Objectives: The purpose of this study was to review the recent research trend regarding language development and language disorders of school-aged children.
Methods:We reviewed the articles published from 1991 to 2007 in the international and Korean journals that focus on speech-language pathology. A total of 36 articles were selected and divided into two research areas (language development and language disorders). The following information was extracted from each article and analyzed aspects of language, participants, research method, dependent variables, and major results.
Results: (1) Of the 29 articles published abroad, nine (31%) focused on language development and 20 (69%) focused on language disorders. Of the seven articles published in Korea, four (57%) pertained to language development and three (43%) pertained to language disorders. (2) In the international articles pertaining to language development, the participants consisted of school-aged children (23%), school-aged children and adolescents (23%), and adults (21%). Most of the international articles focusing on the aspects of language development specifically analyzed discourse (45%) followed by semantics (33%) and grammar (22%). A of total four articles published in Korea analysed school-aged children, and they all focused on discourse studies. (3) In the articles on language disorders, the participants consisted of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI)(55%), Language Learning Disability (LLD)(25%), Language Impairment (LI)(15%), and Language Disability (LD)(5%) in the international journals. Most of the international articles focusing on the aspects of language disorders specifically analyzed discourse (40%) followed by grammar (35%), pragmatics (20%), and semantics (5%). Participants in the Korean articles were children with SLI (77%) and LD (33%), and these articles focused on pragmatics (67%) and discourse (33%).
Discussion & Conclusion: We discussed the results and suggested a direction for future research on language development and disorders of school-aged children.
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