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Background Even in the age of two years toddlers with Expressive Language Impairment (SLI-E) differ regarding their phonetic inventories compared with an age-matched group developing normally. Method and patients PCC-R scores of 19 children with expressive language disorder, aged between four and six years, are compared with age and sex matched controls with normal language acquisition. Results There are significant differences between PCC-R scores, children with expressive language disorder show lower scores than children with normal language acquisition. Age, sex and nonverbal intelligence do not influence performance measured with PCC-R. Analysis regarding early, middle and late consonants shows, that expressive language disordered children show bigger problems in aquiring late than early and middle consonants.

Difficulties in language acquisition seem to be serious, if there are additional problems like intellectual and/or emotional/social impairment, which are often reported [10]. These additional problems and the definition of specific language impairment as a developmental disorder, restricted to language acquisition seem to be contradictory [17]. Aim of that study is to look for specific language impaired children with similar cognitive abilities and though to investigate, if there are children without additional cognitive problems considering the definition of specific language impairment. 93 children, between 4;0 and 6;6 years old, were diagnostized as specific language impaired (ICD-10) and were assessed by the "Hannover Wechsler Intelligenztest fur das Vorschulalter (HAWIVA)" [6] (german version of WPPSI). Cluster analysis showed, that 1/3 of the specific language impaired children presented no additional cognitive problems and 2/3 of them showed cognitive problems regarding nonverbal and verbal intelligence indeed. These additional cognitive problems indicate that there may be a more basic cognitive defect underlying specific language impairment [15]--at least for a group of specific language impaired children. Furthermore the nonverbal and verbal intellectual difficulties emphasize to general developmental support of specific language impaired children for optimal improvement in language acquisition.

Background Reading acuity as well as reading speed are good predictors of everyday visual function. As visual acuity tests are poor predictors of the real-world function, performance-based tests, e.g., reading speed measurements, can be used for the determination of visual function. Thus, a German reading chart was developed in order to evaluate reading acuity as well as reading speed. Methods Print size is defined as the height of a lower case x and progresses logarithmically from one phrase to another (factor: 1.25). Reading acuity is determined in LogRAD (Reading Acuity Determination). 32 short German phrases were created, comparable concerning grammatical difficulty as well as in number (n = 14), length and position of words. The reading speed parameters measured with a stop-watch in 160 persons (aged: Phi = 21a +/- 3.8a) were calculated in words per minute (w/min). Out of the 32 phrases the 24 most similar ones were selected statistically and used for the reading charts (Radner Reading Charts). With these reading charts a reading acuity score (LogRAD-score) can be calculated considering reading errors in words of different length. Reading speed can be determined at the same time. Reading acuity (LogRAD-Score) was measured in 32 normal eyes of 16 students and compared to the angular visual acuity (LogMAR). Results The mean reading speed of the test persons was 211.8 +/- 34.1 w/min. 24 phrases fulfilled the test item criteria for the reading chart: mean +/- 0.25 x SD. The reliability analyses yielded an overall Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.98! The mean visual acuity measured in 32 eyes was -0.115 +/- 0.097 LogMAR and the mean reading acuity score was +0.026 +/- 0.091 LogRAD. The mean difference was +0.104 +/- 0.066 and the correlation between LogMAR and LogRAD was good (r = 0.59). Conclusions With these reading charts it is for the first time possible to simultaneously determine reading acuity as well as reading speed in German. The high reliability of the 24 phrases and the high correlation between LogMAR and LogRAD leads us to expect a good reproducibility of the reading acuity evaluations. For the "Radner Reading Charts" we have shown that print size is the main reason for changes of reading speed.

33 children with Specific Language Impairment (F 80, ICD 10) were randomly selected and their results regarding nonverbal intelligence, passive vocabulary and sentence comprehension were compared with datas of 33 control children matched by age and sex. Although cognitive performance is average in both groups, significant differences regarding nonverbal intelligence are found. Whereas nonverbal intelligence is predictable from sentence comprehension to a high degree in den SLI-group, it is not predictable in the control group. Es wurden bei 33 sprachentwicklungsgestorten (Specific Language Impairment) Kindergartenkindern die nonverbale Intelligenz und das Sprachverstandnis untersucht und die Ergebnisse mit denen von 33 alters- und geschlechtsparallelisierten Kindergartenkindern mit unauffalliger Sprachentwicklung verglichen. Obwohl sowohl die sprachentwicklungsgestorten als auch die alters- und geschlechtsparallelisierten Kindergartenkinder mit unauffalliger Sprachentwicklung intellektuelle Werte im Durchschnittsbereich erzielen, gibt es doch signifikante Unterschiede in der Intelligenz zwischen den beiden Gruppen. Wahrend sich bei den sprachentwicklungsgesunden Kindergartenkindern kaum Zusammenhange zwischen Intelligenz und Sprachverstandnis zeigen, findet sich bei sprachentwicklungsgestorten Kindergartenkindern ein Zusammenhang zwischen nonverbalen intellektuellen Fahigkeiten und dem Verstandnis grammatischer Strukturformen.