Prediction and persistence of late talking: A study of Italian toddlers at 29 and 34 months

This study analyzed the communicative, linguistic and symbolic skills in Italian Late Talking (LT) toddlers. Thirty-five participants were identified through a language-screening program at 29 months by using the Italian version of MB-CDI W&S Short Form. Cognitive, communicative and linguistic skills were evaluated 5 later, with indirect and direct tools. The MB-CDI WS Short Form revealed, in LT children, weakness in gesture production, decontextualized comprehension, verbal imitation, symbolic play, and phonological accuracy. Our results confirmed lexical size at 29 months is the predictive factor to identify language delay at 34 months. The clinical assessment at 34 months confirmed that 89% of the LT children had a vocabulary size below the 10th percentile on the MB-CDI Complete Form. On a structured task, LT children showed lexical comprehension more preserved than lexical production, and more advanced skills in nouns than in predicates. Weakness in socioconversational abilities emerged. Correlation among maternal education, expressive vocabulary and socio-conversational competence in LT children was evidenced. Strong association among cognitive, communicative and linguistic skills were documented.