Investigation of the Relationship Between Sensory Processing Skills and Language Development in Children With Developmental Language Disorders

Abstract

Background: The aim was to compare the sensory processing skills of children diagnosed with developmental language disorder (DLD) with those of typically developing children and to investigate the relationship between language development and sensory processing skills.

Methods: The investigation comprised 60 children, all of whom were typically developing and diagnosed with DLD. The "Early Language Development-Third: Turkish (ELD: Turkish)" and the "Sensory Profile (Caregiver Questionnaire)" were utilized to assess the language and sensory processing skills of the children, respectively, within the scope of the study.

Results: In our study, the four-factor scores of children with DLD were considerably lower than those of their typically developing peers (p < 0.05). These factors are sensory seeking, inattention/distractibility, fine motor/perceptual, and emotionally reactive. In addition, the children with DLD had statistically significant lower scores in three quadrants except for sensory sensitivity (p < 0.05). In three quadrants (sensation seeking, low registration, and sensory avoiding) and three factors (sensory seeking, inattention/distractibility, and fine motor/perceptual), a substantial correlation was observed between the sensory processing skills and the language skills.

Conclusions: It has been observed that there are differences in the sensory processing skills of children with DLD. In addition to evaluating the language skills of these children, it will also contribute to the evaluation of the effectiveness of their sensory processing skills and the development of more effective strategies in the intervention processes of these children.

Keywords: development language disorder; preschool period; sensory processing skills.

FIGURE 1

A graphic representation of the density of the groups’ four‐quadrant scores means.