Examination of language development in children with specific learning disabilities

Specific Learning Disability is a disorder diagnosed when individuals' reading, written expression and/or mathematics levels are significantly lower than expected, considering the level of intelligence and education they receive. In addition to the aforementioned academic skills, it is known that these children are behind their peers in terms of developmental language. The most common referral time for a Specific Learning Disability is during the school year. Early diagnosis of the aforementioned problem and then starting the necessary training early is of vital importance. The Turkish School Age Language Development Test is the Turkish version of the Test of Language Development-Primary: Fourth Edition, which is used in the diagnosis of specific language disorders abroad. The standardization of TODİL was carried out with 1252 children aged between 4.0-8.11 in 23 cities in seven geographical regions of our country. In this study, TODİL test was applied to children with Specific Learning Disability. Aim: In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the listening, comprehension and developmental language status of children under the age of 9 with Specific Learning Disability, thanks to the Turkish School Age Language Development Test. Based on the data obtained as a result of the study, it is aimed to gain more active language development in the education of these children. Method: The sample of the study was determined as 36 children under 9 years old. The TODİL test is a standardized test that can be applied up to 9 years of age. In addition to the demographic information of 36 children, screen exposure and pre-school education status were also learned. The effects of this information on the TODİL test were examined. The data were evaluated using the SPSS 25 program. It has been evaluated separately and in detail as the main tests and the resultant performances. In this context, the main tests are picture-vocabulary, related vocabulary, word description, sentence comprehension, sentence repetition and morpheme completion; The resultant performances include listening, organizing, speaking, grammar, semantics and oral language. Results: The study was applied to 36 children. 50% of the children are girls and 50% are boys. It was observed that 63.9% of children with specific learning difficulties had a lot of screen exposure and 52.8% did not have pre-school education. TODİL performances of children who did not receive pre-school education were lower than those who did. The same is true for pre-school education knowledge. In the resultant performance, 24 of the students were below average and weak; in the resultant organizing performance, 27 of the students were below average and weak; It is seen that 24 of the students perform below average and weak in speech resultant performance. In the resultant grammar performance, 24 of the students were below average and weak; in the resultant semantic performance, 21 of the students were below average and weak; It is seen that 25 of the students have below average and poor performance in verbal language resultant performance. Conclusion: When the results of the TODİL test were examined, it was observed that there was a decrease in the language development of children with Specific Learning Disability. In addition to these decreases, it was observed that demographic information also affected language development. It has been shown statistically that children with a lot of screen exposure have lower language development than children with less exposure. In addition, the language development of the children who did not receive pre-school education was found to be statistically significantly lower than the children who did.