ABSTRACT
This chapter reports data from a longitudinal study of language development in children who presented as 'late talkers' in the second and third year of life. Patterns of development through the pre-school years and outcomes in early school age are described. Potential benefits and possible harmful effects of intervention are addressed. The results of these analyses are used to argue that for children from functional families with circumscribed language delays and no other risk factors, parent training to optimize language input will be the intervention of choice, along with careful and frequent monitoring of linguistic progress. Children with slow expressive language development (SELD), who at age 2 appear normal in every way but fail to begin talking, are often of concern to their parents and the clinicians their parents consult. The Portland Language Development Project (PLDP) has been following a group of these children with SELD, and a control group of peers with normal language history, since they were toddlers.
