Nonword repetition to identify DLD in older school-age children A French nonword repetition test with word-like and nonword-like items from 2 to 8 syllables

Objectives. A high diagnostic accuracy of nonword-repetition tests to identify Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) has been shown for monolingual and bilingual children of preschool and younger school-age. This study extended the study of NWR to older school-age children. Methods. An existing French NWR test with proven diagnostic accuracy at age 5 years was modified by adding items ranging from 6 to 8 syllables, including word-like and nonword-like items. The test was administered to a total of 64 participants including French speakers in grade 3, grade 6 and adults, as well as to bilingual children and children with DLD. Results. Children with DLD differed significantly from TD children in overall score across world length, error frequency and error types, and made less efficient use of word-likeness. Bilingual TD children performed overall as well as monolingual peers. Age effects were found only between adults and school-age groups. Conclusions. Older children require more complex NWR tasks. Components of NWR performance beyond overall score can be used to achieve high levels of diagnostic accuracy for the identification of DLD in older children rather than applying one measure to all populations.