(aged 8-17) who had sustained a closed head injury at least 12 months prior to the study. Speech and language functioning was examined in an effort to develop a comprehensive profile of the type and severity of long-term speech/language disorders that arise as a function of the concussion.
Children in the Jordan et al study were evaluated once, and then again one year later in order to monitor their progress. All subjects were given a battery of speech/language assessment instruments such as an articulation/phonological assessment test, an oromotor test, an overall language test and a number of specific language skills tests.
Both the initial testing and the re-test findings observed for year later were compared to a control sample of non-neurologically impaired children. Controls were matched to the brain concussion children on the variables of age, sex and socioeconomic status. Findings showed that the overall language performance of the head-injured children, on both occasions of testing, were significantly lower than the control children; however, the performance of the head-injured children had significantly improved at retest.
On the whole, this study was well conducted. However, there are some methodological problems. First, while children were matched for age, and other variables, it seems reasonable to suggest that an important factor inputting into how well a child comprehends and uses language is intelligence. Since children were not matched for intelligence, there exists the possibility that some of the variance in language assessments might be due not to differences on the independent variable of Neurological Status (impaired vs. non-impaired) but rather due to differences in children's intelligence.
Failure to match for intelligence was also a problem with a similar study conducted by Jordan, Ozanne and Murdoch (1990) in which another group of closed-head injury children were assessed for naming skills u...