Music Perception Influences Language Acquisition: Melodic and Rhythmic-Melodic Perception in Children with Specific Language Impairment

Table 1

Summary of characteristics of the three groups of participants (SLI: Children with Specific Language Impairment; CA: children of comparable age; CL: children with comparable linguistic abilities) encompassing age and gender distribution, performance in psychometric tests (language screening and general cognitive skills), and variables reflecting the socioeconomic background. (T): T-scores, (S): standard scores, (R): raw scores.

	SLI ()	CA ()	CL ()
Age (in months)	64.2 (56–71)	63.6 (57–71)	51.3 (48–55)
Gender (male/female)	19/10	22/17	8/5
Psychometric tests
Language comprehension (T)	38.9 (20–59)	51.8 (39–72)	54.5 (40–74)
Language production (T)	39.5 (21–79)	56.3 (40–79)	58.2 (45–72)
Nonword repetition (T)	31.5 (20–61)	53.0 (35–68)	56.4 (35–70)
Sentence repetition (T)	37.3 (20–58)	55.0 (41–74)	55.3 (39–63)
Phoneme discrimination (R)	9.8 (3–17)	12.6 (7–17)	11.8 (6–16)
Nonverbal IQ (S)	91.8 (81–115)	101.8 (84–120)	103.1 (85–125)
Socioeconomic status
Mother’s occupation (ISEI)	34.2 (16–52)	42.8 (25–66)	50.4 (29–73)
Father’s occupation (ISEI)	34.5 (23–71)	37.4 (19–69)	39.4 (29–73)
Children’s books	45.4 (1–207)	46.4 (4–138)	42.5 (1–102)
Children’s CDs	25.2 (0–88)	21.6 (5–55)	23.3 (7–70)