The current stage of the Study

We are interested in mapping out how successfully or unsuccessfully individuals with a history of SLI engage with adult life in their mid twenties (23-25 years). This will be the first large study of adult functioning in SLI in the UK and will investigate a wide range of areas of functioning including those which have not been examined previously. We are committed to providing information that is of interest/concern to professionals, parents and the young adults themselves. We have gathered the opinions of these stakeholders via focus groups and seminars in preparation for this project. Within this context, we arrived at three broad domains of functioning: personal, social and societal.

The personal domain includes general health (weight, exercise, leisure, diet, smoking, alcohol, drugs), mental health (anxiety, depression) and educational/training qualifications. The social domain includes personal relationships (marital status, children, friendships, stable partnerships, parents, siblings) and social adjustment (aggression/criminality). Societal engagement includes employment (including occupational adjustment), independence (living context, transport, driving), finances (banking, financial literacy, debt, gambling, receipt of benefits) civic participation (voting, volunteering), TV viewing and new media use (computers, mobile phones).

We will examine a number of attributes that have been shown to be theoretically relevant to SLI that cover cognitive, linguistic, as well as social aspects of the individual. For each of those we have relevant longitudinal data. In addition, our recent work on the overlap between SLI and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) motivates the inclusion of ASD symptomatology. We also include attributes that are particularly pertinent to the transition to adulthood, such as self-esteem and self-efficacy. Environmental factors include demographic factors that have been shown to be related to language development (maternal education, household income). We also include sources of support and an objective measure of parental language skills (assessed as part of a previous wave of the study) as an index of the linguistic environment the individual has been exposed to. It is expected that proximal factors will have a larger effect than distal factors.

Each participant will be seen at their home or suitable place (e.g. parent's home) by a researcher for around two to three sessions (morning, afternoon or evening, to suit the participant). Participants will complete a battery of psychometric assessments in addition to extensive interviews. If the participant consents, they will be asked to nominate someone (e.g. parent or close friend or partner) to fill in a questionnaire or talk to us about them.