Variation in morpho-lexical development within and between diagnoses in children with neurodevelopmental disorders.

While primary diagnosis is only one aspect of the presentation of a child with neurodevelopmental delay/disorder, the degree to which early expressive language reflects diagnostic divisions must be understood in order to reduce the risk of obscuring clinically important differences and similarities across diagnoses. We present original data from the New Zealand MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (NZCDI) from 88 English-speaking children aged 2;6 to 5;6 years receiving multidisciplinary intervention within a single family-centered program. The children had one of six pediatrician-assigned genetic or behaviorally determined diagnoses: Down syndrome (DS); motor disorders (cerebral palsy and developmental coordination disorder); global development delay; disorders of relating and communicating (R&C); other genetically defined diagnoses; or language delay due to premature (PREM) birth. Morphological and lexical development were compared within and across diagnostic groups, using both data visualization and mixed-effects modeling. Groups varied in the amount of variation within and between them, but only prematurity reached significance, in interaction with age, as a predictor of morpho-lexical scores. Further analysis of longitudinal data available from a subset of the sample (