Purpose The mean length of children’s utterances is a valuable estimate of their early language acquisition. The available normative data lacks documentation of language and nonverbal intelligence levels of the samples. This study reports age-referenced MLU data from children with specific language impairment and children without language impairments. Method 306 child participants were drawn from a data archive, ages 2;6–9;0 years, 170 with SLI and 136 control children. 1564 spontaneous language samples were collected, transcribed and analyzed for sample size and MLU in words and morphemes. Means, standard deviations, and effect sizes for group differences are reported for MLUs, along with concurrent language and nonverbal intelligence assessments, per 6-month intervals. Results The results document an age progression in MLU words and morphemes, and a persistent lower level of performance for children with SLI. Conclusions The results support the reliability and validity of MLU as an index of normative language acquisition and a marker of language impairment. The findings can be used for clinical benchmarking of deficits and language intervention outcomes, as well as comparisons across research samples.

Although cancer presents obstacles for all who experience it, persons in rural communities must negotiate additional challenges. This study determined the cancer information (CI) needs and the CI-seeking behavior and preferences among rural-dwelling persons. Patients (N = 801) = 50 years of age seen in 36 rural Kansas primary care practices completed a Cancer Care Information Needs Survey (CCINS); physicians completed a cancer resource knowledge and preference survey. Of the 801 patients, 184 (23%) reported a CI need. Of these 184 patients, 45% reported either not discussing cancer or having insufficient discussion time with their physicians; 44% needed more information after consulting their physician. Patients more likely to report a CI need were young, female, Internet users, persons with a prior cancer diagnosis, and persons seeing male physicians or physicians in group/multispecialty practices. Patients and physicians were unfamiliar with services provided by national cancer organizations. Physicians are a primary CI source; however, patients who need CI report insufficient cancer discussion time with their physician and need more CI after consulting their physician. Promoting access to national CI sources could bridge the CI needs gap that exists in rural areas currently.

Despite success in randomized controlled trials, reminder systems are not used often by primary care providers and are used even less often in rural compared to urban practices. Consistent implementation may be a major barrier to the successful adaptation of flowsheets by primary care offices.

Although faced with more limited resources, some rural hospitals, like their urban counterparts, have implemented protocols to address emergent care of AMI patients. Nevertheless, many of these protocols omit crucial aspects of AMI care. Rural and urban hospitals should jointly develop systems that assure consistent, rapid delivery of AMI care.

This paper is part of a series that focuses on DDI usage and how the metadata specification should be applied in a variety of settings by a variety of organizations and individuals. Support for this working paper series was provided by the authors' home institutions; by GESIS -Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences; by Schloss Dagstuhl -Leibniz Center for Informatics; and by the DDI Alliance.