Learning to drive in young adults with language impairment

Abstract

HighlightsFirst study of entry into driving by young people with language impairment (LI).Individuals with LI are less likely than peers to have acquired a licence by age 24.Language and independence at 17 contribute to the prediction of holding a licence.Individuals with LI are at no greater risk of traffic violations/accidents.Individuals with LI may benefit from support during the preparation and test phases.

Young Adults With Developmental Language Disorder: A Systematic Review of Education, Employment, and Independent Living Outcomes

“…This could be explained by the fact that having language difficulties during adolescence may limit the breadth and variety of experiences in the community, thereby leading to shyness and lower self-esteem. As for the driver's license, young adults identified language challenges regarding the driving theory test, such as understanding the questions (Durkin et al, 2016). This is in line with previous research showing more difficulties in adolescents with DLD to understand compound nouns and verbs related to driving compared to their peers without DLD (Pandolfe et al, 2016).…”

“…A total of 15 articles met all inclusion criteria. A careful examination of the 15 articles revealed that samples were reused to test different hypotheses and that, in total, only four independent samples were used, for a total of 1,051 participants with DLD: 84 participants in the Manchester Language Study Conti-Ramsden & Durkin, 2012;Conti-Ramsden et al, 2016Durkin et al, 2017Durkin et al, , 2016Toseeb et al, 2017;Winstanley, Durkin, et al, 2018;, 75 participants in the Ottawa Language Study (Beitchman et al, 2014;Johnson et al, 2010), 861 participants in the British Cohort Study (Law et al, 2009;Schoon et al, 2010a), and 31 participants in the Family Study of Speech and Language Disorders (Lewis et al, 2016).…”

“…For independent living, language abilities cannot be used to predict parenthood (Johnson et al, 2010) and financial literacy skills , two outcomes that may be too distantly related to language. However, the oral language skills measured at age of 17 years did predict two outcomes at age of 24 years: shyness and self-esteem levels (Durkin et al, 2017), as well as having a driver's license (Durkin et al, 2016). This could be explained by the fact that having language difficulties during adolescence may limit the breadth and variety of experiences in the community, thereby leading to shyness and lower self-esteem.…”

“…Although they reported similar access to social support, from family and friends, for example, they received a greater degree of support from these sources than participants in the comparison group . In parallel, fewer young adults with DLD had a driver's license at age of 24 years (43% vs. 75%; Durkin et al, 2016), with language scores at age of 17 years being a significant predictor of this achievement for the DLD group. Importantly, there was no difference between the two groups in terms of traffic violations or accident rates, driving confidence, and road test success rates.…”

“…The terms DLD group and comparison group will be used throughout this review, even if they do not correspond to those used in each study. Indeed, we identified six terms referring to participants with DLD: specific language impairment (Conti-Ramsden & Durkin, 2012;Law et al, 2009), nonspecific language impairment (Law et al, 2009), language impairment Conti-Ramsden et al, 2016;Durkin et al, 2017Durkin et al, , 2016Johnson et al, 2010;Lewis et al, 2016;Toseeb et al, 2017), developmental language disorder (Conti-Ramsden et al, 2018;Winstanley, Durkin, et al, 2018;, language disorder (Beitchman et al, 2014), and poor receptive language skills (Schoon et al, 2010a). Concerning the risk of bias, the three criteria were evaluated for each cohort, as detailed in Table 1.…”