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Justice and colleagues conclude that regardless of disability, classrooms in which most children have poor language skills are not ideal.  They suggest that since typically developing kids continue to improve their language skills even when they have some less-skilled classmates, administrators should aim for a diversity of skill level in the classroom.

Six hundred seventy preschoolers participated in the study.  Just over half of them had a clinically diagnosed disability, including autism spectrum disorder, language impairment, or Down syndrome.

The researchers found that preschoolers with special needs were more influenced by their peers’ language skills than were children without disabilities.  Children with disabilities whose classmates had weak language skills showed the strongest effects – by spring, their language skills lagged far behind those of typically developing children.