This study explored the differences in mean length of utterance (MLU) and mean length of the five longest utterances (MLU5) between 5–6-year-old Mandarin-speaking children, and between typically developing children and children with developmental language disorders (DLD). Eighty-nine typically developing children and 35 children with a DLD participated in this study. The researchers collected, transcribed, and analysed language samples from these children. MLU and MLU5 were analysed and compared between the groups. The results showed that MLU and MLU5 were significantly higher for 6-year-olds than 5-year-olds. Also, both MLU measures were significantly lower for children with DLD than for typically developing children. The findings demonstrate that MLU and MLU5 can be used to evaluate language ability and to identify children with DLD among Mandarin-speaking children aged 5 and 6 years.

中文翻译：

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有和没有 DLD 的普通话儿童的平均话语长度

本研究探讨了 5-6 岁说普通话的儿童之间，以及正常发育儿童和发育性语言障碍 (DLD) 儿童之间的平均话语长度 (MLU) 和五个最长话语的平均长度 (MLU5) 的差异。 ）。89 名典型发育儿童和 35 名患有 DLD 的儿童参加了这项研究。研究人员收集、转录并分析了这些儿童的语言样本。MLU 和 MLU5 进行了分析和组间比较。结果表明，6岁儿童的MLU和MLU5显着高于5岁儿童。此外，DLD 儿童的 MLU 测量值显着低于正常发育儿童。