Elicited imitation of language was used as a technique to identify the performance characteristics on this task of a population of severely mentally handicapped subjects (n = 108; mean CA = 136.3 months, s.d. 36.6 months; mean vocabulary age (English Picture Vocabulary Test) 39.8 months, s.d. 22.4 months). The results indicate that such a psycholinguistic assessment technique is useful in identifying language ability levels in this population and can complement other more traditional epidemiological data. The study also has implications for the design of language intervention programmes in particular areas of deficiency for this group.
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