Little is known about the short-term language outcomes when a traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs in early childhood during a critical period of language development. Our study aimed to characterize the language profiles of preschool aged children in the subacute stage of traumatic brain injury (TBI) as an essential step to inform long-term language trajectories of preschool TBI. A retrospective chart review of 50 children ages 15 months to 5 years 11 months with moderate to severe TBI who received inpatient rehabilitation services between the years of 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2016 were included. Results showed that children with reported standardized assessment scores for both expressive and receptive language (n=18) had low average to average performance in both areas (85 to 100 standard score); no significant difference between receptive and expressive group means was found. Interestingly, for a small subset of children who were assessed at both admission and discharge (n=5), expressive language showed rapid improvement in as few as 2 months in comparison to receptive language that had consistently low-average scores at both time points. Many children did not have standardized assessment scores (n=23) due to age, difficulty attending to testing items, query of developmental differences (e.g. Autism Spectrum Disorder), severity of impairment, or being learners of English as a Second Language. Future directions for tool creation for ‘hard to test’ children and dual-language learners are discussed as well as recommendations for clinicians working with preschool children with TBI.

Characterization of speech and language impairment in subacute preschool traumatic brain injury: A retrospective chart review