Evidence from imaging on the relationship between brain structure and developmental language disorders

1997 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Semrud-Clikeman
Author(s):  
Andrea Marini ◽  
Barbara Piccolo ◽  
Livia Taverna ◽  
Moira Berginc ◽  
Martina Ozbič

Backgrounds: The relationship between linguistic difficulties and cognitive impairments in children with developmental language disorders (DLDs) is receiving growing interest in international research. Executive functions (EF) appear to be weak in these children. The current investigation aims at exploring the relationship between difficulties in two components of EF (i.e., updating and inhibition) and the linguistic and narrative skills of 16 DLD preschoolers matched with 24 typically developing peers. Methods: Updating skills were tested by administering the forward and backward digit recall subtests of the Wechsler Scales, while children’s inhibition abilities were assessed by completion of Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment (NEPSY-II) inhibition tasks. Information on the linguistic skills of the participants was collected through a set of subtests included in the Batteria per la Valutazione del Linguaggio in bambini dai 4 ai 12 anni (Batteria per la Valutazione del Linguaggio; BVL_4-12), assessing articulatory and phonological discrimination skills, lexical production/comprehension, grammatical production/comprehension, and narrative production skills. Results: Findings revealed that DLD children performed significantly lower than their peers on both updating and inhibitory tasks. Linguistic difficulties were found in the DLD group on articulatory/phonological skills, grammatical production/comprehension, and lexical informativeness on narrative production. Measures of EF correlated with linguistic and narrative measures. Conclusion: The current study confirms a significant association between DLD’s performances on EF and displayed linguistic skills, suggesting the need to include the assessment of executive functions to target early intervention rehabilitation programs for children with DLDs.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Mewton ◽  
Briana Lees ◽  
Lindsay Squeglia ◽  
Miriam K. Forbes ◽  
Matthew Sunderland ◽  
...  

Categorical mental disorders are being recognized as suboptimal targets in clinical neuroscience due to poor reliability as well as high rates of heterogeneity within, and comorbidity between, mental disorders. As an alternative to the case-control approach, recent studies have focused on the relationship between neurobiology and latent dimensions of psychopathology. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between brain structure and psychopathology in the critical preadolescent period when psychopathology is emerging. This study included baseline data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study® (n = 11,721; age range = 9-10 years; male = 52.2%). General psychopathology, externalizing, internalizing, and thought disorder dimensions were based on a higher-order model of psychopathology and estimated using Bayesian plausible values. Outcome variables included global and regional cortical volume, thickness, and surface area. Higher levels of psychopathology across all dimensions were associated with lower volume and surface area globally, as well as widespread and pervasive alterations across the majority of cortical and subcortical regions studied, after adjusting for sex, race/ethnicity, and parental education. The relationships between general psychopathology and brain structure were attenuated when adjusting for cognitive functioning. There was evidence of a relationship between externalizing psychopathology and frontal regions of the cortex that was independent of general psychopathology. The current study identified lower cortical volume and surface area as transdiagnostic biomarkers for general psychopathology in preadolescence. The widespread and pervasive relationships between general psychopathology and brain structure may reflect cognitive dysfunction that is a feature across a range of mental illnesses.


2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
CAROLYN B. MERVIS ◽  
BYRON F. ROBINSON

Accurate phenotypic description is critical for the success of studies of the genetic basis for developmental language disorders. An important purpose of such a phenotypic description is to differentiate the language and associated cognitive profiles of syndromes or other developmental language disorders with diverse genotypes. In this paper we consider six measurement issues relevant to genotype/phenotype research and profiling: (a) Who is the target population? (b) What is the “ideal” measure of a single component of language? (c) What is the “ideal” measure(s) for quantifying the language (or language and cognitive) profile for a particular syndrome or disorder? (d) What are the special measurement issues for infants and young children? (e) How do we develop a profile? (f) What are the unresolved issues?


1975 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy M. Aram ◽  
James E. Nation

Tests to measure comprehension, formulation, and repetition of certain phonologic, syntactic, and semantic aspects of language were administered to 47 children who had developmental language disorders. A factor analysis of the resultant scores indicated that three factors were present in the data. These factors are presented as six patterns of language performance, one for high loadings on the factor and one for low loadings. The six patterns are (1) repetition strength (Factor I, high); (2) nonspecific formulation-repetition deficit (Factor I, low); (3) generalized low performance (Factor II, high); (4) phonologic comprehension-formulation-repetition deficit (Factor II, low); (5) comprehension deficit (Factor III, high); and (6) formulation-repetition deficit (Factor III, low). Possible relations among these patterns and nonlinguistic measures (sex, race, age, nonverbal intelligence, socioeconomic status, and status of the peripheral speech mechanism) were investigated. Two of the patterns of language performance were found to be related significantly to age. On Factor II, the younger children tended to get high loadings (generalized low performance) while the older children tended to get low loadings (phonologic comprehension-formulation-repetition deficit).


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtenay Norbury ◽  
Sarah Louise Griffiths ◽  
George Vamvakas ◽  
Gillian Baird ◽  
Tony Charman ◽  
...  

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to determine the changing prevalence of developmental language disorders at different quintiles of the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI), a measure of neighbourhood deprivation. In addition, this study investigated the long term association of IDACI rank with growth in language and literacy skills for children with and without language disorder over a six year period.Design. Prospective, population-based, longitudinal cohort study.Setting. State-maintained primary schools in Surrey, England.Participants and procedure. Teachers rated the language skills of 7267 children starting a state-maintained school in 2011 (aged 4;9-5;10, 59% of all eligible children). Comprehensive language and literacy assessment was conducted with a monolingual sub-sample in Year 1 (n = 529, age 5-6), Year 3 (n = 499, age 7-8), and Year 6 (n = 384, age 10-11).Analytic methods. Logistic regression determined the association of IDACI scores and teacher-rated language proficiency. Structural Equation Models using auxiliary variables estimated the association of IDACI and prevalence of developmental Language Disorder (LD) in Year 1, and IDACI and language and literacy growth from Years 1 – 6.Results. Predicted probability of language disorder was 2.5 times greater at the 10th centile of IDACI rank (.19 [.11, .27]) versus the 90th centile (.07 [.04, .09]). IDACI rank did not associate with growth in raw scores on measures of vocabulary, grammar, or word reading. Socioeconomic gaps in vocabulary and grammar were ameliorated when language status at school entry was accounted for, but persisted for word reading. Conclusions. The association of neighbourhood disadvantage with language and literacy primarily reflects higher rates of language disorder in areas of socio-economic deprivation. Interventions that alleviate deprivation and enhance the language and literacy experiences of disadvantaged children could reduce socioeconomic attainment gaps. However, the persistence of language disorder suggests on-going support is required to attenuate personal and societal cost.


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