scholarly journals The relationship between developmental language disorder and dyslexia in European Portuguese school-aged children

Author(s):  
Catia Margarida Oliveira ◽  
Ana Paula Vale ◽  
Jenny M. Thomson
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catia Margarida Oliveira ◽  
ana paula vale ◽  
Jenny M. Thomson

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and dyslexia are neurodevelopmental disorders which show similar behavioural manifestations. In this study, between-group comparisons and frequency analysis were combined to investigate the relationship between DLD and dyslexia. European Portuguese children aged 7-10 years, with DLD (N = 7) or dyslexia (N = 11) were recruited and compared to age-matched typically developing (TD) children (N = 21) on phonological processing, language and literacy measures. The between-group comparison revealed that for phonological processing, the clinical groups scored significantly below TD children on most tasks, yet the DLD group performed similarly to TD children for RAN speed and digit span. The clinical groups did not statistically differ in their phonological processing abilities. For language abilities, children with dyslexia did not differ from TD children, whilst children with DLD performed significantly below TD children on all measures and significantly below children with dyslexia for vocabulary. Finally, for literacy measures, there were no statistical differences between clinical groups which underperformed on all measures when compared to TD children. The frequency analysis showed that children with DLD exhibited a lower prevalence of RAN difficulties when compared to children with dyslexia, whilst children with DLD tended to show more frequent nonword repetition and phoneme deletion deficits. Additionally, whilst children with DLD consistently showed more prevalent language impairments, both clinical groups demonstrated similar prevalence rates of literacy deficits compared to TD children.These findings lend support to the additional deficit model of Bishop and Snowling (2004) as children with DLD show more severe and prevalent language impairments than those with dyslexia, despite similar phonological and literacy difficulties.


Author(s):  
Neeltje P. van den Bedem ◽  
Julie E. Dockrell ◽  
Petra M. van Alphen ◽  
Carolien Rieffe

Language problems are a risk factor for externalizing problems, but the developmental path remains unclear. Emotional competence may mediate the relationship, especially when externalizing problems are reactive in nature, such as in Oppositional Deviant Disorder (ODD) and reactive aggression. We examined the development of reactive and proactive externalizing problems in children with (n = 98) and without (n = 156) Developmental Language Disorder (DLD; age: 8–16 years) over 18 months. Relationships with communicative risk factors (structural, pragmatic and emotion communication) and the mediating role of emotional competence (emotion recognition and anger dysregulation) were examined. Multi-level analyses showed that increasing emotion recognition and decreasing anger dysregulation were longitudinally related to decreasing ODD symptoms in both groups, whereas anger dysregulation was related to more reactive aggression in children with DLD alone. Pragmatic and emotion communication problems were related to more reactive externalizing problems, but these relationships were mediated by emotional competence, suggesting that problems in emotional competence explain the communication problems of children with DLD. Therefore, in addition to interventions for communication skills, there is a need to address the emotional competence of children with DLD, as this decreases the risk for reactive externalizing problems.


2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel D Calder ◽  
Mary Claessen ◽  
Suze Leitão

Children with Developmental Language Disorder are likely to experience difficulties with morphosyntax, especially regular past tense marking. Few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of intervention to improve morphosyntax in young school-aged children with DLD. This study investigated the efficacy of combined explicit and implicit intervention techniques delivered by a speech pathologist to improve receptive and expressive grammar, including the use of past tense morphosyntax, using a multiple baseline single case experimental design. Participants were aged six to seven years and received two 1:1 45 minute sessions per week for five weeks (total 7.5 hours) using Shape Coding intervention techniques combined with implicit approaches. Two of the three participants made statistically significant gains on standardized tests of general receptive and expressive grammar. Two of the three children made statistically significant improvement on measures of expressive morphosyntax, with one participant continuing to improve five weeks post treatment. Findings suggest that this approach was efficacious. These findings warrant further investigation using larger group comparison research studies.


2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 971-1003 ◽  
Author(s):  
NATALIA RAKHLIN ◽  
SERGEY A. KORNILOV ◽  
DEAN PALEJEV ◽  
ROMAN A. KOPOSOV ◽  
JOSEPH T. CHANG ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTThis article describes the results of an epidemiological study of developmental language disorder (DLD) in an isolated rural Russian population. We report an atypically high prevalence of DLD across all age groups when contrasted with a comparison population. The results are corroborated by a set of comparisons of school-aged children from the target population with their age peers and mean length of utterance matches from the comparison population. We also investigate the relationship between nonverbal cognition, verbal working memory, and expressive language performance in the population, and find statistically significant but small effect sizes. Finally, we describe the complex and heterogeneous structure of the phenotype in the population along with patterns of its vertical transmission on the basis of the exemplar pedigrees, and discuss the implications of our findings for genetic and clinical studies of DLD.


Children ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 85
Author(s):  
Nadia Ahufinger ◽  
Amy Berglund-Barraza ◽  
Anabela Cruz-Santos ◽  
Laura Ferinu ◽  
Llorenç Andreu ◽  
...  

Nonword repetition has been proposed as a diagnostic marker of developmental language disorder (DLD); however, the inconsistency in the ability of nonword repetition tasks (NRT) to identify children with DLD raises significant questions regarding its feasibility as a clinical tool. Research suggests that some of the inconsistency across NRT may be due to differences in the nature of the nonword stimuli. In this study, we compared children’s performance on NRT between two cohorts: the children in the Catalan–Spanish cohort (CS) were bilingual, and the children in the European Portuguese cohort (EP) were monolingual. NRT performance was assessed in both Spanish and Catalan for the bilingual children from Catalonia-Spain and in Portuguese for the monolingual children from Portugal. Results show that although the absolute performance differed across the two cohorts, with NRT performance being lower for the CS, in both Catalan and Spanish, as compared to the EP cohort in both, the cut-points for the likelihood ratios (LH) were similar across the three languages and mirror those previously reported in previous studies. However, the absolute LH ratio values for this study were higher than those reported in prior research due in part to differences in wordlikeness and frequency of the stimuli in the current study. Taken together, the findings from this study show that an NRT consisting of 3-, 4-, and 5-syllable nonwords, which varies in wordlikeness ratings, when presented in a random order accurately identifies and correctly differentiates children with DLD from TD controls the child is bilingual or monolingual.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun Goh ◽  
Sarah Louise Griffiths ◽  
Courtenay Norbury

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) are at risk for social, emotional and behavioural (SEB) maladjustment throughout development, though it is unclear if poor language proficiency per se can account for this risk, as associations between language and SEB appear more variable among typical language children. This study investigates whether the relationship between language and SEB problems is stronger at very low levels of language, and considers confounders including socio-economic status, sex and non-verbal intelligence. These are examined using a population-based survey design, including children with a wide range of language and cognitive profiles, and assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and six standardised language measures (n = 363, weighted n = 6,451). Structural equation models adjusted for prior levels of SEB reveal that the relationship of language at age 5-6 years to SEB at 7-9 years was non-linear. Language more strongly predicted all clusters of SEB at disordered language levels relative to typical language levels; with standardised betas of -0.25 versus 0.03 for behavioural, -0.31 versus -0.04 for peer, and 0.27 versus 0.03 for prosocial, problems. Wald tests between these pairs of betas yielded p-values from .049 to .014. Sex moderated the nonlinear association between language and emotional symptoms. These findings indicate a clinical need to support language development in order to mitigate against problems of SEB, and to carefully monitor the mental health needs of children with DLD, particularly in the context of multiple, and potentially sex-specific, risks.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 2293-2307
Author(s):  
Leah L. Kapa ◽  
Jessie A. Erikson

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between executive functioning and word learning among preschoolers with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Method Forty-one preschool-age children with DLD were matched to typically developing children on age and sex. Participants were exposed to 10 novel pseudowords, half of which referred to familiar objects and half of which referred to unfamiliar objects. Their ability to produce, recognize, and comprehend the novel words was tested, and they completed executive function tasks measuring sustained selective attention, short-term memory, working memory, inhibition, and shifting. Results Preschoolers with DLD performed worse compared to typically developing peers on all measures of executive function and novel word learning. Both groups showed a relative weakness in producing pseudowords that corresponded with familiar objects versus pseudowords for unknown objects. Executive function accounted for statistically significant variance in word learning beyond group membership, with inhibition as a significant predictor of all word learning outcomes and short-term memory as a significant predictor of novel word comprehension. Executive function explained significant variance in novel word production and recognition even after accounting for variance explained by group differences in IQ and receptive vocabulary. Conclusion Findings replicate previous research reporting deficits in word learning and executive function in children with DLD, indicate that preschoolers are disadvantaged in learning new words for familiar objects, and support a relationship between executive function and word learning for children with and without DLD. Future research should examine the directionality of the relationship between these variables.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 239694151879539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire L Forrest ◽  
Jenny L Gibson ◽  
Sarah L Halligan ◽  
Michelle C St Clair

Background and aim Individuals with developmental language disorder have been found to exhibit increased emotional difficulties compared to their typically developed peers. However, the underlying pathways involved in this relationship are unclear. It may be that poor language leads to social exclusion, resulting in feelings of frustration and isolation. Additionally, previous research has focused on clinical samples or early childhood in population cohorts. Therefore, the current paper examines the mediating effect of childhood peer problems on poor emotional outcomes in adolescence using a population cohort. Methods Data from the Millennium Cohort Study were analysed at ages 5, 7 and 14. The risk of developmental language disorder group (children considered at risk of developing developmental language disorder based on parental report of difficulties or a score −1.5 standard deviation on Naming Vocabulary subtest at age 5) was compared to a general population group. A Sobel–Goodman test was used to examine the mediating effect of teacher-reported peer problems at age 7 on the association between language difficulties at age 5 and parent-reported emotional problems at age 7 and 14. Results Peer problems at age 7 accounted for approximately 14% of the effect of language difficulties at age 5 on emotional problems at age 7, and approximately 17% of the effect of language difficulties at age 5 on emotional problems at age 14. Conclusions This paper supports previous findings that children and adolescents with language difficulties are at increased risk for social and emotional problems as reported by their parents and teachers. Furthermore, the findings show that peer problems partially mediate the relationship between language difficulties and emotional problems, suggesting that better relationships with peers may offer some protection against poor mental health outcomes in adolescents at risk of developmental language disorder. Implications This paper adds to the literature that investigates the mechanisms involved in the relationship between developmental language disorder and increased emotional problems. Practitioners wishing to reduce risk of emotional difficulties in children with developmental language disorder may wish to reflect on what they can do to support a child to develop positive peer relationships.


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