scholarly journals Model selection reveals the butyrate-producing gut bacterium Coprococcus eutactus as predictor for language development in three-year-old rural Ugandan children

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remco Kort ◽  
Job Schlösser ◽  
Alan R. Vazquez ◽  
Prudence Atukunda ◽  
Grace K.M. Muhoozi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Gut Microbiota ◽  
Maternal Education ◽  
Language Ability ◽  
Campylobacter Coli ◽  
Strictly Anaerobic ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Impaired Group ◽  
Facultative Anaerobic Bacteria ◽  
Impaired Children

ABSTRACTIntroductionThe metabolic activity of the gut microbiota plays a pivotal role in the gut-brain axis through the effects of bacterial metabolites on brain function and development. In this study we investigated the association of gut microbiota composition with language development of three-year-old rural Ugandan children.MethodsWe studied the language ability in 139 children of 36 months in our controlled maternal education intervention trial to stimulate children’s growth and development. The dataset includes 1170 potential predictors, including anthropometric and cognitive parameters at 24 months, 542 composition parameters of the children’s gut microbiota at 24 months and 621 of these parameters at 36 months. We applied a novel computationally efficient version of the all-subsets regression methodology and identified predictors of language ability of 36-months-old children scored according to the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (BSID-III).ResultsThe best three-term model, selected from more than 266 million models, includes the predictors Coprococcus eutactus at 24 months of age, Bifidobacterium at 36 months of age, and language development at 24 months. The top 20 four-term models, selected from more than 77 billion models, consistently include Coprococcus eutactus abundance at 24 months, while 14 of these models include the other two predictors as well. Mann-Whitney U tests further suggest that the abundance of gut bacteria in language non-impaired children (n = 78) differs from that in language impaired children (n = 61) at 24 months. While obligate anaerobic butyrate-producers, including Coprococcus eutactus, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, Holdemanella biformis, Roseburia hominis are less abundant, facultative anaerobic bacteria, including Granulicatella elegans, Escherichia/Shigella and Campylobacter coli, are more abundant in language impaired children. The overall predominance of oxygen tolerant species in the gut microbiota of Ugandan children at the age 24 months, expressed as the Metagenomic Aerotolerant Predominance Index (MAPI), was slightly higher in the language impaired group than in the non-impaired group (P = 0.09).ConclusionsApplication of the all-subsets regression methodology to microbiota data established a correlation between the relative abundance of the anaerobic butyrate-producing gut bacterium Coprococcus eutactus and language development in Ugandan children. We propose that the gut redox potential and the overall bacterial butyrate-producing capacity could be factors of importance as gut microbiota members with a positive correlation to language development are mostly strictly anaerobic butyrate-producers, while microbiota members that correlate negatively, are predominantly oxygen tolerant with a variety of known adverse effects.

scholarly journals Model Selection Reveals the Butyrate-Producing Gut Bacterium Coprococcus eutactus as Predictor for Language Development in 3-Year-Old Rural Ugandan Children

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remco Kort ◽  
Job Schlösser ◽  
Alan R. Vazquez ◽  
Prudence Atukunda ◽  
Grace K. M. Muhoozi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Gut Microbiota ◽  
Maternal Education ◽  
Anaerobic Bacteria ◽  
Language Ability ◽  
Campylobacter Coli ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Impaired Group ◽  
Facultative Anaerobic Bacteria ◽  
Impaired Children

IntroductionThe metabolic activity of the gut microbiota plays a pivotal role in the gut-brain axis through the effects of bacterial metabolites on brain function and development. In this study we investigated the association of gut microbiota composition with language development of 3-year-old rural Ugandan children.MethodsWe studied the language ability in 139 children of 36 months in our controlled maternal education intervention trial to stimulate children’s growth and development. The dataset includes 1170 potential predictors, including anthropometric and cognitive parameters at 24 months, 542 composition parameters of the children’s gut microbiota at 24 months and 621 of these parameters at 36 months. We applied a novel computationally efficient version of the all-subsets regression methodology and identified predictors of language ability of 36-months-old children scored according to the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (BSID-III).ResultsThe best three-term model, selected from more than 266 million models, includes the predictors Coprococcus eutactus at 24 months of age, Bifidobacterium at 36 months of age, and language development at 24 months. The top 20 four-term models, selected from more than 77 billion models, consistently include C. eutactus abundance at 24 months, while 14 of these models include the other two predictors as well. Mann–Whitney U tests suggest that the abundance of gut bacteria in language non-impaired children (n = 78) differs from that in language impaired children (n = 61). While anaerobic butyrate-producers, including C. eutactus, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, Holdemanella biformis, Roseburia hominis are less abundant, facultative anaerobic bacteria, including Granulicatella elegans, Escherichia/Shigella and Campylobacter coli, are more abundant in language impaired children. The overall predominance of oxygen tolerant species in the gut microbiota was slightly higher in the language impaired group than in the non-impaired group (P = 0.09).ConclusionApplication of the all-subsets regression methodology to microbiota data established a correlation between the relative abundance of the anaerobic butyrate-producing gut bacterium C. eutactus and language development in Ugandan children. We propose that the gut redox potential and the overall bacterial butyrate-producing capacity in the gut are important factors for language development.

scholarly journals The comprehension of deictic terms in normal and language impaired children

1981 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Mentis
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Developmental Sequence ◽  
Stages Of Development ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Semantic Complexity ◽  
Impaired Group ◽  
Age Range ◽  
Impaired Children

This study examined the comprehension of four pairs of deictic terms in a group of language impaired children and compared their interpretation of these terms with those of non-language impaired children of the same age range. Each group was comprised of ten subjects within the age range of 9,6 to 10,6 years. Two tasks were administered, one to assess the comprehension of the terms here, there, this, and that and the other to assess the comprehension of the terms, come, go, bring and take. The results showed that while the non-language impaired subjects comprehended the full deictic contrast between the pairs of terms tested, the language impaired group did not. A qualitative analysis of the data revealed that the language impaired subjects appeared to follow the same developmental sequence as normal children in their acquisition of these terms and responded by using the same strategies that younger non-language impaired children use at equivalent stages of development. Furthermore, the language impaired subjects appeared to comprehend the deictic terms in a predictable order based on their relative semantic complexity.

Remediating Humor Comprehension Deficits in Language-Impaired Students

1992 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecile C. Spector
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Normal Language ◽  
Impaired Children

Language-impaired children and adolescents, in general, have been found to have significantly poorer comprehension of humor than their peers with normal language development. This paper discusses sources of difficulty for these students in understanding the various aspects of humor and describes general and specific techniques for remediating comprehension deficits.

Conversational Responsiveness and Assertiveness in Language-Impaired Children

1987 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Kay Rosinski-McClendon ◽  
Marilyn Newhoff
Keyword(s):  
Language Ability ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Impaired Children

It has been suggested that language-disordered children may be less conversationally responsive and/or assertive than their normal matched counterparts. This investigation compared these abilities in 10 language-impaired children ranging in age from 4:1 to 5:9, and 10 normal children matched for language ability (2:8 to 4:2). Comparisons were based on subjects' responses to systematic probes that occurred within examiner-child dialogues. Total scores were derived from: (a) the number of questions answered, (b) the number of attempts to continue a topic following a no-response, and (c) the number of attempts to maintain the original topic after the examiner changed the topic. Results indicated that although language-impaired children responded to questions significantly less often than did their normal peers, they were equally assertive both in continuing a topic after no comment by the examiner and in maintaining the topic following a topical change.

Speech Perception Development in Language-Impaired Children

1985 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne E. Bernstein ◽  
Rachel E. Stark
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Language Ability ◽  
Perceptual Development ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Serial Memory ◽  
Normal Language ◽  
Impaired Children

A group of specifically language-impaired (SLI) children was compared with a matched group of non-SLI children (i.e., children displaying normal language) on tests of speech perception and language ability. The tests were administered longitudinally at times separated by an interval of 4 years. Initially (i.e., Time 1), the groups differed significantly in discrimination, sequencing, and rate processing of and serial memory for synthesized /ba/ and /da/ stimuli. At Time 1, age effects were also observed among both groups of children. That is, performance improved as a function of increased age. At follow-up (i.e., Time 2), performance was at or near ceiling for subjects in both groups, indicating that perceptual development occurred in both groups of children. Results are discussed in relation to the hypothesis that perceptual deficits play a causal role in specific language impairment.

Conversational Replies of Children with Specific Language Impairment

1986 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence B. Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Language Ability ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Considerable Variability ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Normal Language ◽  
Impaired Children

Conversational replies were examined in two groups of children with comparable vocabularies and speech limited to single-word utterances: children with specific language impairment, ages 2:10 to 3:6 (years:months); and children, ages 1:5 to 1:11, who were developing language normally. In interactions with adults the language-impaired children produced a greater number and variety of replies to both questions and statements than the normal-language children. The findings suggest that language-impaired children can serve as responsive conversationalists when syntactic skill is not a factor and that comprehension, world knowledge, and/or experience with conversations permit considerable variability in conversational skill even within the same level of expressive language ability.

Perceptual constancy for phonemic categories: a developmental study with normal and language impaired children

1980 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Tallal ◽  
Rachel E. Stark ◽  
Clayton Kallman ◽  
David Mellits
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Language Development ◽  
Acoustic Signal ◽  
Conditioned Response ◽  
Language Disorders ◽  
Developmental Study ◽  
Perceptual Constancy ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Impaired Children

ABSTRACTSix synthesized consonant-vowel syllables, three containing the phoneme /b/ in different vowel contexts and three the phoneme /d/, were presented randomly to developmental dysphasics and normal children. The ability to recognize that these six acoustically different stimuli shared two common phonemic categories (perceptual constancy) was investigated using nonverbal operantly conditioned response techniques. Results showed that although several children in both groups had difficulty with the task, the dysphasic group's performance was significantly poorer than the controls. Whereas the normal children improved significantly with age, the dysphasics did not. The results of this study suggest that speech perception, rather than being fully developed in infancy, changes throughout language development. By using procedures which have proven suitable for testing infants, with young children at various stages of language development, more might be learned about how the acoustic signal is encoded into speech and language and how this encoding changes throughout development or is disturbed in language disorders.

Memory for stories in language-impaired children

1981 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn M. Graybeal
Keyword(s):  
Recall Task ◽  
Normal Group ◽  
Practice Session ◽  
Story Recall ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Impaired Group ◽  
Impaired Children ◽  
Age And Sex ◽  
Temporal Ordering

ABSTRACTMemory for content, or gist recall, was studied in groups of normal and language-impaired children, matched on age and sex, using a story recall task. The children were pretested for their ability to comprehend individual sentences in the stories. Following a practice session, two test stories were read to each child and oral recall was requested immediately after each story. The content of the recall protocols was analyzed into propositions and scored for accuracy, organization, and temporal ordering. The results showed that the groups differed primarily in the amount of accurate recall, with the language-impaired group recalling considerably less than the normal group. It was concluded that language-impaired children do exhibit deficits in gist recall for material which is within their linguistic grasp.

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