Do emotional difficulties and peer problems occur together from childhood to adolescence? The case of children with a history of developmental language disorder (DLD)

Andrew Pickles,Gina Conti-Ramsden,Kevin Durkin,Umar Toseeb,Nicola Botting,Pearl Mok

doi:10.1007/s00787-018-1261-6

Abstract

Children and adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD) are, overall, vulnerable to difficulties in emotional adjustment and in peer relations. However, previous research has shown that different subgroups follow different trajectories in respect to the quality of peer relations. Less is known about the trajectories of emotional development. We consider here the possibility that development in these two domains is interrelated: that is, the trajectories of emotional and peer problems will proceed in parallel. We conducted longitudinal joint trajectories analyses of emotional and peer relations in a sample of young people identified as having DLD at the age of 7 years and seen at intervals up to 16 years. Potential influences on joint trajectory group membership were examined. Findings revealed five distinct joint trajectories. Emotional and peer difficulties do occur together from childhood to adolescence for just over half of the sample, but not all. The variables most clearly associated with group membership were pragmatic language ability, prosociality and parental mental health. This is the first study to examine joint longitudinal trajectories of emotional and peer difficulties in individuals with DLD. We demonstrate that development in individuals with DLD is heterogeneous and identify three key variables associated with personal and social adjustment from childhood to adolescence. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Highlights

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have no hearing disabilities and show no evidence that their language difficulties associated with a known biomedical aetiology [1]
The joint modelling approach that we adopted was different to the usual approach to joint trajectory modelling, which is essentially one of correlated univariate models, whereas we present trajectories through the bivariate space
The analyses indicated that the increasing peer problems group had significantly lower prosocial skills than the resolving emotional group and the low levels group [t(68) = − 4.11, p < .001, mean difference − 2.41 and t(46) = − 3.51, p = .001, mean difference − 2.40, respectively])

Summary

Introduction

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have no hearing disabilities and show no evidence that their language difficulties associated with a known biomedical aetiology (such as cerebral palsy) [1]. Notwithstanding the absence of neurological abnormalities and cognitive deficits, children and adolescents with histories of DLD do show a heightened risk of various other developmental difficulties. As a group, they tend to manifest higher levels of conduct disorder and hyperactivity than do typically developing peers [3, 4]. They are prone to greater difficulties in peer relations and friendships [5,6,7]. They have higher levels of mental health difficulties, such as anxiety, fearfulness, depressive symptoms and panic [8, 9]

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Conclusion