Language Development in the Second Year of Life: The Case of Children with Sex Chromosome Trisomies Diagnosed before Birth.

Laura Zampini,Faustina Lalatta,Paola Giovanna Vizziello,Gaia Silibello,Alessandra Lorini,Francesca Dall’Ara,Federico Monti,Paola Francesca Ajmone,Maria Antonella Costantino,Paola Zanchi

doi:10.3390/ijerph19031831

Abstract

Many individual factors, such as early communicative skills, could play a role in explaining later linguistic outcomes. The detection of predictive variables is fundamental to identifying early the children who need intervention. The present study focuses on children with sex chromosome trisomies (SCTs), genetic conditions with an increased risk of developing language delays or impairments. The aims are to analyse their communicative skills at 18 months of age, and identify significant predictors of their later vocabulary size. Participants were 76 18-month-old children (38 with SCTs, and 38 typically-developing (TD) children). Their communicative skills were assessed during a parent–child play session, and parents filled in a report on their vocabulary development at 18 and 24 months. Children with SCTs showed significantly poorer linguistic skills at 18 months in both preverbal (babbling and gestures) and verbal abilities. A high percentage (nearly 70%) of toddlers with SCTs were late-talking children at 24 months, and those toddlers showed a lower frequency of babbling utterances at 18 months. Early lexical skills, children’s developmental quotient, and being part of the group of toddlers with SCTs were significant predictors of children’s vocabulary size six months later. These variables should be considered when assessing the linguistic competence of a child with SCTs to detect possible early risk factors of future language impairment.

Highlights

Introduction published maps and institutional affilEarly detection of children with delayed or impaired language development is fundamental, considering the potential impact of precocious linguistic difficulties on later development [1]
The present study focuses on a specific population, children with sex chromosome trisomies (SCTs), aiming to analyse this genetic condition’s impact on children’s language development
Concerning the communicative skills exhibited at 18 months, we found that the productions were significantly lower in children with SCTs than in TD children considering both vocal and gestural modalities

Summary

Introduction

Introduction published maps and institutional affilEarly detection of children with delayed or impaired language development is fundamental, considering the potential impact of precocious linguistic difficulties on later development [1]. Identifying children at risk for a developmental language disorder (DLD) is not an easy task, owing to the high individual variability that characterises the first stages of communicative development [2,3]. The hypothesis of continuity in language development states the existence of stability of individual differences across the preverbal to the verbal stage, and across the period from first words to grammar [4–6]. In this light, finding a relationship between preverbal measures of communicative skills and later vocabulary development could be useful to identify those variables that can predict children’s language status at a later stage. One of the most studied and validated measures is babbling iations

Results

Discussion

Conclusion