Parent Language Input Prior to School Forecasts Change in Children's Language-Related Cortical Structures During Mid-Adolescence.

Ö. Ece Demir-Lira,Salomi S. Asaridou,Steven L. Small,Susan Goldin-Meadow,Collin Nolte

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2021.650152

Abstract

Children differ widely in their early language development, and this variability has important implications for later life outcomes. Parent language input is a strong experiential factor predicting the variability in children’s early language skills. However, little is known about the brain or cognitive mechanisms that underlie the relationship. In addressing this gap, we used longitudinal data spanning 15 years to examine the role of early parental language input that children receive during preschool years in the development of brain structures that support language processing during school years. Using naturalistic parent–child interactions, we measured parental language input (amount and complexity) to children between the ages of 18 and 42 months (n = 23). We then assessed longitudinal changes in children’s cortical thickness measured at five time points between 9 and 16 years of age. We focused on specific regions of interest (ROIs) that have been shown to play a role in language processing. Our results support the view that, even after accounting for important covariates such as parental intelligence quotient (IQ) and education, the amount and complexity of language input to a young child prior to school forecasts the rate of change in cortical thickness during the 7-year period from 5½ to 12½ years later. Examining the proximal correlates of change in brain and cognitive differences has the potential to inform targets for effective prevention and intervention strategies.

Highlights

Language skills are fundamental for children’s later life outcomes (e.g., Duncan et al, 2007; Marchman and Fernald, 2008; Bleses et al, 2016)
Based on the previous literature on neurobiological basis of language development and our own work, which has found a relation between children’s own early language skills and their later cortical thickness in the children observed in this study (Asaridou et al, 2017), we examined cortical thickness in six regions of interest (ROIs) in each hemisphere (12 regions in total): superior temporal gyrus (STG), superior temporal sulcus (STS), middle temporal gyrus (MTG), supramarginal gyrus (SMG), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in each of the hemispheres (e.g., Price, 2010; Li et al, 2014)
For the first time, that early parental language input prior to school predicts changes in children’s languagerelated cortical structures during the school years in midadolescence

Summary

Introduction

Language skills are fundamental for children’s later life outcomes (e.g., Duncan et al, 2007; Marchman and Fernald, 2008; Bleses et al, 2016). Variability in children’s language skills early in life has been linked to variability in children’s home environments. Variability in early child language skills have been shown to predict variability in later structural brain differences in language areas. Less is known about the relation between children’s experiential factors early in life and change in later brain structures. We ask whether parental language input during preschool years predicts changes in later (mid-adolescent) cortical structures that subserve language processing, over and above possible covariates such as parental socioeconomic status (SES) or intelligence quotient (IQ)

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