Abstract
Children with familial risk (FR) of dyslexia and children with early language delay are known to be at risk for later language and literacy difficulties. However, research addressing long-term outcomes in children with both risk factors is scarce. This study tracked FR and No-FR children identified as late talkers at 2 years of age and reports development from 4;6 through 6 years. We examined the possible effects of FR-status and late talking (LT) status, respectively, on language skills at school entry, and whether FR-status moderated the associations between 4;6-year and 6-year language scores. Results indicated an effect of LT status on language at both ages, while FR status affected language skills at 6 years only. The interaction between LT and FR statuses was not significant, implying that LT status affected language skills independently of the child's FR status. A proportion of late talkers developed typical language at 6 years of age, while some FR children with typical vocabulary skills in toddlerhood had emerging developmental language disorder by school entry. FR status had a moderating effect on the association between expressive grammar at ages 4;6 and 6 years. Possible explanations for the effect of FR status on language skills are discussed. We highlight limitations in the study size and suggest how these preliminary findings can inform future research.
Highlights
Dyslexia is a heritable language-based disorder characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities, which are often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 2003; Olson, 2011; Vellutino, Fletcher, Snowling, & Scanlon, 2004)
familial risk (FR) children typically have problems in the phonological domain; they tend, as a group, to perform more poorly than their no familial risk (NoFR) peers on tasks assessing lexical and grammatical knowledge in the preschool years (Caglar-Ryeng, Eklund, & Nergård-Nilssen, 2019; Carroll & Myers, 2010; Gallagher, Frith, & Snowling, 2000; van Viersen et al, 2018). This can be taken to suggestion that some of these children might be at risk for developmental language disorder (DLD; Bishop et al, 2017; Bishop & Snowling, 2004), which typically manifests itself as a difficulty in acquiring vocabulary and grammar skills (Leonard, 2014)
We posed the following research questions: 1. What is the effect of FR and late talking (LT) status on vocabulary and grammar outcomes at ages 4;6 and 6 years, respectively? what is the proportion of children, if any, who were at risk of DLD at the age of 6 follow-up? Based on the findings that FR children's difficulties in vocabulary and grammar seem to increase over time (Snowling, Nash et al, 2019), we hypothesized that FR status might have a main effect on oral language outcomes at 6 years rather than at 4;6 years
Summary
Dyslexia is a heritable language-based disorder characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities, which are often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 2003; Olson, 2011; Vellutino, Fletcher, Snowling, & Scanlon, 2004). FR children typically have problems in the phonological domain; they tend, as a group, to perform more poorly than their NoFR peers on tasks assessing lexical and grammatical knowledge in the preschool years (Caglar-Ryeng, Eklund, & Nergård-Nilssen, 2019; Carroll & Myers, 2010; Gallagher, Frith, & Snowling, 2000; van Viersen et al, 2018) This can be taken to suggestion that some of these children might be at risk for developmental language disorder (DLD; Bishop et al, 2017; Bishop & Snowling, 2004), which typically manifests itself as a difficulty in acquiring vocabulary and grammar skills (Leonard, 2014)
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