Abstract
BackgroundDevelopmental language disorder (DLD, also called specific language impairment, SLI) is a common developmental disorder comprising the largest disability group in pre-school-aged children. Approximately 7% of the population is expected to have developmental language difficulties. However, the specific etiological factors leading to DLD are not yet known and even the typical linguistic features appear to vary by language. We present here a project that investigates DLD at multiple levels of analysis and aims to make the reliable prediction and early identification of the difficulties possible. Following the multiple deficit model of developmental disorders, we investigate the DLD phenomenon at the etiological, neural, cognitive, behavioral, and psychosocial levels, in a longitudinal study of preschool children.MethodsIn January 2013, we launched the Helsinki Longitudinal SLI study (HelSLI) at the Helsinki University Hospital (http://tiny.cc/HelSLI). We will study 227 children aged 3–6 years with suspected DLD and their 160 typically developing peers. Five subprojects will determine how the child’s psychological characteristics and environment correlate with DLD and how the child’s well-being relates to DLD, the characteristics of DLD in monolingual versus bilingual children, nonlinguistic cognitive correlates of DLD, electrophysiological underpinnings of DLD, and the role of genetic risk factors. Methods include saliva samples, EEG, computerized cognitive tasks, neuropsychological and speech and language assessments, video-observations, and questionnaires.DiscussionThe project aims to increase our understanding of the multiple interactive risk and protective factors that affect the developing heterogeneous cognitive and behavioral profile of DLD, including factors affecting literacy development. This accumulated knowledge will form a heuristic basis for the development of new interventions targeting linguistic and non-linguistic aspects of DLD.
Highlights
Developmental language disorder (DLD, called specific language impairment, Specific language impairment (SLI)) is a common developmental disorder comprising the largest disability group in pre-school-aged children
In terms of temperamental traits, children with language difficulties have been shown to be less persistent in their temperament compared to typically developing (TD) peers [17]
To our knowledge there is no previous research on the effects of parent-child interaction focusing on language development in DLD, nor has temperament been thoroughly assessed in a longitudinal setting
Summary
Developmental language disorder (DLD, called specific language impairment, SLI) is a common developmental disorder comprising the largest disability group in pre-school-aged children. Developmental language disorder (DLD, previously called specific language impairment, SLI) is a common developmental disorder comprising the largest disability group in pre-school-aged children. The previous work of our research group has shown that 26% of adults with a childhood diagnosis of DLD in Finland are pensioned off and 19% live with their parents [5]. This truly highlights the long-term risk for social marginalization associated with DLD
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