The Role of Social and Emotional Adjustment in Mediating the Relationship Between Early Experiences and Different Language Outcomes

Background: Studies have highlighted the relationship between early childhood experiences and later language and communication skills on the one hand and social and emotional adjustment on the other. Less is known about this relationship between different types of early experiences and their relationship to different communication skills over time. Equally important is the extent to which the child's behaviour is related to later outcomes affecting the relationship between the child's environment and aspects of their communication development. Method: Drawing on data from 5,000 children in Growing Up in Scotland, a representative sample of children born in 2003. This paper looks are the differential relationships between home learning environment (HLE) (reads books/storeys, engages in painting or drawing, reads nursery rhymes and teaches letter/shapes and parental mental health (PMH) (Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS) in the first year of life and both structural language skills ("Listening Comprehension" and "Expressive Vocabulary" subtests of The Wechsler Individual Achievement Tests) and pragmatic competence (The Children's Communication Checklist) at 11 years and explores the extent to which they are mediated by social and emotional adjustment at school entry. Results: PMH was associated with pragmatics but not listening comprehension or vocabulary. By contrast HLE was associated with all three measures of communication. In the final mediated model social and emotional adjustment mediated the relationship between PMH and all three measures of communication. The mediation was statistically significant for the relationship between HLE and both pragmatics and listening comprehension but not for expressive vocabulary. The results are discussed in terms of the relationships concerned and what they tell us about the potential for targeted early interventions. Conclusions: The mediating role of socio-emotional adjustment at school entry points to the need for careful monitoring of children's social and emotional development in primary and middle childhood. Services and policy aimed at improving child outcomes through improving home learning environments must work hand in hand with those responsible for offering support for the mental health, social-emotional adjustment and wellbeing of parents and children from birth and into the school years.

Exploring the Neural Structures Underlying the Procedural Memory Network as Predictors of Language Ability in Children and Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Introduction: There is significant overlap in the type of structural language impairments exhibited by children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This similarity suggests that the cognitive impairment(s) contributing to the structural language deficits in ASD and ADHD may be shared. Previous studies have speculated that procedural memory deficits may be the shared cognitive impairment. The procedural deficit hypothesis (PDH) argues that language deficits can be explained by differences in the neural structures underlying the procedural memory network. This hypothesis is based on the premise that the neural structures comprising the procedural network support language learning. In this study, we aimed to test the PDH in children with ASD, ADHD, and typical development (TD).

Methods: One hundred and sixty-three participants (ages 10–21): 91 with ASD, 26 with ADHD, and 46 with TD, completed standardized measures of cognitive and language ability as well as structural magnetic resonance imaging. We compared the structural language abilities, the neural structures underlying the procedural memory network, and the relationship between structural language and neural structure across diagnostic groups.

Results: Our analyses revealed that while the structural language abilities differed across ASD, ADHD, and TD groups, the thickness, area, and volume of the structures supporting the procedural memory network were not significantly different between diagnostic groups. Also, several neural structures were associated with structural language abilities across diagnostic groups. Only two of these structures, the inferior frontal gyrus, and the left superior parietal gyrus, are known to be linked to the procedural memory network.

Conclusions: The inferior frontal gyrus and the left superior parietal gyrus, have well-established roles in language learning independent of their role as part of the procedural memory system. Other structures such as the caudate and cerebellum, with critical roles in the procedural memory network, were not associated with structural language abilities across diagnostic groups. It is unclear whether the procedural memory network plays a fundamental role in language learning in ASD, ADHD, and TD.