How We Fail Children With Developmental Language Disorder.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: McGregor KK
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7842848 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Developmental language disorder (DLD), previously known as specific language impairment, is a neurodevelopmental disorder. It affects approximately 7% of school-age children. The affected children fail to develop normal speech and language skills. This is a major public health concern as it adversely impacts the communication, academic, and social skills of the affected individual. The human brain development is a complex process that involves the accurate orchestration of the expression of multiple genes. Precise temporal and spatial regulation of gene expression is essential for proper brain development. Epigenetic factors such as DNA methylation can modulate gene expression without altering the DNA sequence. They are, therefore, considered as key regulators of the expression of genes involved in neurodevelopment. In this study, we examined any altered DNA methylation between children affected with DLD and healthy control subjects. We looked into genome-wide methylation differences between the DLD and control groups using Infinium HumanMethylation850 (EPICarray). Twelve children with DLD and 12 healthy controls were recruited for the study. Five milliliters of peripheral blood samples were collected from the study subjects in EDTA vials. Genomic DNA (gDNA) was extracted from the blood samples using the standard salting out protocol. Five micrograms of each DNA at 50 ng/µl concentration were used for genome-wide methylation analysis. The gDNA samples were bisulfite-treated with EpiTect Bisulfite Kit. Further to this, the DNA samples were subjected to whole genome amplification and enzymatic fragmentation. Human Infinium Methylation EPIC BeadChip (Illumina), which covers more than 850,000 genome-wide methylation sites, was used for genome-wide methylation analysis. The DNA methylation profiles of each sample were visualized at the single-CpG level and for the genomic regions of interest.
2024-01-10 | E-MTAB-13583 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:We followed children at family risk of dyslexia and children with preschool language difficulties from age 3½, comparing them with controls (N = 234). At age 8, children were classified as having dyslexia or Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and compared at earlier time points with controls. Children with dyslexia have specific difficulties with phonology and emergent reading skills in the preschool period, whereas children with DLD, with or without dyslexia, show a wider range of impairments including significant problems with executive and motor tasks. For children with both dyslexia and DLD, difficulties with phonology are generally more severe than those observed in children with dyslexia or DLD alone. Findings confirm that poor phonology is the major cognitive risk factor for dyslexia.
| S-EPMC6767399 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Objective: Developmental language delay (DLD) is one of the most common disabilities in childhood and can negatively affect a child's communication skills and academic and/or psychosocial development. To date, an increasing number of causative genes have been identified by diagnostic techniques like next generation sequencing. An early genetic diagnosis is important to properly prepare and counsel children and parents for possible future difficulties. Despite this, genetic assessment is usually not part of a standardized diagnostic set in children with developmental language delay. In this study, we aim to assess the diagnostic outcomes of children primarily assessed for speech and language delay who were subsequently referred for genetic etiological assessment. Methods: Medical records of children referred to the department of Otorhinolaryngology of the Wilhelmina Children's Hospital for diagnostic work-up for a suspected speech and language delay between June 2011 and December 2018 who were additionally referred to a geneticist were evaluated. Study parameters concerning medical history, behavioral problems, language development, intelligence, and hearing were recorded. Outcomes of genetic analysis were evaluated. Results: A total of 127 patients were diagnosed with a developmental language delay. Genetic analysis was conducted in 119 out of 127 patients with a language delay and eligible for this study. The median time between initial speech and language assessment and the first genetic consultation was 10 months (IQR 5.0-23.0). In 34 out of 127 patients a causative genetic diagnosis was found to explain their DLD. Conclusion: In approximately a quarter of the patients (26.8%) diagnosed with developmental language delay, a causative genetic diagnosis was confirmed. This demonstrates the opportunity to identify an underlying genetic etiology in children with developmental language delay. However, in order to optimize the diagnostic process and clinical care for these children, two important research gaps need to be addressed. First, research should focus on assessing the clinical impact and effect on treatment outcomes of a genetic diagnosis. Secondly, it is important to recognize for which children genetic testing is most beneficial.
| S-EPMC8282268 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We examined whether children with developmental language disorder (DLD) differed from their peers with typical development (TD) in the degree to which they encode information about a talker's mouth shape into long-term phonemic representations. Children watched a talker's face and listened to rare changes from [i] to [u] or the reverse. In the neutral condition, the talker's face had a closed mouth throughout. In the audiovisual violation condition, the mouth shape always matched the frequent vowel, even when the rare vowel was played. We hypothesized that in the neutral condition no long-term audiovisual memory traces for speech sounds would be activated. Therefore, the neural response elicited by deviants would reflect only a violation of the observed audiovisual sequence. In contrast, we expected that in the audiovisual violation condition, a long-term memory trace for the speech sound/lip configuration typical for the frequent vowel would be activated. In this condition then, the neural response elicited by rare sound changes would reflect a violation of not only observed audiovisual patterns but also of a long-term memory representation for how a given vowel looks when articulated. Children pressed a response button whenever they saw a talker's face assume a silly expression. We found that in children with TD, rare auditory changes produced a significant mismatch negativity (MMN) event-related potential (ERP) component over the posterior scalp in the audiovisual violation condition but not in the neutral condition. In children with DLD, no MMN was present in either condition. Rare vowel changes elicited a significant P3 in both groups and conditions, indicating that all children noticed auditory changes. Our results suggest that children with TD, but not children with DLD, incorporate visual information into long-term phonemic representations and detect violations in audiovisual phonemic congruency even when they perform a task that is unrelated to phonemic processing.
| S-EPMC8073635 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Purpose Word learning difficulties have been documented in multiple studies involving children with dyslexia and developmental language disorder (DLD; see also specific language impairment). However, no previous studies have directly contrasted word learning in these two frequently co-occurring disorders. We examined word learning in second-grade students with DLD-only and dyslexia-only as compared to each other, peers with both disorders (DLD + dyslexia), and peers with typical development. We hypothesized that children with dyslexia-only and DLD-only would show differences in word learning due to differences in their core language strengths and weaknesses. Method Children (N = 244) were taught eight novel pseudowords paired with unfamiliar objects. The teaching script included multiple exposures to the phonological form, the pictured object, a verbal semantic description of the object, and spaced retrieval practice opportunities. Word learning was assessed immediately after instruction with tasks requiring recall or recognition of the phonological and semantic information. Results Children with dyslexia-only performed significantly better on existing vocabulary measures than their peers with DLD-only. On experimental word learning measures, children in the dyslexia-only and DLD + dyslexia groups showed significantly poorer performance than typically developing children on all word learning tasks. Children with DLD-only differed significantly from the TD group on a single word learning task assessing verbal semantic recall. Conclusions Overall, results indicated that children with dyslexia display broad word learning difficulties extending beyond the phonological domain; however, this contrasted with their relatively strong performance on measures of existing vocabulary knowledge. More research is needed to understand relations between word learning abilities and overall vocabulary knowledge and how to close vocabulary gaps for children with both disorders. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14832717.
| S-EPMC8632516 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Developmental language disorder (DLD) is characterised by difficulties in learning one's native language for no apparent reason. These language difficulties occur in 7% of children and are known to limit future academic and social achievement. Our understanding of the brain abnormalities associated with DLD is limited. Here, we used a simple four-minute verb generation task (children saw a picture of an object and were instructed to say an action that goes with that object) to test children between the ages of 10-15 years (DLD N = 50, typically developing N = 67). We also tested 26 children with poor language ability who did not meet our criteria for DLD. Contrary to our registered predictions, we found that children with DLD did not have (i) reduced activity in language relevant regions such as the left inferior frontal cortex; (ii) dysfunctional striatal activity during overt production; or (iii) a reduction in left-lateralised activity in frontal cortex. Indeed, performance of this simple language task evoked activity in children with DLD in the same regions and to a similar level as in typically developing children. Consistent with previous reports, we found sub-threshold group differences in the left inferior frontal gyrus and caudate nuclei, but only when analysis was limited to a subsample of the DLD group (N = 14) who had the poorest performance on the task. Additionally, we used a two-factor model to capture variation in all children studied (N = 143) on a range of neuropsychological tests and found that these language and verbal memory factors correlated with activity in different brain regions. Our findings indicate a lack of support for some neurological models of atypical language learning, such as the procedural deficit hypothesis or the atypical lateralization hypothesis, at least when using simple language tasks that children can perform. These results also emphasise the importance of controlling for and monitoring task performance.
| S-EPMC7836232 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Using a newly developed Assessment of the Development of Russian Language (ORRIA), we investigated differences in language development between rural vs. urban Russian-speaking children (n = 100 with a mean age of 6.75) subdivided into groups with and without developmental language disorders. Using classical test theory and item response theory approaches, we found that while ORRIA displayed overall satisfactory psychometric properties, several of its items showed differential item functioning favoring rural children, and several others favoring urban children. After the removal of these items, rural children significantly underperformed on ORRIA compared to urban children. The urbanization factor did not significantly interact with language group. We discuss the latter finding in the context of the multiple additive risk factors for language development and emphasize the need for future studies of the mechanisms that underlie these influences and the implications of these findings for our understanding of the etiological architecture of children's language development.
| S-EPMC4916928 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Previous studies have shown that most English-speaking children with language difficulties show academic difficulties during their schooling. The present study aimed to describe the academic achievement of children speaking Spanish and Catalan with developmental language disorder (DLD) during their primary education and to predict their academic outcomes using several processing skills assessed at the beginning of their schooling. To this end, we followed 28 children during their schooling (6-12 years of age). Participants were divided into two groups, one with DLD (n = 14) and a control group (n = 14) paired by age, gender, socio-economic status (SES), family language (L1), and classroom. All participants were assessed through different processing skills with the Spanish version of the NEPSY at the beginning of their schooling (age 6): attention (visual attention, auditory attention, and response set), phonological awareness, verbal short-term memory (sentence repetition, and narrative memory), access to language (semantic verbal fluency and rapid naming), and language comprehension (comprehension of verbal commands). At the end of primary education, schools reported the official academic marks at the 1st cycle (6-8 years), 2nd cycle (8-10 years) and 3rd cycle (10-12 years). Direct scores of the processing skills and academic results were used for statistical analyses. Results showed that children with DLD had more frequent grade retention, and their academic marks were significantly lower than those of their peers in all the cycles and for all academic subjects with a high language dependency (all except physical education and mathematics). Those subjects with lower language dependence did not show significant differences (physical education and mathematics). Rapid naming accounted for most of the variance of academic outcomes, followed by phonological awareness, and language comprehension when both groups were taken together. Only rapid naming accounted for academic results in the DLD group and phonological awareness did so for the control group. In sum, children with DLD experienced more academic difficulties during their primary education. Those children (with and without DLD) who experienced difficulties not only with rapid naming but also with phonological awareness and oral language comprehension at the beginning of their schooling showed a higher probability of academic failure.
| S-EPMC6421289 | biostudies-literature
Project description:PurposeLanguage sample analysis (LSA) represents an ecologically valid method for diagnosing, identifying goals, and measuring progress in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). LSA is, however, time consuming. The purpose of this study was to determine the length of sample needed to obtain reliable LSA measures for children in kindergarten and first grade with typical language (TL) and DLD using automated analyses from the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts software.MethodPlay-based conversational language samples collected on kindergarten to first-grade children with TL (n = 21) and DLD (n = 21) from a community-based sample were analyzed. Eight LSA measures were calculated from 1-, 3-, 5-, 7-, and 10-min sample cuts and compared to 20-min samples for reliability.ResultsReliability estimates were similar for the TL and DLD groups except for errors and omissions, which showed overall higher levels of reliability in the DLD group and reached acceptable levels at 3 min. Percent grammatical utterances were reliable at 7 min in the DLD group and not reliable in shorter samples in the TL group. The subordination index was reliable at 10 min for both groups. Number of different words reached acceptable reliability at the 3-min length for the DLD group and at the 10-min length for the TL group. Utterances and words per minute were reliable at 3 min and mean length of utterance at 7 min in both groups.ConclusionsSpeech-language pathologists can obtain reliable LSA measures from shorter, 7-min conversational language samples from kindergarten to first-grade children with DLD. Shorter language samples may encourage increased use of LSA.Supplemental materialhttps://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19529287.
| S-EPMC9559652 | biostudies-literature
Project description:A local processing bias, often considered a cognitive style unique to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), may influence the types of semantic features acquired by children with ASD and could contribute to weaknesses in word learning. Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) also struggle to learn semantic aspects of words, but this cognitive style has not been ascribed to children with DLD. The purpose of this study was to explore whether global-local processing differences influence the type of semantic features children with ASD, DLD, and their neurotypical peers learn to produce when learning new words. Novel word definitions produced by 36 school-aged children (12 with ASD, 12 with DLD, and 12 with typical language) who participated in an extended word-learning paradigm were used to extract newly learned semantic features. These semantic features were then coded for global and local attributes and analyzed to detect whether there were differences between groups. Results indicated that the children with ASD and DLD produced more global, rather than local, semantic features in their definitions than the children with typical language. An over-reliance on global, rather than local, features in children with ASD and DLD may reflect deficits in depth of word knowledge.
| S-EPMC7226439 | biostudies-literature