Predictive Measures in Child Language Development: The Role of Familial History and Early Expressive Vocabulary.

Purpose: Prediction of developmental language disorder in children under 3 years of age is challenging. Among early risk factors, research has focused on having a positive familial history (FH+) for language or literacy problems and on late language emergence, that is, late-talker (LT) status. The interaction between these two risk factors and their cumulative effect is still debated.

Comparing remote in-person assessment of learning skills in children with specific learning disabilities.

Background: Interactive telemedicine applications have been progressively introduced in the assessment of cognitive and literacy skills. However, there is still a lack of research focusing on the validity of this methodology for the neuropsychological assessment of children with Specific Learning Disorder (SLD).

Methods: Seventy-nine children including 40 typically developing children (18 males, age 11.

EEG Functional Connectivity Analysis for the Study of the Brain Maturation in the First Year of Life.

Brain networks are hypothesized to undergo significant changes over development, particularly during infancy. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate brain maturation in the first year of life in terms of electrophysiological (EEG) functional connectivity (FC). Whole-brain FC metrics (i.

Intergenerational longitudinal associations between parental reading/musical traits, infants' auditory processing, and later phonological awareness skills.

The intergenerational transmission of language/reading skills has been demonstrated by evidence reporting that parental literacy abilities contribute to the prediction of their offspring's language and reading skills. According to the "Intergenerational Multiple Deficit Model," literacy abilities of both parents are viewed as indicators of offspring's liability for literacy difficulties, since parents provide offspring with genetic and environmental endowment. Recently, studies focusing on the heritability of musical traits reached similar conclusions.

Baseline EEG in the first year of life: Preliminary insights into the development of autism spectrum disorder and language impairments.

Early identification of neurodevelopmental disorders is important to ensure a prompt and effective intervention, thus improving the later outcome. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and language learning impairment (LLI) are among the most common neurodevelopmental disorders, and they share overlapping symptoms. This study aims to characterize baseline electroencephalography (EEG) spectral power in 6- and 12-month-old infants at higher likelihood of developing ASD and LLI, compared to typically developing infants, and to preliminarily verify if spectral power components associated with the risk status are also linked with the later ASD or LLI diagnosis.

Synchronizing with the rhythm: Infant neural entrainment to complex musical and speech stimuli.

Neural entrainment is defined as the process whereby brain activity, and more specifically neuronal oscillations measured by EEG, synchronize with exogenous stimulus rhythms. Despite the importance that neural oscillations have assumed in recent years in the field of auditory neuroscience and speech perception, in human infants the oscillatory brain rhythms and their synchronization with complex auditory exogenous rhythms are still relatively unexplored. In the present study, we investigate infant neural entrainment to complex non-speech (musical) and speech rhythmic stimuli; we provide a developmental analysis to explore potential similarities and differences between infants' and adults' ability to entrain to the stimuli; and we analyze the associations between infants' neural entrainment measures and the concurrent level of development.

Atypical ERP responses to audiovisual speech integration and sensory responsiveness in infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder.

Atypical sensory responses are included in the diagnostic criteria of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Autistic individuals perform poorly during conditions that require integration across multiple sensory modalities such as audiovisual (AV) integration. Previous research investigated neural processing of AV integration in infancy.

Impact of Early Rhythmic Training on Language Acquisition and Electrophysiological Functioning Underlying Auditory Processing: Feasibility and Preliminary Findings in Typically Developing Infants.

Previous evidence has shown that early auditory processing impacts later linguistic development, and targeted training implemented at early ages can enhance auditory processing skills, with better expected language development outcomes. This study focuses on typically developing infants and aims to test the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of music training based on active synchronization with complex musical rhythms on the linguistic outcomes and electrophysiological functioning underlying auditory processing. Fifteen infants participated in the training (RTr+) and were compared with two groups of infants not attending any structured activities during the same time frame (RTr-, N = 14).

Detection without further processing or processing without automatic detection? Differential ERP responses to lexical-semantic processing in toddlers at high clinical risk for autism and language disorder.

Delays in early expressive vocabulary can reflect a specific delay in language acquisition or more general impairments in social communication. The neural mechanisms underlying the (dis)ability to establish the first lexical-semantic representations remain relatively unknown. Here, we investigate the electrophysiological underpinnings of these mechanisms during the critical phase of lexical acquisition in two groups of 19-month-old toddlers at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders, i.

Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown on the Emotional and Behavioral Profiles of Preschool Italian Children with and without Familial Risk for Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

The effects of COVID-19 containment measures on the emotional and behavioral development of preschoolers are not clear. We investigated them within an ongoing longitudinal project including typically developing children (TD) and children at high familial risk for neurodevelopmental disorders (HR-NDD) who were potentially more vulnerable. The study included ninety children aged 2-6 years (TD = 48; HR-NDD = 42).