Factors Associated With Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression in Children Who Stutter.

Purpose: Children and adolescents who stutter may be at risk of elevated anxiety and depression symptoms, although studies have indicated variability in reported internalizing symptoms in this population. This study considers the association between anxiety and depression symptoms and stuttering, as well as child, family, and contextual factors that may affect this association.

Method: Thirty-five school-age children who stutter completed the Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale-Short Version.

Prevalence and functional impact of social (pragmatic) communication disorders.

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate the Children's Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2) for measuring social-pragmatic communication deficits and to ascertain their prevalence and functional impact in a community sample.

Methods: We used parent and teacher responses to the CCC-2 to approximate inclusion (poor social-pragmatic skills) and exclusion (poor structural language skills or autistic symptomatology) criteria for social (pragmatic) communication disorder (SPCD). We tested the prevalence of social-pragmatic deficits in a population-based sample of children (n = 386) aged 5-6 years old using CCC-2 algorithms.

Anxiety and Depression Symptoms in Children and Adolescents Who Stutter: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there are elevated symptoms of anxiety or depression in children and adolescents (aged 2-18 years) who stutter, and to identify potential moderators of increased symptom severity.

Method: We conducted a preregistered systematic review of databases and gray literature; 13 articles met criteria for inclusion. A meta-analysis using robust variance estimation was conducted with 11 cohort studies comparing symptoms of anxiety in children and adolescents who do and do not stutter.

The role of emotional valence in learning novel abstract concepts.

A recent study by Ponari, Norbury, and Vigliocco (2018), showed that emotional valence (i.e. whether a word evokes positive, negative, or no affect) predicts age-of-acquisition ratings and that up to the age of 8-9, children know abstract emotional words better than neutral ones.

Standardizing test scores for a target population: The LMS method illustrated using language measures from the SCALES project.

Background: Centile curves and standard scores are common in epidemiological research. However, standardised norms and centile growth curves for language disorder that reflect the entire UK local school population do not exist.

Methods: Scores on six language indices assessing receptive and expressive functioning of children were obtained from the SCALES population survey.

How do parents of school-aged children respond to their children's extending gestures?

Gesture plays an important role in early language development, as how parents respond to their children's gestures may help to facilitate language acquisition. Less is known about whether parental responses facilitate language learning later in childhood and whether responses vary depending on children's language ability. This study explored parental responses to extending gestures in a sample of school-aged children (aged six to eight years) with developmental language disorder, low-language and educational concerns, and typically developing children.

Learning abstract words and concepts: insights from developmental language disorder.

Some explanations of abstract word learning suggest that these words are learnt primarily from the linguistic input, using statistical co-occurrences of words in language, whereas concrete words can also rely on non-linguistic, experiential information. According to this hypothesis, we expect that, if the learner is not able to fully exploit the information in the linguistic input, abstract words should be affected more than concrete ones. Embodied approaches instead argue that both abstract and concrete words can rely on experiential information and, therefore, there might not be any linguistic primacy.

Evidence-based pathways to intervention for children with language disorders.

Background: Paediatric speech and language therapist (SLT) roles often involve planning individualized intervention for specific children, working collaboratively with families and education staff, providing advice, training and coaching and raising awareness. A tiered approach to service delivery is currently recommended whereby services become increasingly specialized and individualized for children with greater needs.

Aims: To stimulate discussion regarding delivery of SLT services by examining evidence regarding the effectiveness of (1) intervention for children with language disorders at different tiers and (2) SLT roles within these tiers; and to propose an evidence-based model of SLT service delivery and a flowchart to aid clinical decision-making.

One size does not fit all: addressing the challenges of intervention for complex developmental issues.

The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry is committed to publishing implementational research, or turning therapeutic research discoveries into practical benefit for human health and well-being. This editorial showcases three such papers in this issue from diverse fields in developmental science. The papers highlight the challenges of implementing intervention under real-world constraints, and highlight key issues that clinicians and researchers will need to address in future work.

Editorial: New frontiers in the scientific study of developmental language disorders.

Developmental language disorders (DLD) are common and have far-reaching developmental consequences. Nevertheless, public awareness of DLD is poor, and one goal of this special issue is to showcase a set of papers that provide a clear and coherent message about the nature and impact of DLD, and the potential of intervention to mitigate these impacts. In this editorial, we highlight seminal papers JCPP has published on language disorders over the last 40 years.

Language growth in children with heterogeneous language disorders: a population study.

Background: Language development has been characterised by significant individual stability from school entry. However, the extent to which trajectories of language growth vary in children with language disorder as a function of co-occurring developmental challenges is a question of theoretical import, with implications for service provision.

Methods: SCALES employed a population-based survey design with sample weighting procedures to estimate growth in core language skills over the first three years of school.

The Persistence and Functional Impact of English Language Difficulties Experienced by Children Learning English as an Additional Language and Monolingual Peers.

Purpose: This study explored whether a monolingual-normed English language battery could identify children with English as an additional language (EAL) who have persistent English language learning difficulties that affect functional academic attainment.

Method: Children with EAL (n = 43) and monolingual English-speaking children (n = 46) completed a comprehensive monolingual-normed English language battery in Year 1 (ages 5-6 years) and Year 3 (ages 7-8 years). Children with EAL and monolingual peers, who either met monolingual criteria for language impairment or typical development on the language battery in Year 1, were compared on language growth between Year 1 and Year 3 and on attainment in national curriculum assessments in Year 2 (ages 6-7 years).

Can Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders Learn New Vocabulary From Linguistic Context?

This study investigated whether children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) can learn vocabulary from linguistic context. Thirty-five children with ASD (18 with age-appropriate structural language; 17 with language impairment [ALI]) and 29 typically developing peers were taught 20 Science words. Half were presented in linguistic context from which meaning could be inferred, whilst half were accompanied by an explicit definition.

Evaluation of an interview skills training package for adolescents with speech, language and communication needs.

Background & Aims: We evaluated a structured intervention programme aimed at preparing adolescents with developmental language disorders for job interviews. Our primary outcome measures included change in ratings of verbal and non-verbal social communication behaviours evident during mock interviews.

Methods & Procedures: In study 1, 12 participants, aged 17-19 years, from a specialist sixth-form college completed the intervention and two mock interviews, one pre- and one post-intervention.

Does a child's language ability affect the correspondence between parent and teacher ratings of ADHD symptoms?

Background: Rating scales are often used to identify children with potential Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), yet there are frequently discrepancies between informants which may be moderated by child characteristics. The current study asked whether correspondence between parent and teacher ratings on the Strengths and Weakness of ADHD symptoms and Normal behaviour scale (SWAN) varied systematically with child language ability.

Method: Parent and teacher SWAN questionnaires were returned for 200 children (aged 61-81 months); 106 had low language ability (LL) and 94 had typically developing language (TL).

Gesture Production in Language Impairment: It's Quality, Not Quantity, That Matters.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine whether children with language impairment (LI) use gesture to compensate for their language difficulties.

Method: The present study investigated gesture accuracy and frequency in children with LI (n = 21) across gesture imitation, gesture elicitation, spontaneous narrative, and interactive problem-solving tasks, relative to typically developing (TD) peers (n = 18) and peers with low language and educational concerns (n = 21).

Results: Children with LI showed weaknesses in gesture accuracy (imitation and gesture elicitation) in comparison to TD peers, but no differences in gesture rate.

Acquisition of abstract concepts is influenced by emotional valence.

There is considerable lack of evidence concerning the linguistic and cognitive skills underpinning abstract vocabulary acquisition. The present study considers the role of emotional valence in providing an embodied learning experience in which to anchor abstract meanings. First, analyses of adult ratings of age-of-acquisition, concreteness and valence demonstrate that abstract words acquired early tend to be emotionally valenced.

The impact of nonverbal ability on prevalence and clinical presentation of language disorder: evidence from a population study.

Background: Diagnosis of 'specific' language impairment traditionally required nonverbal IQ to be within normal limits, often resulting in restricted access to clinical services for children with lower NVIQ. Changes to DSM-5 criteria for language disorder removed this NVIQ requirement. This study sought to delineate the impact of varying NVIQ criteria on prevalence, clinical presentation and functional impact of language disorder in the first UK population study of language impairment at school entry.

Editorial: The search for core symptoms - will this help clinical decision-making?

Diagnosis is an important component of our clinical roles, and should also lead to particular treatment pathways. The diagnostic process may be challenged by co-occurring deficits that are neither specific nor universal to the diagnosis under consideration and may well be evident across a range of other clinical conditions. How important is it to refine our instruments so that they measure unique symptoms? Will this alter or improve intervention choices? This Editorial focuses on the extent to which fine tuning diagnostic instruments improves our decisions about treatment, in the context of articles published in this issue of JCPP.

Referring expressions and structural language abilities in children with specific language impairment: A pragmatic tolerance account.

Specific language impairment (SLI) has traditionally been characterized as a deficit of structural language (specifically grammar), with relative strengths in pragmatics. In this study, comprehensive assessment of production, comprehension, and metalinguistic judgment of referring expressions revealed that children with SLI have weaknesses in both structural and pragmatic language skills relative to age-matched peers. Correlational analyses highlight a relationship between their performance on the experimental tasks and their structural language ability.

Social (pragmatic) communication disorders and autism spectrum disorder.

Changes have been made to the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the recent revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), and similar changes are likely in the WHO International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) due in 2017. In light of these changes, a new clinical disorder, social (pragmatic) communication disorder (SPCD), was added to the neurodevelopmental disorders section of DSM-5. This article describes the key features of ASD, SPCD and the draft ICD-11 approach to pragmatic language impairment, highlighting points of overlap between the disorders and criteria for differential diagnosis.

Gestural abilities of children with specific language impairment.

Background: Specific language impairment (SLI) is diagnosed when language is significantly below chronological age expectations in the absence of other developmental disorders, sensory impairments or global developmental delays. It has been suggested that gesture may enhance communication in children with SLI by providing an alternative means to convey words or extend utterances. However, gesture is a complex task that requires the integration of social, cognitive and motor skills, skills that some children with SLI may find challenging.