LanguageScreen: The Development, Validation, and Standardization of an Automated Language Assessment App.

Purpose: Oral language skills provide a critical foundation for formal education and especially for the development of children's literacy (reading and spelling) skills. It is therefore important for teachers to be able to assess children's language skills, especially if they are concerned about their learning. We report the development and standardization of a mobile app-LanguageScreen-that can be used by education professionals to assess children's language ability.

Home learning environments and children's language and literacy skills: A meta-analytic review of studies conducted in low- and middle-income countries.

A robust finding from research in high-income countries is that children living in resource-poor homes are vulnerable to difficulties with language and literacy but less is known about this association in low- and middle-income (LMI) countries. We present a meta-analysis of 6,678 correlations from studies in 43 LMI countries. Overall, the results indicate a small but significant association ( = .

Language and reading impairments are associated with increased prevalence of non-right-handedness.

Handedness has been studied for association with language-related disorders because of its link with language hemispheric dominance. No clear pattern has emerged, possibly because of small samples, publication bias, and heterogeneous criteria across studies. Non-right-handedness (NRH) frequency was assessed in N = 2503 cases with reading and/or language impairment and N = 4316 sex-matched controls identified from 10 distinct cohorts (age range 6-19 years old; European ethnicity) using a priori set criteria.

Early language intervention improves behavioral adjustment in school: Evidence from a cluster randomized trial.

Oral language skills are critical for psychosocial development and children with language difficulties are more likely than peers to experience behavioral problems. This study investigated the effects of an oral language intervention on behavioral adjustment. We collected teacher ratings of behavioral adjustment for 1173 children taking part in a cluster randomized trial of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) program in 193 primary schools.

Shared storybook reading with children at family risk of dyslexia.

Background: Shared storybook reading is an important context for language learning and often constitutes young children's first encounter with the printed word. The quality of early shared reading interactions is a known predictor of language and reading development, but few studies have examined these interactions in children at family risk of dyslexia.

Methods: This exploratory study describes the quality of shared storybook reading between mothers and their 3- to 4-year-old children at family risk of dyslexia (FR;  = 18) in comparison with dyads with no known risk (no-FR;  = 13).

Visual Motion and Decision-Making in Dyslexia: Reduced Accumulation of Sensory Evidence and Related Neural Dynamics.

Children with and without dyslexia differ in their behavioral responses to visual information, particularly when required to pool dynamic signals over space and time. Importantly, multiple processes contribute to behavioral responses. Here we investigated which processing stages are affected in children with dyslexia when performing visual motion processing tasks, by combining two methods that are sensitive to the dynamic processes leading to responses.

Global motion evoked potentials in autistic and dyslexic children: A cross-syndrome approach.

Atypicalities in psychophysical thresholds for global motion processing have been reported in many neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism and dyslexia. Cross-syndrome comparisons of neural dynamics may help determine whether altered motion processing is a general marker of atypical development or condition-specific. Here, we assessed group differences in N2 peak amplitude (previously proposed as a marker of motion-specific processing) in typically developing (n = 57), autistic (n = 29) and dyslexic children (n = 44) aged 6-14 years, in two global motion tasks.

A rare missense variant in the ATP2C2 gene is associated with language impairment and related measures.

At least 5% of children present unexpected difficulties in expressing and understanding spoken language. This condition is highly heritable and often co-occurs with other neurodevelopmental disorders such as dyslexia and ADHD. Through an exome sequencing analysis, we identified a rare missense variant (chr16:84405221, GRCh38.

Early language screening and intervention can be delivered successfully at scale: evidence from a cluster randomized controlled trial.

Background: It is well established that oral language skills provide a critical foundation for formal education. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme in ameliorating language difficulties in the first year of school when delivered at scale.

Methods: We conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) in 193 primary schools (containing 238 Reception classrooms).

Language difficulties are a shared risk factor for both reading disorder and mathematics disorder.

Disorders of reading and mathematics co-occur at greater than chance rates, but they are often studied separately. This article reports the reading and arithmetic outcomes at 9 years of age from a longitudinal study of 224 children at high risk for dyslexia. Using a cutoff at the 10th centile, groups of children with reading disorder (RD), mathematics disorder (MD), and comorbid reading disorder and math disorder (RD&MD) were identified.

Annual Research Review: Reading disorders revisited - the critical importance of oral language.

This paper discusses research on reading disorders during the period since their classification within the overarching category of neurodevelopmental disorders (Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 53, 2012, 593). Following a review of the predictors of learning to read across languages, and the role of language skills as critical foundations for literacy, profiles of reading disorders are discussed and putative causal risk factors at the cognitive, biological, and environmental levels of explanation considered. Reading disorders are highly heritable and highly comorbid with disorders of language, attention, and other learning disorders, notably mathematics disorders.

Defining and understanding dyslexia: past, present and future.

Dyslexia is a difficulty in learning to decode (read aloud) and to spell. DSM5 classifies dyslexia as one form of neurodevelopmental disorder. Neurodevelopmental disorders are heritable, life-long conditions with early onset.

Screening for the Identification of Oral Language Difficulties in Brazilian Preschoolers: A Validation Study.

Purpose This study aimed to develop and validate a screening questionnaire for the early identification of language difficulties in Brazilian Portuguese-speaking preschool children. Method The article is divided into two studies. In the first study, we reported the theoretical principles that guided the development of the Screening for Identification of Oral Language Difficulties by Preschool Teachers (SIOLD) and tested the validity of its structure.

Dyslexia and Developmental Language Disorder: comorbid disorders with distinct effects on reading comprehension.

Background: Reading comprehension draws on both decoding and linguistic comprehension, and poor reading comprehension can be the consequence of a deficit in either of these skills.

Methods: Using outcome data from the longitudinal Wellcome Language and Reading Project, we identified three groups of children at age 8 years: children with dyslexia (N = 21) who had deficits in decoding but not oral language, children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD; N = 38) whose decoding skills were in the normal range, and children who met criteria for both dyslexia and DLD (N = 29).

Results: All three groups had reading comprehension difficulties at the ages of 8 and 9 years relative to TD controls though those of the children with dyslexia were mild (relative to TD controls, d = 0.

Developmental Outcomes for Children at High Risk of Dyslexia and Children With Developmental Language Disorder.

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.

Longitudinal relationships between speech perception, phonological skills and reading in children at high-risk of dyslexia.

Speech perception deficits are commonly reported in dyslexia but longitudinal evidence that poor speech perception compromises learning to read is scant. We assessed the hypothesis that phonological skills, specifically phoneme awareness and RAN, mediate the relationship between speech perception and reading. We assessed longitudinal predictive relationships between categorical speech perception, phoneme awareness, RAN, language, attention and reading at ages 5½ and 6½ years in 237 children many of whom were at high risk of reading difficulties.

Understanding comorbidity of learning disorders: task-dependent estimates of prevalence.

Background: Reading disorder (RD) and mathematics disorder (MD) frequently co-occur. However, the exact comorbidity rates differ largely between studies. Given that MD is characterised by high heterogeneity on the symptom level, differences in comorbidity rates may result from different mathematical subskills used to define MD.

The Home Literacy Environment Is a Correlate, but Perhaps Not a Cause, of Variations in Children's Language and Literacy Development.

The home literacy environment is a well-established predictor of children's language and literacy development. We investigated whether formal, informal, and indirect measures of the home literacy environment predict children's reading and language skills once maternal language abilities are taken into account. Data come from a longitudinal study of children at high risk of dyslexia ( = 251) followed from preschool years.

Language Skills, but Not Frequency Discrimination, Predict Reading Skills in Children at Risk of Dyslexia.

This study evaluated the claim that auditory processing deficits are a cause of reading and language difficulties. We report a longitudinal study of 245 children at family risk of dyslexia, children with preschool language impairments, and control children. Children with language impairments had poorer frequency-discrimination thresholds than controls at 5.

Why do children read more? The influence of reading ability on voluntary reading practices.

Background: This study investigates the causal relationships between reading and print exposure and investigates whether the amount children read outside school determines how well they read, or vice versa. Previous findings from behavioural studies suggest that reading predicts print exposure. Here, we use twin-data and apply the behaviour-genetic approach of direction of causality modelling, suggested by Heath et al.

Evaluation of a parent-delivered early language enrichment programme: evidence from a randomised controlled trial.

Background: It is widely believed that increasing parental involvement can improve children's educational outcomes although we lack good evidence for such claims. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a parent-delivered early language enrichment programme.

Methods: We conducted a randomised controlled trial (RCT) with 208 preschool children and their parents living in socially diverse areas in the United Kingdom.

The efficacy of early language intervention in mainstream school settings: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Oral language skills are a critical foundation for literacy and more generally for educational success. The current study shows that oral language skills can be improved by providing suitable additional help to children with language difficulties in the early stages of formal education.

Methods: We conducted a randomized controlled trial with 394 children in England, comparing a 30-week oral language intervention programme starting in nursery (N = 132) with a 20-week version of the same programme starting in Reception (N = 133).

Phase 2 of CATALISE: a multinational and multidisciplinary Delphi consensus study of problems with language development: Terminology.

Background: Lack of agreement about criteria and terminology for children's language problems affects access to services as well as hindering research and practice. We report the second phase of a study using an online Delphi method to address these issues. In the first phase, we focused on criteria for language disorder.