Child maltreatment, mental health and oral language competence: Inviting speech-language pathology to the prevention table

Abstract

Child maltreatment (neglect and abuse of various forms) is a serious global issue. Although Australia and New Zealand are both affluent, first world countries, child protection statistics indicate that much ground is yet to be covered with respect to ensuring that children are reared in environments that are safe and developmentally nourishing. Both neglect and abuse are associated with serious, pervasive and long-term sequelae for a range of neuropsychological functions, including expressive and receptive language abilities. In spite of its considerable body of knowledge regarding the nature and sequence of language development from infancy through to adulthood and across the lifespan, speech-language pathology (SLP) as a profession has failed to position itself as an agent of prevention where child safety is concerned. Language competence is acquired in the relational milieu of early infant-caregiver attachment, and cannot be separated out from mental health across the lifespan. Most significant mental health problems have their onset early in life, as do developmental language problems. Positioning SLP at the prevention table will require graduates of SLP programs to speak and understand the discourse of public health policy-making, advocacy, and resource-allocation, so that graduates can occupy positions of influence in government. At the current time, however, most undergraduate programs emphasize SLP as a 1:1 service-delivery profession, at the expense of important roles this profession could play in relation to prevention of language and mental health problems at a population level.

Improving communication outcomes for young offenders: a proposed response to intervention framework

“…Oral language competence is also positively associated with prosocial behaviours such as social inferencing, emotion recognition, and negotiation skills (Armstrong , Benner et al . , Snow , Snow and Powell , , Snow et al . , Zadeh et al .…”

Role of Child Abuse and Neglect in Children’s Speech and Language Problems

“…Abuse and neglect also impair the quality of parent-child relationship and negatively affect development of attachment relationships [22]. Healthy parent-child relationship is crucial in terms of child's trust in his/her parents and others, feeling loved, believing in a safe world and enough confidence to explore, new skills and language acquisition [18].…”

“…Quite remarkable results have been achieved when effects of abuse and neglect in terms of early neurobiological development were examined. For instance, maltreatment and traumatic experiences are known to link with serious, prevalent and long-term residual for a variety of neuropsychological functions and have compelling implications for speech and language development [17]- [18]- [19].…”

Implementing recommendations of the World Report on Disability for indigenous populations

“…SLPs serving indigenous populations in the minority world need to be knowledgeable regarding the health conditions that place indigenous persons at high risk for communicative disorders and how aspects of the indigenous culture infl uence the acceptability and response to programs provided (Snow, 2009). Often SLPs will need to effect micro changes within their practices to best meet the needs of indigenous PWCD.…”