Do infant vocabulary skills predict school‐age language and literacy outcomes?

Duff, Fiona J.; Reen, Gurpreet; Plunkett, Kim; Nation, Kate

doi:10.1111/jcpp.12378

Cited by 232 publications

(225 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(57 reference statements)

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“…consistent with behavioral evidence for the influence of parent-child reading exclusively on "outside-in" oral language skills (understanding outside of the word itself) described by Whitehurst et al 1,5 Vocabulary is among the most important of these skills, 70 shown to be influenced by home reading environment 17 and recently found to be positively associated with left angular gyrus activation during our story listening task in young children. 49 Thus, PTO activation may offer potential as a biomarker of oral language ability (the outside-in domain of emergent literacy), although further studies are needed to clarify how the PTO is integrated into the reading network.…”

Section: Figuresupporting

confidence: 86%

Home Reading Environment and Brain Activation in Preschool Children Listening to Stories

et al. 2015

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BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Parent-child reading is widely advocated to promote cognitive development, including in recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics to begin this practice at birth. Although parent-child reading has been shown in behavioral studies to improve oral language and print concepts, quantifiable effects on the brain have not been previously studied. Our study used blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the relationship between home reading environment and brain activity during a story listening task in a sample of preschool-age children. We hypothesized that while listening to stories, children with greater home reading exposure would exhibit higher activation of left-sided brain regions involved with semantic processing (extraction of meaning).METHODS: Nineteen 3-to 5-year-old children were selected from a longitudinal study of normal brain development. All completed blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging using an age-appropriate story listening task, where narrative alternated with tones. We performed a series of whole-brain regression analyses applying composite, subscale, and individual reading-related items from the validated StimQ-P measure of home cognitive environment as explanatory variables for neural activation.RESULTS: Higher reading exposure (StimQ-P Reading subscale score) was positively correlated (P , .05, corrected) with neural activation in the left-sided parietal-temporal-occipital association cortex, a "hub" region supporting semantic language processing, controlling for household income. CONCLUSIONS:In preschool children listening to stories, greater home reading exposure is positively associated with activation of brain areas supporting mental imagery and narrative comprehension, controlling for household income. These neural biomarkers may help inform eco-bio-developmental models of emergent literacy. WHAT'S KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT:The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends parent-child reading from infancy through at least kindergarten, the span of maximal brain growth. Home literacy environment, including reading behaviors and access to books, has been shown to promote oral language and print concepts. WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS:Home reading environment is positively associated with activation of brain areas supporting narrative comprehension and mental imagery in preschool children. This offers novel insight into the neurobiological foundations of emergent literacy and potential effect of shared reading during early childhood. Dr Hutton conceptualized and designed the study, performed all data analysis, and drafted the initial manuscript and subsequent revisions; Dr Horowitz-Kraus provided guidance on study design and analysis, assisted with coordination of data collection, and reviewed and revised the manuscript; Dr Mendelsohn served as national outside facilitator and mentor for this project, provided advice on the use of the StimQ measure, and reviewed and revised the manuscript; Dr...

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Section: Figuresupporting

confidence: 86%

Home Reading Environment and Brain Activation in Preschool Children Listening to Stories

et al. 2015

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“…Some experts have suggested that five years of age represents a time-point in which children's vocabulary skills become stable, following a period of great instability during the toddler and preschool years (Duff, Reen, Plunkett, & Nation, 2015). Duff and colleagues' examination of growth in vocabulary skills from toddlerhood (18 to 24 months) to around eight years of age showed that early vocabulary skills explained about 16% of the variance in vocabulary at eight years, whereas our study showed that vocabulary at about five years explained 50% of the variance in vocabulary at grade three.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other studies examining trajectories have featured more frequent observations of children (Farkas & Beron, 2004;Rowe et al, 2012), and it may be that more precise assessment of linguistic change is necessary to represent trajectories during early and middle childhood. This is an important methodological consideration for research on children's language development, given that even at very young ages, children's language skills show significant change in even relatively small increments of time (Duff et al, 2015). Finally, we did not represent the nested data-structure of this study into our modeling, although children were nested in classrooms at the initial observation and then longitudinally.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling the Nature of Grammar and Vocabulary Trajectories From Prekindergarten to Third Grade

Justice

Cain

Jiang

et al. 2018

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose This study investigated the longitudinal development of 2 important contributors to reading comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary skills. The primary interest was to examine the trajectories of the 2 skill areas from preschool to 3rd grade. Method The study involved a longitudinal sample of 420 children from 4 sites. Language skills, including grammar and vocabulary, were assessed annually with multiple measures. Multivariate latent growth curve modeling was used to examine the developmental trajectories of grammar and vocabulary, to test the correlation between the 2 domains, and to investigate the effects of demographic predictors on language growth. Results Results showed that both grammar and vocabulary exhibited decelerating growth from preschool to Grade 2. In Grade 3, grammar growth further flattened, whereas vocabulary continued to grow stably. Growth of vocabulary and grammar were positively correlated. Demographic characteristics, such as child gender and family socioeconomic status, were found to predict the intercept but not the slope of the growth trajectories. Conclusions Children's growth in grammar skills is differentiated in a number of important ways from their growth in vocabulary skills. Results of this study suggest the need to differentiate these dimensions of language when seeking to closely examine growth from preschool to primary grades.

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“…In this sample, 17% of high risk infants went on to have ASD themselves, and an additional 11% demonstrated signs of early language delay but not ASD. Recent community sample studies have suggested that early language skills are correlated with school-age vocabulary and literacy; however, the relationship is insufficiently strong to predict individual outcomes from infant data (55). School-age children with a family history of ASD have higher than expected rates of impairment, including difficulties in speech and language (56), thus early language delays in high-risk infants may herald these school-age difficulties, but this link remains to be determined.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subcortical Brain and Behavior Phenotypes Differentiate Infants With Autism Versus Language Delay

Swanson

Shen

Elison

et al. 2017

Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging

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Background Younger siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are themselves at increased risk for ASD and other developmental concerns. It is unclear if infants who display developmental concerns, but are unaffected by ASD, share similar or dissimilar behavioral and brain phenotypes to infants with ASD. Most individuals with ASD exhibit heterogeneous difficulties with language, and their receptive-expressive language profiles are often atypical. Yet, little is known about the neurobiology that contributes to these language difficulties. Methods In this study, we used behavioral assessments and structural magnetic resonance imaging to investigate early brain structure and associations with later language skills. High-risk infants who were later diagnosed with ASD (n = 86) were compared to high-risk infants who showed signs of early language delay (n = 41), and high- and low-risk infants who did not have ASD or language delay (n= 255, n = 143, respectively). Results Results indicated that diminished language skills were evident at 12-months in infants with ASD and infants with early language delay. At 24-months of age, only the ASD infants displayed atypical receptive-expressive language profiles. Associations between 12-month subcortical volumes and 24-month language skills were moderated by group status, indicating disordinal brain-behavior associations among ASD infants and language delay infants. Conclusions These results suggest that there are different brain mechanisms influencing language development in ASD and language delay infants, and that the two groups likely experience unique sets of genetic and environmental risk factors.

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Do infant vocabulary skills predict school‐age language and literacy outcomes?

Cited by 232 publications

References 35 publications

Home Reading Environment and Brain Activation in Preschool Children Listening to Stories

Home Reading Environment and Brain Activation in Preschool Children Listening to Stories

Modeling the Nature of Grammar and Vocabulary Trajectories From Prekindergarten to Third Grade

Subcortical Brain and Behavior Phenotypes Differentiate Infants With Autism Versus Language Delay

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