Emotional Competence Mediates the Relationship between Communication Problems and Reactive Externalizing Problems in Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Language problems are a risk factor for externalizing problems, but the developmental path remains unclear. Emotional competence may mediate the relationship, especially when externalizing problems are reactive in nature, such as in Oppositional Deviant Disorder (ODD) and reactive aggression. We examined the development of reactive and proactive externalizing problems in children with (n = 98) and without (n = 156) Developmental Language Disorder (DLD; age: 8–16 years) over 18 months. Relationships with communicative risk factors (structural, pragmatic and emotion communication) and the mediating role of emotional competence (emotion recognition and anger dysregulation) were examined. Multi-level analyses showed that increasing emotion recognition and decreasing anger dysregulation were longitudinally related to decreasing ODD symptoms in both groups, whereas anger dysregulation was related to more reactive aggression in children with DLD alone. Pragmatic and emotion communication problems were related to more reactive externalizing problems, but these relationships were mediated by emotional competence, suggesting that problems in emotional competence explain the communication problems of children with DLD. Therefore, in addition to interventions for communication skills, there is a need to address the emotional competence of children with DLD, as this decreases the risk for reactive externalizing problems.

Developmental Language Disorder and Psychopathology: Disentangling Shared Genetic and Environmental Influences

“…For example, the stress of coping with DLD may exacerbate genetic influences on internalizing problems (i.e., DLD moderates genetic risk for internalizing problems). This is consistent with evidence that childhood stressful experiences increase susceptibility to genetic risk for emotional problems such as depression (Uher, 2014). This possibility, however, needs to be specifically investigated, for example using genomic methods.…”

“…An alternative explanation for the etiological association between DLD and psychopathology in young people is that genetic and/or environmental influences on psychopathology are stronger in the presence of DLD. For example, DLD may create a stressful environment, which can potentiate genetic influences on psychopathology as captured by the diathesis-stress framework (Manuck & McCaffery, 2014;Uher, 2014); however, this possibility has not been previously investigated.…”

“…Furthermore, recognizing others’ emotions affects young people’s ability to understand others’ intentions, which influences their social interactions ( Crick & Dodge, 1994 ). Young people with DLD, who often have difficulties in recognizing others’ emotions, tend to have higher levels of social anxiety leading to higher levels of psychopathology ( Samson et al, 2020 ; van den Bedem et al, 2020 ). Deficits in language may entail a limited ability to appropriately recognize and label emotions.…”

The Association between Parent and Child-Report Measures of Alexithymia in Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder

“…Typically developing children were recruited via mainstream schools. This sample formed part of an ongoing programme of research and has been reported on in previous publications [18,20,[24][25][26].…”

Tuning in to Kids: Clinical Case Studies from One-to-One Delivery

“…This can ensure that the behaviors do not persist, which is important, as children whose behavior problems are not addressed early are at risk for a host of adverse health, educational, relational, and psycho-social outcomes (D'Amico et al, 2014;Maughan et al, 2013). Children with behavior problems tend to have problems with emotional competence; meaning that their knowledge of emotions, and skills with regard to regulating them is compromised (van den Bedem et al, 2020). As such, targeting children's emotional competence through emotionfocused interventions can assist with ameliorating behavior problems (Havighurst et al, 2014).…”