Neuroplasticity associated with changes in conversational turn-taking following a family-based intervention

Romeo, Rachel R.; Leonard, Julia A.; Grotzinger, Hannah; Robinson, Sydney T.; Takada, Megumi E.; Mackey, Allyson P.; Scherer, Ethan; Rowe, Meredith L.; West, Martin R.; Gabrieli, John D. E.

doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2021.100967

Cited by 51 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…No significant correlations with early language measures were found for the right hemisphere white matter tracts, or for ventral pathways (IFOF and ILF), reinforcing the idea that the emerging language network is left-hemisphere dominant very early in development. These results extend the findings from previous studies indicating that parent-child conversational turns and language skills in 4-6-year-olds correlate with concurrent structural connectivity in the left AF and SLF (Romeo et al, 2018b), storytelling related activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (Romeo et al, 2018a), and structural plasticity in the superior marginal gyrus (Romeo et al, 2021).…”

Section: Brain-behavior Correlationssupporting

confidence: 89%

Language input in late infancy scaffolds emergent literacy skills and predicts reading related white matter development

Weiss

Huber

Ramírez

et al. 2022

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Longitudinal studies provide the unique opportunity to test whether early language provides a scaffolding for the acquisition of the ability to read. This study tests the hypothesis that parental language input during the first 2 years of life predicts emergent literacy skills at 5 years of age, and that white matter development observed early in the 3rd year (at 26 months) may help to account for these effects. We collected naturalistic recordings of parent and child language at 6, 10, 14, 18, and 24 months using the Language ENvironment Analysis system (LENA) in a group of typically developing infants. We then examined the relationship between language measures during infancy and follow-up measures of reading related skills at age 5 years, in the same group of participants (N = 53). A subset of these children also completed diffusion and quantitative MRI scans at age 2 years (N = 20). Within this subgroup, diffusion tractography was used to identify white matter pathways that are considered critical to language and reading development, namely, the arcuate fasciculus (AF), superior and inferior longitudinal fasciculi, and inferior occipital-frontal fasciculus. Quantitative macromolecular proton fraction (MPF) mapping was used to characterize myelin density within these separately defined regions of interest. The longitudinal data were then used to test correlations between early language input and output, white matter measures at age 2 years, and pre-literacy skills at age 5 years. Parental language input, child speech output, and parent-child conversational turns correlated with pre-literacy skills, as well as myelin density estimates within the left arcuate and superior longitudinal fasciculus. Mediation analyses indicated that the left AF accounted for longitudinal relationships between infant home language measures and 5-year letter identification and letter-sound knowledge, suggesting that the left AF myelination at 2 years may serve as a mechanism by which early language experience supports emergent literacy.

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Section: Brain-behavior Correlationssupporting

confidence: 89%

Language input in late infancy scaffolds emergent literacy skills and predicts reading related white matter development

Weiss

Huber

Ramírez

et al. 2022

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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“…Uncovering these mechanisms is central to identifying targets for early interventions aimed at preventing the wide-ranging negative consequences of early-life adversity (McLaughlin, DeCross, Jovanovic et al, 2019). Indeed, knowledge of these mechanisms has helped to generate novel interventions to reduce disparities in health and educational outcomes among children exposed to adversity (Romeo et al, 2021;Yousafzai et al, 2016).…”

Section: How? the Centrality Of Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why and how does early adversity influence development? Toward an integrated model of dimensions of environmental experience

et al. 2022

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Two extant frameworks – the harshness-unpredictability model and the threat-deprivation model – attempt to explain which dimensions of adversity have distinct influences on development. These models address, respectively, why, based on a history of natural selection, development operates the way it does across a range of environmental contexts, and how the neural mechanisms that underlie plasticity and learning in response to environmental experiences influence brain development. Building on these frameworks, we advance an integrated model of dimensions of environmental experience, focusing on threat-based forms of harshness, deprivation-based forms of harshness, and environmental unpredictability. This integrated model makes clear that the why and the how of development are inextricable and, together, essential to understanding which dimensions of the environment matter. Core integrative concepts include the directedness of learning, multiple levels of developmental adaptation to the environment, and tradeoffs between adaptive and maladaptive developmental responses to adversity. The integrated model proposes that proximal and distal cues to threat-based and deprivation-based forms of harshness, as well as unpredictability in those cues, calibrate development to both immediate rearing environments and broader ecological contexts, current and future. We highlight actionable directions for research needed to investigate the integrated model and advance understanding of dimensions of environmental experience.

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“…The present findings suggest that improving children's early language skills may serve as an indirect pathway to improving EF development. A targeted way of accomplishing this would be through direct, family-based intervention programs; indeed, increases in children's early home language environments result in commensurate improvements in both language and EF skills(Romeo et al, 2021). However, further research is needed to determine whether language experience has direct influence on EF development, or whether it indirectly scaffolds EF through language development.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Language development as a mechanism linking socioeconomic status to executive functioning development in preschool

Romeo

Flournoy

McLaughlin

et al. 2022

Developmental Science

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Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) is related to disparities in the development of both language and executive functioning (EF) skills. Emerging evidence suggests that language development may precede and provide necessary scaffolding for EF development in early childhood. The present preregistered study investigates how these skills co‐develop longitudinally in early childhood and whether language development explains the relationship between SES and EF development. A socioeconomically diverse sample of 305 children completed repeated assessments of language (sentence comprehension) and EF (cognitive flexibility, behavioral inhibition, and cognitive inhibition) at four waves spaced 9 months apart from ages 3 to 5 years. Bivariate latent curve models with structured residuals were estimated to disaggregate between‐person and within‐person components of stability and change. Results revealed bidirectional relationships between language and EF across all waves. However, at 3 years, language comprehension more strongly predicted EF than the reverse; yet by 5 years, the bidirectional effects across domains did not significantly differ. Children from higher‐SES backgrounds exhibited higher initial language and EF skills than children from lower‐SES families, though SES was not associated with either rate of growth. Finally, early language‐mediated the association between SES and early EF skills, and this model outperformed a reverse direction mediation. Together, results suggest that EF development is driven by early language development, and that SES disparities in EF are explained, at least in part, by early differences in language comprehension. These findings have implications for early interventions to support children's language skills as a potential pathway to improving early EF development.

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Neuroplasticity associated with changes in conversational turn-taking following a family-based intervention

Cited by 51 publications

References 61 publications

Language input in late infancy scaffolds emergent literacy skills and predicts reading related white matter development

Language input in late infancy scaffolds emergent literacy skills and predicts reading related white matter development

Why and how does early adversity influence development? Toward an integrated model of dimensions of environmental experience

Language development as a mechanism linking socioeconomic status to executive functioning development in preschool

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