Sex differences in early language delay and in developmental language disorder

Abstract

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a neurodevelopmental condition, occurring in about 3% to 7% of preschoolers, that can impair communication and negatively impact educational and social attainments, in spite of adequate neurological, cognitive, emotional, social development, and educational opportunities for language learning. Significant risk factors for DLD are male sex, familial history of early language delay, low parental education, and various perinatal factors. A strong sex effect with a higher prevalence of language delay and DLD in males than in females has been consistently reported. Neurobiological and environmental risk factors, interacting with each other, are probably responsible for the phenotypic expression of DLD. The aim of this brief review is to further the knowledge of the role of sex in early language delay and DLD by analyzing the evidence from four significant sources: epidemiological studies, studies on twins, family aggregation studies, and studies on sex chromosome trisomies. Data pertaining only to sex differences (biological and physiological characteristics of females and males) will be analyzed. Studies on family aggregations and twins confirm the role of genetic factors and of sex in determining language abilities and disabilities, but genes alone do not determine outcomes. Sex chromosome trisomies represent a unique example of the relationship between a genetic alteration and a language disorder. Clarification of how sex acts in determining DLD could provide new information on early risk factors and, thus, contribute to improve diagnosis and clinical management.

Speech-language disorder severity, academic success, and socioemotional functioning among multilingual and English children in the United States: The National Survey of Children’s Health

“…Being male is a risk factor for SLDs (e.g., for specific language impairment, speech sound disorders, stuttering, voice disorders) in the general population (e.g., Dodd, 1995 ; Keating et al, 2001 ; Flax et al, 2003 ; McKinnon et al, 2007 ; Harrison and McLeod, 2010 ; Eadie et al, 2015 ; American Speech-Language-Hearing Association [ASHA], 2020 ; Chilosi et al, 2021 ; Choo et al, 2022 ). Nonetheless, findings from the present study suggest that although being male is associated with an increased risk for SLDs, sex is not associated with the severity of a child’s SLD symptoms (rated by parents as either “mild” or “moderate/severe”).…”

“The two voices,” or more? Music and gender from myth and conquests to the neurosciences

“…On other aspects of sex/gender differences in language, this special issue provides three minireviews on language production networks (Marini, 2022), delay and developmental language disorder (Chilosi et al, 2021) and the early stages of language development (Rinaldi et al, 2021).…”

Is Specific Learning Disorder Predicted by Developmental Language Disorder? Evidence from a Follow-Up Study on Italian Children

“…From the biological perspective, however, convincing genetic evidence to explain the sex bias observed in SLD is still lacking or is at least contradictory. See also [ 14 , 15 ] for a discussion on sex/gender differences in children with typical and atypical language development.…”