Beta Spectral Power during Passive Listening in Preschool Children with Specific Language Impairment.

INTRODUCTION: Children with specific language impairment (SLI) have difficulties in different speech and language domains. Electrophysiological studies have documented that auditory processing in children with SLI is atypical and probably caused by delayed and abnormal auditory maturation. During the resting state, or different auditory tasks, children with SLI show low or high beta spectral power, which could be a clinical correlate for investigating brain rhythms. METHODS: The aim of this study was to examine the electrophysiological cortical activity of the beta rhythm while listening to words and nonwords in children with SLI in comparison to typical development (TD) children. The participants were 50 children with SLI, aged 4 and 5 years, and 50 age matched TD children. The children were divided into two subgroups according to age: (1) children 4 years of age; (2) children 5 years of age. RESULTS: The older group differed from the younger group in beta auditory processing, with increased values of beta spectral power in the right frontal, temporal, and parietal regions. In addition, children with SLI have higher beta spectral power than TD children in the bilateral temporal regions. CONCLUSION: Complex beta auditory activation in TD and SLI children indicates the presence of early changes in functional brain connectivity.

Language impairment in sporadic and familial (type 8) amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: A comparative study.

INTRODUCTION/AIMS: Language is frequently affected in patients with sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (sALS), with reduced performance in naming, syntactic comprehension, grammatical expression, and orthographic processing. However, the language profile of patients with familial type 8 ALS (ALS8), linked to p.P56S VAPB mutation, remains unclear. We investigated language in patients with ALS8 by examining their auditory comprehension and verbal production. METHODS: We included three groups of participants: (1) patients with sALS (n = 20), (2) patients with familial ALS8 (n = 22), and (3) healthy controls (n = 21). The groups were matched for age, sex, and education level. All participants underwent a comprehensive language battery, including the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination, the reduced Token test, letter fluency, categorical fluency (animals), word definition from the Cambridge Semantic Memory Research Battery, and a narrative discourse analysis. Participants also were evaluated using Addenbrooke's Cognitive Exam-Revised Version, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the ALS Functional Rating Scale-Revised. RESULTS: Compared to controls, sALS and ALS8 patients had impaired performance on oral (syntactic and phonological processing) comprehension and inappropriate discourse cohesion. sALS and ALS8 did not differ in any language measure. There was no correlation between language scores and functional and psychiatric scales. DISCUSSION: ALS8 patients exhibit language deficits that are independent of motor features. These findings are consistent with the current evidence suggesting that ALS8 has prominent non-motor features.

Preoperative word-finding difficulties in children with posterior fossa tumours: a European cross-sectional study.

PURPOSE: Posterior fossa tumour surgery in children entails a high risk for severe speech and language impairments, but few studies have investigated the effect of the tumour on language prior to surgery. The current crosslinguistic study addresses this gap. We investigated the prevalence of preoperative word-finding difficulties, examined associations with medical and demographic characteristics, and analysed lexical errors. METHODS: We included 148 children aged 5-17 years with a posterior fossa tumour. Word-finding ability was assessed by means of a picture-naming test, Wordrace, and difficulties in accuracy and speed were identified by cut-off values. A norm-based subanalysis evaluated performance in a Swedish subsample. We compared the demographic and medical characteristics of children with slow, inaccurate, or combined slow and inaccurate word finding to the characteristics of children without word-finding difficulties and conducted a lexical error analysis. RESULTS: Thirty-seven percent (n = 55) presented with slow word finding, 24% (n = 35) with inaccurate word finding, and 16% (n = 23) with both slow and inaccurate word finding. Children with posterior fossa tumours were twice as slow as children in the norming sample. Right-hemisphere and brainstem location posed a higher risk for preoperative word-finding difficulties, relative to left-hemisphere location, and difficulties were more prevalent in boys than in girls. The most frequent errors were lack of response and semantically related sideordinated words. CONCLUSION: Word-finding difficulties are frequent in children with posterior fossa tumours, especially in boys and in children with right-hemisphere and brainstem tumours. Errors resemble those observed in typical development and children with word-finding difficulties.

Phonological awareness training and phonological therapy approaches for specific language impairment children with speech sound disorders: a comparative outcome study.

PURPOSE: Children with specific language impairment (SLI) might present with speech sound disorder (SSD) and phonological awareness (PA) deficits which put them at risk of potential reading problems. This work aimed to organize an intervention program in Arabic for phonological training and to assess the effect of PA training versus the phonological therapy (PT) for children with SLI and SSD. METHODS: The study was carried out on 60 children with comorbid SLI and SSD, aged 5-7 years. Children were equally divided into two groups; each group received language therapy combined with (PT or PA training). Measures of language development, phonological output, and PA were taken before therapy and at 4 month post-therapy for all children. RESULTS: The two therapy groups made nearly the same amount of progress in the development of language and phonological production, with no significant differences regarding language age and percent of consonants correct (PCC). The PA training group progressed more on the PA skills than children who received PT over the same time. CONCLUSIONS: PA training could facilitate the development of phonological skills by targeting the child's awareness of phonemes and improving the production of sound patterns.

Meta-analysis reveals low language capacity in childhood is associated with mental health problems in adulthood.

BACKGROUND: Children and adolescents with language problems have poorer mental health compared with their non-language impaired peers. Less is known about mental health in adults with a history of language problems. This paper presents a systematic review and meta-analysis that addresses this gap in the literature. Specifically, it summarises the results from studies examining anxiety and depression in adults (aged 18 years and over) who were identified with language impairments or problems earlier in development. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Five electronic databases (PsycINFO, ERIC, CINAHL, EMBASE and PubMed) were searched for studies comparing anxiety and/or depression in a sample of adults with and without a history of language problems. Nine studies were found that met the inclusion criteria. From each, an odds ratio (OR) was computed measuring the relationship between childhood language problems and anxiety or depression in adulthood. The OR was computed so values > 1 which indicated anxiety/depression were associated with a history of language problems. ORs were averaged using multilevel random effects meta-analysis. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Averaging the study's findings across both anxiety and depression outcomes, we found that a history of childhood language problems was associated with poorer mental health in adulthood (OR = 1.79, p = 0.004). The association for anxiety was also significant (OR = 1.80, p = 0.012) and close to statistical significance for depression (OR = 1.60, p = 0.054). CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: This review reveals that adults with a history of language problems are more likely to experience poorer mental health outcomes compared with controls. These findings demonstrate childhood language problems affect not only communication but also mental health and well-being in the long term. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject Prior research examining mental health in children and adolescents with language problems reveals a twofold increased risk of internalising problems, including anxiety and depression. However, little is known about mental health outcomes in adults with a history of language problems. What this paper adds to the existing knowledge The main finding was that childhood language problems are associated with increased risk of anxiety and depression in adulthood. What are the practical and clinical implications of this work? First, the study demonstrates childhood language problems increase the risk of poor mental health in adulthood. Second, in adult mental health settings there is a need to screen for language problems and, where applicable, adjust interventions to accommodate communicative needs for patients/clients. Solving these issues requires integration and recognition of the importance of speech-language therapy in the adult mental health system.

NR4A2 as a Novel Target Gene for Developmental and Epileptic Encephalopathy: A Systematic Review of Related Disorders and Therapeutic Strategies.

The NR4A2 gene encodes an orphan transcription factor of the steroid-thyroid hormone-retinoid receptor superfamily. This review focuses on the clinical findings associated with the pathogenic variants so far reported, including three unreported cases. Also, its role in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease, is examined, as well as a brief exploration on recent proposals to develop novel therapies for these neurological diseases based on small molecules that could modulate NR4A2 transcriptional activity. The main characteristic shared by all patients is mild to severe developmental delay/intellectual disability. Moderate to severe disorder of the expressive and receptive language is present in at least 42%, while neuro-psychiatric issues were reported in 53% of patients. Movement disorders, including dystonia, chorea or ataxia, are described in 37% patients, although probably underestimated because of its frequent onset in late adolescence-young adulthood. Finally, epilepsy was surprisingly present in 42% of patients, being drug-resistant in three of them. The age at onset varied widely, from five months to twenty-six years, as did the classification of epilepsy, which ranged from focal epilepsy to infantile spasms or Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. Accordingly, we propose that NR4A2 should be considered as a first-tier target gene for the genetic diagnosis of developmental and epileptic encephalopathy.

How Encephalopathy Impacts Language Ability: A Scoping Review of the Linguistic Abilities of Adults with Developmental and Epileptic Encephalopathy.

Background and Objectives: Developmental and epileptic encephalopathy refers to a group of conditions where patients experience abnormal development due to various causes as well as frequent epileptiform discharges that ultimately contribute, in an independent and additive fashion, to cognitive and linguistic impairments. The language and cognition outcome of these patients in adulthood has been understudied. This paper aims to present a scoping review of linguistic abilities in adults with developmental and epileptic encephalopathy to determine the extent to which language outcomes in adulthood and their relation to cognitive outcomes have been studied. Design: Two online databases were searched and the methodological framework by Arksey & O'Malley (2005) was adopted. Results: Out of the 27 selected studies, only 13 exclusively examined adults, 15 were group studies, 5 were case studies and 7 were case series. A total of 9 out of the 15 group studies provided individual results for adults. Twenty-two studies included a follow-up examination. Twenty-three studies addressed the relationship between language and cognition. The selected studies indicate the presence of language impairments, which are nevertheless differentially manifested in the syndromes under investigation, whereas individual variability is also reported. Aspects of cognition seem to correlate with linguistic abilities. Conclusions: In sum, despite variability in linguistic abilities, language deficits constitute a significant aspect of the clinical profile of many adults with developmental and epileptic encephalopathy, a finding that should be taken into account for the treatment protocols of these individuals.

fNIRS Studies of Individuals with Speech and Language Impairment Underreport Sociodemographics: A Systematic Review.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a promising tool for scientific discovery and clinical application. However, its utility depends upon replicable reporting. We evaluate reporting of sociodemographics in fNIRS studies of speech and language impairment and asked the following: (1) Do refereed fNIRS publications report participant sociodemographics? (2) For what reasons are participants excluded from analysis? This systematic review was preregistered with PROSPERO (CRD42022342959) and followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses protocol. Searches in August 2022 included the terms: (a) fNIRS or functional near-infrared spectroscopy or NIRS or near-infrared spectroscopy, (b) speech or language, and (c) disorder or impairment or delay. Searches yielded 38 qualifying studies from 1997 to present. Eight studies (5%) reported at least partial information on race or ethnicity. Few studies reported SES (26%) or language background (47%). Most studies reported geographic location (100%) and gender/sex (89%). Underreporting of sociodemographics in fNIRS studies of speech and language impairment hinders the generalizability of findings. Replicable reporting is imperative for advancing the utility of fNIRS.

Language in autism: domains, profiles and co-occurring conditions.

This article reviews the current knowledge state on pragmatic and structural language abilities in autism and their potential relation to extralinguistic abilities and autistic traits. The focus is on questions regarding autism language profiles with varying degrees of (selective) impairment and with respect to potential comorbidity of autism and language impairment: Is language impairment in autism the co-occurrence of two distinct conditions (comorbidity), a consequence of autism itself (no comorbidity), or one possible combination from a series of neurodevelopmental properties (dimensional approach)? As for language profiles in autism, three main groups are identified, namely, (i) verbal autistic individuals without structural language impairment, (ii) verbal autistic individuals with structural language impairment, and (iii) minimally verbal autistic individuals. However, this tripartite distinction hides enormous linguistic heterogeneity. Regarding the nature of language impairment in autism, there is currently no model of how language difficulties may interact with autism characteristics and with various extralinguistic cognitive abilities. Building such a model requires carefully designed explorations that address specific aspects of language and extralinguistic cognition. This should lead to a fundamental increase in our understanding of language impairment in autism, thereby paving the way for a substantial contribution to the question of how to best characterize neurodevelopmental disorders.

The copenhagen cross-linguistic naming test (C-CLNT): Development and validation in a multicultural memory clinic population.

OBJECTIVE: Despite recent advances in cross-cultural neuropsychological test development, suitable tests for cross-linguistic assessment of language functions are not widely available. The aims of this study were to develop and validate a brief naming test, the Copenhagen Cross-Linguistic Naming Test (C-CLNT), for the assessment of culturally, linguistically, and educationally diverse older adult populations in Europe. METHOD: The C-CLNT was based on a set of standardized color drawings. Items for the C-CLNT were selected by considering name agreement and frequency across five European and two non-European languages. Ambiguities in some of the selected items and scoring criteria were resolved after pilot testing in 10 memory clinic patients. The final 30-item C-CLNT was validated by verifying its psychometric properties in 24 controls and 162 diverse memory clinic patients with affective disorder, mild cognitive impairment, and with dementia. RESULTS: The C-CLNT had acceptable scale reliability (coefficient alpha = .67) and good construct validity, with moderate to strong correlations with traditional language tests (r = .42- .75). Diagnostic accuracy for dementia was good and significantly better than that of the Boston Naming Test (areas under the curve of .80 vs .64, p < .001), but was poor for mild cognitive impairment. Only 3% of the variance in C-CLNT test scores was explained by immigrant background, while 6% was explained by age and years of education. In comparison, these proportions were 34 and 22% for the BNT. CONCLUSIONS: The C-CLNT has promising clinical utility for cross-linguistic assessment of naming impairment in culturally, linguistically, and educationally diverse older adults.

A pilot study on glutamate receptor and carrier gene variants and risk of childhood autism spectrum.

Imbalanced glutamate signaling has been implicated in the development of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This case-control study was to examine single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in glutamate receptor and carrier genes and determine their association with childhood ASD in a Chinese Han population. A total of 12 SNPs in genes encoding glutamate receptors (GRM7 and GRM8) and carriers (SLC1A1 and SLC25A12) were examined in 249 autistic children and 353 healthy controls. The Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) and its verbal communication domain were applied to evaluate the severity of the disease and language impairment, respectively. The T allele of rs2292813 in the SLC25A12 gene was significantly associated with an increased risk of ASD (odds ratio (OD) = 1.7, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.1-2.6, P = 0.0107). Neither the genotypes nor allele distributions of other SNPs were associated with the risk of ASD. Notably, rs1800656 and rs2237731 in the GRM8 gene, but not other SNPs, were related to the severity of language impairment. All SNPs were not correlated with the overall severity of ASD. Our findings support associations between the SLC25A12 gene variant and the risk of childhood ASD, and between the GRM8 gene variant and the severity of language impairment in the Chinese Han population.

Language Impairment in Children of Mothers with Gestational Diabetes, Preeclampsia, and Preterm Delivery: Current Hypothesis and Potential Underlying Mechanisms : Language Impartment and Pregnancy Complications.

Many conditions may impair or delay language development, including socioeconomic status, parent's education, or intrauterine environment. Accordingly, increasing evidence has described that pregnancy complications, including gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), preeclampsia, and preterm delivery, are associated with the offspring's impaired neurodevelopment. Since language is one of the high brain functions, alterations in this function are another sign of neurodevelopment impairment. How these maternal conditions may generate language impairment has yet to be entirely understood. However, since language development requires adequate structural formation and function/connectivity of the brain, these processes must be affected by alterations in maternal conditions. However, the underlying mechanisms of these structural alterations are largely unknown. This manuscript critically analyzes the literature focused on the risk of developing language impairment in children of mothers with GDM, preeclampsia, and preterm delivery. Furthermore, we highlight potential underlying molecular mechanisms associated with these alterations, such as neuroinflammatory and metabolic and cerebrovascular alterations.

Genome-wide analysis of runs of homozygosity in Pakistani controls with no history of speech or language-related developmental phenotypes.

BACKGROUND: Runs of homozygosity (ROHs) analysis of controls provide a convenient resource to minimize the association of false positive results of disease-associated ROHs and genetic variants for simple and complex disorders in individuals from the same population. Evidence for the value of ROHs to speech or language-related traits is restricted due to the absence of population-matched behaviourally defined controls and limited family-based studies. AIM: This study aims to identify common ROHs in the Pakistani population, focussing on the total length and frequency of ROHs of variable sizes, shared ROHs, and their genomic distribution. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: We performed homozygosity analysis (in PLINK) of 86 individuals (39 males, 47 females) with no history of speech or language-related phenotypes (controls) who had been genotyped with the Illumina Infinium QC Array-24. RESULTS: ROHs of 1-<4 megabases (Mb) were frequent in unrelated individuals. We observed ROHs over 20 Mb among six individuals. Over 30 percent of the identified ROHs were shared among several individuals, indicating consanguinity's effect on the Pakistani population. CONCLUSION: Our findings serve as a foundation for family-based genetic studies of consanguineous families with speech or language-related disorders to ultimately narrow the homozygosity regions of interest to identify pathogenic variants.

The Engage with Developmental Language Disorder (E-DLD) project: Cohort profile.

BACKGROUND: Public awareness of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is lower than other neurodevelopmental disorders, despite its high prevalence of 7.6%. This lower awareness means recruitment for DLD research studies is difficult. DLD is both underfunded and under-researched, resulting in relatively limited research investigating individuals with DLD. Engage with Developmental Language Disorder (E-DLD) is a response to these considerations. E-DLD is the first international participant database of those affected by DLD. Parents of children with DLD under 16 and young people and adults over 16 from anywhere in the world can sign up to be a part of the E-DLD. AIMS: This paper aims to describe the families of children with DLD and adults with DLD in the database thus far. METHODS & PROCEDURES: E-DLD members sign up via our website, reporting demographic characteristics as part of this procedure. We request all E-DLD members subsequently fill in a yearly survey. The content of the yearly survey changes dependent on the age of the child, while the yearly survey for adults remains consistent. We measure a wide range of domains, such as speech and language therapy (SLT) support, school support, socialisation skills, and early developmental milestones for our youngest members, and health care support and mental well-being measurements for our adults. We also collect parent and self-reported reflections on strengths and challenges for the person with DLD using open-ended questions and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: The database currently consists of 196 parents of children with DLD and 20 individuals over the age of 16 with DLD or suspected DLD across a range of socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. Our initial results confirm that E-DLD members meet the linguistic profile of DLD in relation to self- or parent-rated language difficulties. Both children and adults show increased rates of psychosocial difficulties compared to established norms, consistent with past research on clinical samples of people with DLD. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: The findings indicate that a participant database for DLD research is feasible and useful. The rates of emotional, behavioural and sleep difficulties among the child probands are higher than reported rates amongst typically developing children. Initial data indicate that adults with DLD have poorer well-being than their peers. The E-DLD is a useful collection of data on those affected by DLD and is a promising method for connecting people with DLD with academic researchers. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is characterised by expressive and/or receptive language difficulties in the absence of another biomedical condition that could explain these difficulties. It is critically under-researched and underfunded. As such, there is a lack of public awareness and difficulty recruiting sufficient sample sizes for DLD research studies. What this paper adds to existing knowledge Engage with Developmental Language Disorder (E-DLD) is the first international participant database of individuals with DLD. This paper provides a preliminary report on the profile of linguistic and psychosocial skills among the individuals on the database, adding to current understanding of DLD across age groups. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Our aim is that the E-DLD will provide much-needed facilitation of research into DLD. E-DLD will enable those with DLD and their families more readily to shape research agendas and to participate in studies that interest them. Families may be recruited into research that could directly translate to better clinical treatment of DLD. We also believe that the E-DLD yearly survey holds potential to provide key information on the development and longitudinal experience of children and adults with DLD.

Stability of language difficulties among a clinical sample of preschoolers.

BACKGROUND: Some data call into question the persistence of developmental language disorders (DLDs) identified during the preschool period. For this reason, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) often reassess children. However, it is unclear if the instability of the profiles documented in community sample studies is present in children referred to specialized clinics. Given the scarcity of SLP resources, is re-evaluating the language skills of these children a good use of clinical time? AIM: To examine the stability of the findings from two SLP assessments in a sample of Canadian preschool children referred to a tertiary clinic between the ages of 2 and 6 years. It was hypothesized that children under the age of 4 years at first assessment and children with less severe initial deficits would show less stability of DLD diagnosis. METHODS & PROCEDURES: The clinical files of children referred to an early childhood psychiatric clinic in Canada were reviewed. For 149 children with two SLPs assessment reports, persistence of language deficits was documented and tested with McNemar's statistics. Differences between preschoolers under the age of 4 versus 4 years and over, as well as between mildly and severely impaired children, were examined. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: High level of agreement (94%) and McNemar's test (p = 0.180) supported the stability of initial diagnosis. The stability for children assessed before the age of 4 (n = 64) was 100%, and was significantly different from older children's (n = 85) stability of 89% (Fisher's exact test, p = 0.01; bilateral). The stability for children with mild impairments (n = 18) was 78%, which was significantly lower than the stability (97%) in children with severe impairments (n = 114) (Fisher's exact test, p = 0.007; bilateral). CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: No instability of language status was observed in children assessed before 4 years of age, which could be related to the significant severity of the difficulties that children in this age group presented and be specific to this type of clinical sample. The great stability of language status observed in preschoolers referred to a specialized clinic suggests that clinicians should limit reassessments to devote available resources to intervention efforts. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject? Previous research that has demonstrated important instability in the classification of language impairment before 4 years of age gathered data mainly by screening the general population or was not based on a comprehensive clinical assessment. What this paper adds to existing knowledge? This study investigated the classification stability of DLD between two comprehensive SLP assessments in a clinical sample of Canadian preschoolers. The results indicate great stability of language status assessed before 4 years old in this population, suggesting that severity of impairments may trump the age factor in this group. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? In the case of children referred to a specialized clinic, clinicians and policymakers should be aware that DLD diagnosis made before 4 years of age remains stable during preschool age, and that a best practice with this population would be to abandon unnecessary testing in favour of early intervention.

Acquisition of grammatical aspect by Mandarin-speaking preschool children with autism spectrum disorder.

BACKGROUND: Mandarin-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties producing aspect markers. The difficulties were explained in terms of pragmatic deficits since these children demonstrated strength in the comprehension of aspect markers using the Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL) task. AIMS: To verify whether this dissociation between production and comprehension could be replicated using another technique to the IPL, and if all children with ASD show difficulties in the production of aspect markers. METHODS & PROCEDURES: A total of 34 children with ASD without cognitive delay, half with language impairment (ALI; mean age = 61.25 months old) and half with normal language (ALN, mean age = 61.52 months old), as well as 17 age-matched typically developing (TD) children (mean age = 61.38 months old) participated in a sentence-picture-matching task and a priming picture-description task to investigate their comprehension and production of Mandarin aspect markers zai-, -le and -zhe. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: In the comprehension task, children in the ALN group performed similarly to their TD peers, but those in the ALI group were less accurate on zai- and -le than TD children; children in all groups received higher accuracy when zai- was combined with Activity rather than Accomplishment verbs, and those in the ALI group was also more accurate when -le occurred with Achievement verbs, in contrast to Activity verbs. In the production task, children in the ALI group produced fewer targets and more irrelevant sentences with zai- than their TD peers, and they tended to produce bare verbs for -le and -zhe than TD children; children in all groups tended to combine zai- with Activity verbs, and those in the ALN group also tended to combine -le with Achievement verbs. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: The comprehension and production of Mandarin aspect markers by children with ASD are linked to general language abilities, and interactions between lexical and grammatical aspect. Patterns of performance are similar to those of TD peers only for the subgroup with spared global language, while pragmatic deficits are pervasive throughout the spectrum. Therefore, training on formal language, with a specific emphasis on aspectual rather than pragmatic abilities, may be more effective at enhancing the production of aspect markers. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject Mandarin-speaking children with ASD have difficulties producing aspect markers but demonstrate strengths in aspectual comprehension via the IPL task. Therefore, it has been proposed that their 'specific' difficulties in aspectual production should be ascribed to their pragmatic deficits. However, pragmatic deficits are highly pervasive in children with ASD while only a subgroup of children with ASD who are impaired in language development (children with ALI) show difficulties in producing tense/aspect morphology. Pursuing this reasoning, pragmatic deficits might not be the critical factor impacting the performance of children with ASD in aspectual production. What this study adds Children with ASD were divided into one group with ALI and the other with normal language (ALN). Results of a sentence-picture-matching and a priming picture-description task illustrated that both groups preserved the comprehension of Mandarin aspect markers zai-, -le and -zhe. However, children with ALI performed worse than age-matched TD children, while children with ALN demonstrated similar performance to TD children in aspectual production. These findings, coupled with the fact that pragmatic challenges affect individuals throughout the spectrum, suggest that general language abilities rather than pragmatics better explain the performance of children with ASD on aspectual production. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Since general language abilities rather than pragmatic deficits of children with ASD determine their performance on the production of aspect markers, direct training on the use of aspect markers or more global language therapy could benefit children with ASD in the production of aspect markers.

Structural Variations Contribute to the Genetic Etiology of Autism Spectrum Disorder and Language Impairments.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by restrictive interests and/or repetitive behaviors and deficits in social interaction and communication. ASD is a multifactorial disease with a complex polygenic genetic architecture. Its genetic contributing factors are not yet fully understood, especially large structural variations (SVs). In this study, we aimed to assess the contribution of SVs, including copy number variants (CNVs), insertions, deletions, duplications, and mobile element insertions, to ASD and related language impairments in the New Jersey Language and Autism Genetics Study (NJLAGS) cohort. Within the cohort, ~77% of the families contain SVs that followed expected segregation or de novo patterns and passed our filtering criteria. These SVs affected 344 brain-expressed genes and can potentially contribute to the genetic etiology of the disorders. Gene Ontology and protein-protein interaction network analysis suggested several clusters of genes in different functional categories, such as neuronal development and histone modification machinery. Genes and biological processes identified in this study contribute to the understanding of ASD and related neurodevelopment disorders.

The comprehension of relative clauses in Mandarin Children with suspected specific language impairment.

This paper investigates the comprehension of Relative Clauses (RCs) in 15 Mandarin children with suspected Specific Language Impairment (SLI) (aged between 4; 5 and 6; 0) and 29 typically developing (TD) controls. Results from a Character Picture Matching Task indicate that (i) the subject RC was better understood than the object RC in children with SLI, but there was no asymmetry in the comprehension of the two RCs in TD children; (ii) the performance of children with SLI was significantly worse than that of their TD peers; (iii) children with SLI were prone to committing thematic role reversal errors and middle errors. In order to overcome the shortcomings of previous accounts, we therefore put forward the Edge Feature Underspecification Hypothesis, which can not only explain the asymmetry of comprehension seen in children with SLI but also shed light on the nature of errors committed by them in the task.

Resting-state EEG alpha rhythm spectral power in children with specific language impairment: a cross-sectional study.

PURPOSE: This study investigated EEG alpha rhythm spectral power in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and compared it to typically developing children to better understand the electrophysiological characteristics of this disorder. Specifically, we explored resting-state EEG, because there are studies that point to it being linked to speech and language development. METHODS: EEG recordings of 30 children diagnosed with specific language impairment and 30 typically developing children, aged 4.0-6.11 years, were carried out under eyes closed and eyes open conditions. Differences in alpha rhythm spectral power in relation to brain topography and experimental conditions were calculated. RESULTS: In the eyes closed condition, alpha rhythm spectral power was statistically significantly lower in children with specific language impairment in the left temporal (T5) and occipital electrodes (O1, O2) than in typically developing children. In the eyes open condition, children with SLI showed significantly lower alpha rhythm spectral power in the left temporal (T3, T5), parietal (P3, Pz), and occipital electrodes (O1, O2). There were no statistically significant differences between the groups in relation to the relative change (the difference between average alpha rhythm spectral power during eyes closed condition and average alpha rhythm spectral power during eyes open condition divided by average alpha rhythm spectral power during eyes closed condition) in the alpha rhythm spectral power between the conditions. CONCLUSION: Lower alpha rhythm spectral power in the left temporal, left, midline parietal, and occipital brain regions could be a valuable electrophysiological marker in children with SLI. Further investigation is needed to examine the connection between EEG alpha spectral power and general processing and memory deficits in patients with SLI.

Psycholinguistic profiling of children with sluggish cognitive tempo.

Language disorders are frequently comorbid with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT), a second attention disorder, may potentially explain some of the links between language disorders and ADHD. In this study we examined the psycholinguistic abilities of 207 children (mean age 7;10) with and without clinically significant levels of SCT symptoms to determine the degree to which symptoms of language disorder co-occur in cases of SCT. Analyses of children's tense-marking, nonword repetition, and sentence recall indicated that deficits in these areas were not associated with SCT. Instead, SCT appears to be more closely aligned with features of social (pragmatic) communication disorder.