Differences in Child Language Assessment Practices Between School-Based and Non-School-Based Speech-Language Pathologists: Results From a Nationwide Survey.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare child language assessment practices of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working in school and nonschool settings to determine if their place of employment impacts the diagnostic decision-making process. METHOD: School-based SLPs (e.g., direct service providers employed in preschool and/or K-12 schools; n = 382) and non-school-based SLPs (e.g., direct service providers employed in private practices, university clinics, and/or medical settings; n = 147) completed a web-based questionnaire. The questionnaire examined the types, frequency, and perceived importance of specific assessment tools and potential workplace factors that may impact their diagnostic decision-making process. RESULTS: Both school-based and non-school-based SLPs reported using a combination of assessment tools when evaluating children with potential language disorders. School-based SLPs tended to rank the frequency of use and importance of most assessment tools similarly, while non-school-based SLPs ranked interviews as the most frequently used and most important assessment tool. Statistically significant group differences indicated that school-based SLPs ranked the frequency of use and importance of standardized testing higher compared to their non-school-based counterparts. Also, school-based SLPs rated employment-based factors impacting diagnostic decision making higher compared to non-school-based SLPs. CONCLUSIONS: SLPs practicing in school-based settings seem to handle more employment-based factors that impact independent diagnostic decision making than SLPs working in different employment settings when assessing children for potential language disorders. Clinical recommendations are provided, and implications for implementation-based assessment research in child language are discussed.

In-depth characterisation of a cohort of individuals with missense and loss-of-function variants disrupting FOXP2.

BACKGROUND: Heterozygous disruptions of FOXP2 were the first identified molecular cause for severe speech disorder: childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), and yet few cases have been reported, limiting knowledge of the condition. METHODS: Here we phenotyped 28 individuals from 17 families with pathogenic FOXP2-only variants (12 loss-of-function, five missense variants; 14 males; aged 2 to 62 years). Health and development (cognitive, motor, social domains) were examined, including speech and language outcomes with the first cross-linguistic analysis of English and German. RESULTS: Speech disorders were prevalent (23/25, 92%) and CAS was most common (22/25, 88%), with similar speech presentations across English and German. Speech was still impaired in adulthood, and some speech sounds (eg, 'th', 'r', 'ch', 'j') were never acquired. Language impairments (21/25, 84%) ranged from mild to severe. Comorbidities included feeding difficulties in infancy (10/26, 38%), fine (13/26, 50%) and gross (13/26, 50%) motor impairment, anxiety (5/27, 19%), depression (6/27, 22%) and sleep disturbance (10/24, 42%). Physical features were common (22/27, 81%) but with no consistent pattern. Cognition ranged from average to mildly impaired and was incongruent with language ability; for example, seven participants with severe language disorder had average non-verbal cognition. CONCLUSIONS: Although we identify an increased prevalence of conditions like anxiety, depression and sleep disturbance, we confirm that the consequences of FOXP2 dysfunction remain relatively specific to speech disorder, as compared with other recently identified monogenic conditions associated with CAS. Thus, our findings reinforce that FOXP2 provides a valuable entry point for examining the neurobiological bases of speech disorder.

Language disorder and internalizing mental health problems in youth offenders: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of language disorder in youth offenders far exceeds rates reported in community samples. Youth involved in the justice system are also at increased risk of a range of psychiatric disorders, including internalizing mental health problems (i.e., anxiety, depression). However, the frequency with which these co-occur in this population is not known. Understanding the co-occurrence of language disorder with anxiety and depression in youth offenders may contribute to more coordinated and targeted support for these vulnerable youth. AIMS: To explore the co-occurrence of language disorder and anxiety and depression in youth offenders. METHODS & PROCEDURES: A systematic literature search of six databases (CINAHL, ERIC, Medline, PyscINFO, PubMED, Scopus) was conducted (September 2021) using key search terms relevant to the systematic review question. Study inclusion criteria were: (1) original research published in English; (2) youth up to 21 years of age involved in the justice system; and (3) reported outcomes on language and anxiety and/or depression. All included studies were appraised using the Joanna Briggs Critical Appraisal tool checklist relevant to study design. Due to the heterogeneity of included studies, data synthesis was narrative. MAIN CONTRIBUTION: Eight studies met the eligibility criteria. A range of measures was used to assess language abilities across samples. Only two studies directly addressed the relationship between language disorder and internalizing mental health problems; both found no significant correlation. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: Although the results did not support a significant relationship between language disorder and internalizing mental health problems in youth offenders, the two appear to occur comorbidly as evidenced by heightened rates of both in the included samples. This review highlights the need for more robust studies aimed to better understand this relationship. Stronger evidence may contribute to increased collaborative speech pathology and psychology services which might increase youth offenders' accessibility and engagement in intervention programmes (e.g., cognitive-behaviour therapy; interpersonal skills training; individual counselling). WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject The markedly high rates of language disorder in youth involved in the justice system have been widely reported. It is also known that externalizing mental health problems often bring youth in contact with the justice system. Though there is some information about the prevalence of internalizing mental health problems in this population, the co-occurrence of language disorder and internalizing mental health problems has not been examined as widely. What this study adds to existing knowledge This study aimed to identify the frequency of co-occurrence of language disorder and anxiety and/or depression in youth offenders. Although the results did not support a significant relationship between language disorder and internalizing mental health problems in this population, results of the review provide evidence of heightened rates of both. This study also provides a summary of the various measures used to assess language and internalizing mental health in youth offenders across the eight studies included in this review. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? It is possible that the tests and sub-tests used to identify language disorders and internalizing mental health problems were not sensitive enough to identify the full extent of youth offenders' needs. Identifying the presence of language disorders and internalizing mental health problems and recognizing the impact these may have on the communication and behaviours of an individual can better inform staff and therapists as they engage and interact with youth in the justice system.

Análisis de alteraciones del discurso en estados mentales de alto riesgo de psicosis (EMAR): una revisión sistemática / Speech disturbances analysis in ultra-high risk of psychosis (UHR): a systematic review

INTRODUCCIÓN: La necesidad de intervenir precozmente en la psicosis ha llevado a la búsqueda de biomarcadores útiles en su predicción, donde el análisis del lenguaje hablado destaca por su fácil obtención y bajo coste económico. En esta revisión sistemática se analizan las principales alteraciones del lenguaje en pacientes con riesgo ultra alto de psicosis (UHR), evaluando su prevalencia y su relación con la transición a la psicosis. MÉTODOS: Se realizó una búsqueda en las bases de datos PubMed y Embase de estudios en inglés o español, así como en las listas de referencias de los artículos encontrados. RESULTADOS: De 140 artículos identificados, se incluyeron 15. Las variables del lenguaje analizadas fueron Cohesión Lingüística, Coherencia Semántica, Complejidad Sintáctica, Producción Metafórica, Prosodia Emocional y Trastorno del Pensamiento Formal (TFP). La prevalencia encontrada osciló entre el 21% y el 85% para las alteraciones incluidas en el TFP, sin que se hayan encontrado medidas de prevalencia para el resto de las variables. La precisión global para la transición de RH a psicosis osciló entre el 70% y el 100% en todos los estudios. CONCLUSIONES: Existe un amplio abanico de alteraciones del habla en los pacientes con RHU, donde la PTF es la más estudiada. La prevalencia de estas alteraciones parece ser alta, especialmente en lo que respecta a la PTF. El análisis de esas alteraciones del habla en pacientes con RHU aparece como una excelente herramienta para predecir la transición a la psicosis, particularmente a través de la transcripción de entrevistas y el uso de la Inteligencia Artificial.

INTRODUCTION: The need for early intervention in psychosis has led to the search for useful biomarkers in its prediction, where the analysis of spoken language stands out for its easy obtaining and low economic cost. In this systematic review, we analyze the main speech disturbances in patients at ultra-high risk for psychosis (UHR), evaluating their prevalence and their relationship with transition to psychosis. METHODS: A search was carried out in PubMed and Embase databases for studies in English or Spanish, as well as the reference lists of the articles found. RESULTS: Of 140 articles identified, 15 were included. The variables of the language analyzed were Linguistic Cohesion, Semantic Coherence, Syntactic Complexity, Metaphorical Production, Emotional Prosody and Formal Thought Disorder (TFP). The prevalence found ranged between 21% and 85% for disturbances included within the TFP, with no prevalence measures for the rest of the variables. The global accuracy for UHR transition to psychosis ranged from 70% to 100% across studies. CONCLUSION: There is a wide range of speech disorders in UHR patients, where the TFP is the most studied one. The prevalence of these alterations seems to be high, especially with regard to TFP. The analysis of those speech alterations in UHR patients appears as an excellent tool to predict transition to psychosis, particularly through interview transcription and the use of Artificial Intelligence.

Psychosocial Comorbidities in Adolescents With Histories of Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

Purpose Adolescent psychosocial outcomes of individuals with histories of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) were compared to outcomes of individuals with histories of speech sound disorders (SSD) only and SSD with language impairment (LI). It was hypothesized that individuals with more severe and persistent disorders such as CAS would report poorer psychosocial outcomes. Method Groups were compared using analyses of variance on a psychosocial assessment battery that included measures of hyperactivity and inattention, anxiety, depression, internalizing and externalizing behaviors, thought problems, and social outcomes. Results Results revealed significant group differences on self-report of social problems and parent report of hyperactivity, thought problems, and social problems at adolescence. Compared to the SSD-only group, the CAS group had significantly higher parental ratings of hyperactivity and social problems in adolescence. The CAS and SSD + LI groups did not differ on psychosocial measures, possibly due to the high rate of comorbid LI in the CAS group. The CAS group also had more individuals who scored in the borderline/clinical range on self-report of social problems than the SSD-only group. The CAS group did not differ from the SSD + LI group in the number of participants scoring in the borderline/clinical range on measures. Conclusions Individuals with histories of CAS demonstrate increased rates of social problems and hyperactivity based on parent ratings compared to adolescents with histories of SSD only; however, most do not score within the clinical range. The persistence of speech sound errors combined with self-reported and parent-reported social difficulties suggests that speech-language pathologists should be sensitive to the social and emotional impact of CAS and make appropriate referrals to mental health professionals when warranted.

Occurrence of speech-language disorders in the acute phase following pediatric acquired brain injury: results from the Ghent University Hospital.

AIMS: This study investigated the occurrence of speech-language disorders during the acute phase of recovery in children with acquired brain injury (ABI) with an age between 0 and 16 years. METHODS: A retrospective chart analysis was performed including 228 children (n = 118 boys, n = 110 girls) who consecutively presented with ABI over a 10-year period (2006-2016) at the children's rehabilitation center at Ghent University Hospital. Descriptive statistical analyses were applied. RESULTS: 71.1% (162/228) of the children who were admitted to the rehabilitation center presented with a speech-language disorder. Within this sample (n = 162), results demonstrated the occurrence of acquired disorders in language (48.9%), speech (35.1%), learning (33.3%), swallowing (21.5%), and early communicative functions (17.4%). The proportion of children presenting with disturbances in early communicative functions differed by ABI cause. More than half (10/18, 58.8%) of the children who presented with ABI following inflammatory processes demonstrated disorders in early communicative functions. CONCLUSIONS: Especially in young children who present with inflammatory processes as the ABI cause, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) must be aware of disorders in early speech-language development. The present findings allow the SLP to appropriately plan research, education, and clinical management.

Impact of language disorders on children's everyday lives from 4 to 13 years: Commentary on Le, Mensah, Eadie, McKean, Schiberras, Bavin, Reilly and Gold (2020).

This paper by Le et al. (2020) is a valuable addition to the literature because it provides evidence regarding the trajectories of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in children with language disorders from the ages of 4-13 years. The authors found that higher language scores were associated with better HRQoL particularly in the school and social domains. Of the children in the low language group, 40% were in the stable-high HRQoL trajectory, while the others were in the reduced-slow-decline (26%) and low-rapid-decline (34%) HRQoL groups. Despite the prevalence of language disorder and its impact on many aspects of children's everyday lives, many professionals and members of the public are still unaware of this condition and its potential consequences. The publication of the Le et al. (2020) paper is timely because it coincides with a call to action to support these children by McGregor (2020). McGregor (2020) argued that we fail children with developmental language disorders both in terms of research and service provision. In her recent discussion paper, she provided evidence that these children face significant risks with regard to academic achievement: they are 6 times more likely to have reading disabilities, 6 times more likely to have spelling difficulties, 4 times more likely to have difficulties with mathematics and 12 times more likely to present with all three difficulties.

Functional Outcomes of Children Identified Early in the Developmental Period as at Risk for ASD Utilizing the The Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa).

Early identification of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is regarded as crucial for swift access to early intervention and, subsequently, better outcomes later in life. However, current instruments miss large proportions of children who later go on to be diagnosed with ASD, raising a question of what these instruments measure. The present study utilized data from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study and the Autism Birth Cohort study to explore the subsequent developmental and diagnostic characteristics of children raising developmental concern on the six-critical discriminative item criterion of the M-CHAT (DFA6) at 18 months of age (N = 834). The DFA6 identified 28.8% of children diagnosed with ASD (N = 163), but 4.4% with language disorder (N = 188) and 81.3% with intellectual disability (N = 32) without ASD. Scoring in the «at-risk¼ range was associated with lower IQ, impaired functional language, and greater severity of autism symptoms whether children had ASD or not.

Comparison of Disfluent and Ungrammatical Speech of Preadolescents with and without ASD.

This paper analyses disfluencies and ungrammatical expressions in the speech of 11-13-year-old Finnish-speaking boys with ASD (N = 5) and with neurotypical development (N = 6). The ASD data were from authentic group therapy sessions and neurotypical data from teacher-led group discussions. The proportion of disfluencies and ungrammatical expressions was greater in the speech of participants with ASD (26.4%) than in the control group (15.5%). Furthermore, a qualitative difference was noted: The ASD group produced long, complex disfluent turns with word searches, self-repairs, false starts, fillers, prolongations, inconsistent syntactic structures and grammatical errors, whereas in the control group, the disfluencies were mainly fillers and sound prolongations. The disfluencies and ungrammatical expressions occurring in the ASD participants' interactions also caused comprehension problems.

Descriptive study of young disabled children aged 2-6, enrolled in mainstream schools, and benefiting from special needs assistants in the Bouches-du-Rhône in 2014.

BACKGROUND: Since the law of February 11, 2005, in France, the number of children with disabilities enrolled in ordinary schools has increased steadily. As a result, the amount of personal support provided by a special needs assistant (personal support) is also increasing. The aim of the study was to describe the diseases and impairments of disabled children aged 2-6, enrolled in mainstream schools and benefiting from personal support for schooling by special needs assistants in the Bouches-du-Rhône (France) in 2014. METHODS: A cross-sectional descriptive study was performed. Children included were benefiting from either an individual or shared personal support. Physicians from the territorial organization in charge of disability coded diseases and deficiencies using the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision, and nomenclature inspired by the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. RESULTS: Medical data were coded for 990 children out of 1260 of the total population. These young disabled children were most frequently children with pervasive developmental disorders (23.3%), lack of expected normal physiological development (19.9%), or mixed specific developmental disorders (13.5%), and most often had behavioral, personality, and relational skills disorders (61.8%), psychomotor function impairments (51.9%), or written or oral language learning impairment (43.2%). Finally, the two main types of impairments most represented among these children were psychological impairments (86.7%) and language and speech impairments (79.8%). The children were most often supported by an individual personal support (for one child only) than by a shared personal support (60% vs. 40%). They were mainly boys (almost 75%). CONCLUSION: This study provides working guidelines for the management of health policies relating to disability at the territorial or even national level.

A retrospective review of speech-language therapy services provided to adult inpatients at a central-level hospital in Gauteng, South Africa.

BACKGROUND: The quadruple burden of disease (BoD) and multimorbidity reflected in South Africa's public health sector challenges speech-language therapists (SLTs) to optimise patient management in this context. For planning and delivery of appropriate services, it is important to understand the profile of speech-language therapy (SLT) patients and the public healthcare services provided by SLTs. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to describe the prevalence of inpatient adult speech, language and swallowing disorders associated with various medical conditions and South Africa's BoD, in addition to the target areas and duration of SLT interventions provided at a central public hospital. METHOD: A retrospective review was conducted on records of 2549 adult inpatients who received SLT services between January 2014 and December 2015 at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital. Data, including demographics, medical and SLT diagnoses, and treatment recommendations, were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. RESULTS: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) were most prevalent (77.48%), with multimorbidity of BoD categories in 29.27% of patients. Cerebrovascular disease (CeVD) comprised 52.45% patients, with CeVD, traumatic brain injury, other neurological conditions, cancer and burns comprising 88.74% patients. More than a third of the patients with CeVD were 56 years (n = 486; 36.35%). Dysphagia (48.96%), aphasia (30.95%) and dysarthria (23.62%) were the most common, with 44.68% of patients having multiple SLT diagnoses. The number of SLT sessions significantly correlated with SLT comorbidity (rs = 0.4200; p = 0.0000), but not BoD comorbidity (rs = 0.0049; p = 0.8058). CONCLUSION: Speech-language therapy patients reflected a heavy NCD burden and multimorbidity. Provision of SLT services should take into consideration a profile of increased complexity of medical conditions and SLT diagnoses.

Clinical Intersections Among Idiopathic Language Disorder, Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder, and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

Purpose Estimates of the expected co-occurrence rates of idiopathic language disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) provide a confusing and inconsistent picture. Potential sources for discrepancies considered so far include measurement and ascertainment biases (Redmond, 2016a, 2016b). In this research symposium forum article, the potential impact of applying different criteria to the observed co-occurrence rate is examined through an appraisal of the literature and an empirical demonstration. Method Eighty-five cases were selected from the Redmond, Ash, et al. (2019) study sample. Standard scores from clinical measures collected on K-3rd grade students were used to assign language impairment status, nonverbal impairment status, social (pragmatic) communication disorder status, and ADHD status. Criteria extrapolated from the specific language impairment (Stark & Tallal, 1981), developmental language disorder (Bishop et al., 2017), and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition language disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) designations were applied. Results The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition language disorder designation and its separation of language disorder from the social (pragmatic) communication disorder designation provided the clearest segregation of idiopathic language deficits from elevated ADHD symptoms, showing only a 2% co-occurrence rate. In contrast, applying the broader developmental language disorder designation raised the observed co-occurrence rate to 22.3%. The specific language impairment designation yielded an intermediate value of 16.9%. Conclusions Co-occurrence rates varied as a function of designation adopted. The presence of pragmatic symptoms exerted a stronger influence on observed co-occurrence rates than low nonverbal abilities. Impacts on clinical management and research priorities are discussed. Presentation Video https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13063751.

Sex differences in subcortical auditory processing only partially explain higher prevalence of language disorders in males.

Males and females differ in their subcortical evoked responses to sound. For many evoked response measures, the sex difference is driven by a faster developmental decline of auditory processing in males. Using the frequency-following response (FFR), an evoked potential that reflects predominately midbrain processing of stimulus features, sex differences were identified in the response to the temporal envelope of speech. The pattern of later and smaller responses in males versus females is consistent with two of the three response features that track with language development and reading abilities. Therefore, here we analyzed subcortical response consistency, the third distinguishing feature of language ability. Furthermore, though the envelope is primarily a low-frequency response, the greatest sex differences were observed in harmonics encoding. To better understand these sex differences, we extended these findings to the temporal fine structure response, which is biased to high-frequency information. Using the same 516 participants as previously reported (Krizman et al., 2019), we analyzed the effect of sex across development on response consistency and the encoding of temporal fine structure, as indexed by the subtracted frequency-following response. We found that while males and females did not differ on response consistency, there was an effect of age on this measure. Moreover, while males still showed a faster decline in harmonic encoding, the magnitude and breadth of the sex differences were smaller (accounting for 2% variance) in the temporal fine structure response compared to the envelope response. These results suggest that sex differences are distinct, at least in part, from the differences that underlie language abilities and that developmental sex differences reflect subcortical auditory processing differences of both the temporal envelope and fine structure of sounds.

Speech-language disorders in children with congenital Zika virus syndrome: A systematic review.

INTRODUCTION: Having verified the true association between the Zika virus and the occurrence of microcephaly, studies were conducted to evaluate the effects of the infection on fetal development. Congenital Zika virus syndrome is a currently known condition but little addressed regarding speech, language, and hearing disorders in children. OBJECTIVE: To conduct a systematic review of speech, language, and hearing disorders in children with congenital Zika virus syndrome. METHODS: This systematic review followed the PRISMA instructions and the Joanna Briggs Institute guidelines, and it was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42018111764). The databases consulted were Cochrane, SciELO, PubMed, LILACS, Scopus, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect. OpenGrey and OpenThesis were used to partially capture the "grey literature". Observational studies of children with microcephaly due to congenital Zika virus syndrome were included. The risk of bias was analyzed using the 2017 Joanna Briggs Institute. RESULTS: 707 records were obtained and, after excluding the duplicates, 644 studies remained. After applying the inclusion criteria, 24 articles were considered eligible. Children with congenital Zika virus syndrome presented abnormal persistence of primitive reflexes (94.7%), impaired cognitive development (95.1%), delayed neuropsychomotor development (between 92.8 and 100%), hypertonia (between 74.7% and 90.1%), impaired language development (between 68.42% and 100%), retrognathia (38.6%), craniofacial disproportion (between 32.9% and 95.8%), altered tongue frenulum (between 30% and 36.36%), the absence of stapedial reflexes (27.3%), dysphagia (between 14% and 88.9%), and hearing changes (between 5.8% and 68.42%). CONCLUSION: Children with congenital Zika virus syndrome may have speech, language, and hearing disorders such as hearing loss, dysphagia, alteration in the tongue frenulum, and delays in neuropsychomotor and language development.

Intrusion errors during verbal fluency task in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

BACKGROUND: Numerous studies have noted the presence of a dysexecutive component of the ALS-FTD. The most widely replicated result refers to the significantly reduced verbal fluency of ALS patients when compared to healthy people. As ALS patients have motor alterations that interfere with production, qualitative studies have the advantage of being independent of the degree of motor disability and revealing patients' cognitive state. This study examined the production differences between 42 ALS patients who presented with different degrees of dementia and motor impairment and 42 healthy people. Production processes were studied by extending the administration time of a letter fluency task to 2 minutes for the phonemic verbal fluency (PVF) and semantic verbal fluency (SVF) categories. This ensured that the qualitative aspects of verbal fluency were addressed, paying special attention to the new perseverations and intrusions, as well as any clinical correlates that may exist. RESULTS: The ALS patients produced a significantly lower number of responses in PVF (p = .017) and SVF (p = .008). The rest of the indicators for frontal lobe alteration also suggested the existence of a dysfunction. The most remarkable results were the number of intrusions on the PVF task, which was much higher in the ALS group (p = .002). However, the number of perseverations did not differ significantly. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the value of intrusions in addressing cognitive deterioration in ALS patients. This deterioration seems to be independent of the degree of motor impairment and of behavioural alterations. Therefore, the value of the intromissions on the verbal fluency task was highlighted as an indicator of a new cognitive alteration, which can be easily evaluated, even retrospectively.

Auditory processing, co-morbidities, and parental report of sleep disturbance in children with auditory processing disorder (APD).

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the prevalence of sleep disturbance and its relationship with auditory processing (AP) and co-morbidities in children diagnosed with auditory processing disorder (APD). METHODS: Data from 109 children (Males = 59, Females = 50) with mean non-verbal intelligence quotient (NVIQ) of 89.44 (SD:18.16), aged between 6 and 16 years (mean: 10 years 7 months; SD: 2 years 9 months) with a diagnosis of APD were analysed. Participants performed ≤1.33 SD below the mean in two or more out of five SCAN-3 diagnostic APD tests that included 'Filtered Words' (FW), 'Auditory Figure Ground 0 dB' (AFG0), 'Competing Words-Directed Ear' (CW-DE), 'Competing Sentences' (CS) and 'Time Compressed Sentences' (TCS). Concern about sleep in addition to other symptoms and medical history were documented from structured parental history sheet which forms part of the routine APD assessment. Language impairment (LI), attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and anxiety were evaluated using the 'Children's Communication Checklist-2' (CCC-2), 'Swanson Nolan and Pelham rating scale' (SNAP-IV) and 'Anxiety Scale for Children-Autism Spectrum Disorder' (ASC-ASD) respectively. RESULTS: Sixty children had sleep disturbance, a prevalence of 55% (95% CI 45.2%-64.6%). The two groups of APD children, with (n = 49) and without sleep (n = 60) disturbance, did not vary in their auditory processing abilities. The sleep disturbed group had significant issues with pragmatic language impairment, hyperactivity/impulsivity, oppositional defiant symptoms and anxiety compared to the group without sleep disturbance when they were analysed separately. After the variables were considered in step wise fashion in binary logistic regression analyses, only pragmatic language impairment and anxiety predicted sleep disturbance (p < .01). CONCLUSION: In APD the prevalence of sleep disturbance is high, justifying screening within a transdisciplinary APD assessment protocol. Sleep disturbance in APD is predicted by pragmatic language impairment and anxiety, but not by ADHD symptoms or ODD.

Synesthesia in children with difficulties in written language learning.

We tested whether the acquisition of grapheme-color synesthesia during childhood is related to difficulties in written language learning by measuring whether it is more frequent in 79 children receiving speech and language therapy for such difficulties than in the general population of children (1.3%). By using criteria as similar as possible to those used in the reference study (Simner et al., 2009), we did not identify any synesthete (Bayesian 95% credible interval [0, 4.5]% for a flat prior). The odds of the null model (no difference between 0/79 and 1.3%) over alternative models is 28 (Bayes Factor). A higher prevalence of grapheme-color synesthetes among children with learning difficulties is therefore very unlikely, questioning the hypothesis of a link between synesthesia and difficulties in language acquisition. We also describe the difficulty of diagnosing synesthesia in children and discuss the need for new approaches to do so.

Is atypical rhythm a risk factor for developmental speech and language disorders?

Although a growing literature points to substantial variation in speech/language abilities related to individual differences in musical abilities, mainstream models of communication sciences and disorders have not yet incorporated these individual differences into childhood speech/language development. This article reviews three sources of evidence in a comprehensive body of research aligning with three main themes: (a) associations between musical rhythm and speech/language processing, (b) musical rhythm in children with developmental speech/language disorders and common comorbid attentional and motor disorders, and (c) individual differences in mechanisms underlying rhythm processing in infants and their relationship with later speech/language development. In light of converging evidence on associations between musical rhythm and speech/language processing, we propose the Atypical Rhythm Risk Hypothesis, which posits that individuals with atypical rhythm are at higher risk for developmental speech/language disorders. The hypothesis is framed within the larger epidemiological literature in which recent methodological advances allow for large-scale testing of shared underlying biology across clinically distinct disorders. A series of predictions for future work testing the Atypical Rhythm Risk Hypothesis are outlined. We suggest that if a significant body of evidence is found to support this hypothesis, we can envision new risk factor models that incorporate atypical rhythm to predict the risk of developing speech/language disorders. Given the high prevalence of speech/language disorders in the population and the negative long-term social and economic consequences of gaps in identifying children at-risk, these new lines of research could potentially positively impact access to early identification and treatment. This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Language in Mind and Brain Neuroscience > Development Linguistics > Language Acquisition.

A Common Family Factor Underlying Language Difficulties and Internalizing Problems: Findings From a Population-Based Sibling Study.

Studies have identified concurrent, longitudinal, and bidirectional associations between language difficulties and internalizing problems. This is commonly explained by social exclusion or withdrawal from peers, but underlying mechanisms are not well understood. This study uses sibling data to investigate if the comorbidity between language difficulties and internalizing problems is best explained by familial factors shared by siblings, such as genes or family environment, or nonfamilial factors specific to each child, such as peer environment. Data include 5,568 siblings at 5 years and 3,654 siblings at 8 years participating in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). We constructed a latent factor model at 5 and 8 years, including a family comorbidity factor capturing correlations between language and internalizing problems that were equally strong between as within siblings. Results showed that the correlation between one sibling's internalizing problems and the other sibling's language problems was mostly accounted for by a family comorbidity factor. The best-fitting longitudinal model included stability of the family comorbidity factor and stability of language and internalizing problems within each sibling and no cross-sibling or cross-trait longitudinal associations. This suggests that the association between language and internalizing problems may be best explained by family factors.