Marja-Leena Laakso

Developmental pathways of children with and without familial risk for dyslexia during the first years of life.

Comparisons of the developmental pathways of the first 5 years of life for children with (N = 107) and without (N = 93) familial risk for dyslexia observed in the Jyvaskyla Longitudinal study of Dyslexia are reviewed. The earliest differences between groups were found at the ages of a few days and at 6 months in brain event-related potential responses to speech sounds and in head-turn responses (at 6 months), conditioned to reflect categorical perception of speech stimuli. The development of vocalization and motor behavior, based on parental report of the time of reaching significant milestones, or the growth of vocabulary (using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories) failed to reveal differences before age 2. Similarly, no group differences were found in cognitive and language development assessed by the Bayley Scales of Infant Development and the Reynell Developmental Language Scales before age 2.5. The earliest language measure that showed lower scores among the at-risk group was maximum sentence length at age 2. Early gross motor development had higher correlation to later language skills among the at-risk group rather than the control children. The most consistent predictor of differential development between groups was the onset of talking. Children who were identified as late talkers at age 2 were still delayed at the age 3.5 in most features of language-related skills-but only if they belonged to the group at familial risk for dyslexia. Several phonological and naming measures known to correlate with reading from preschool age differentiated the groups consistently from age 3.5. Our findings imply that a marked proportion of children at familial risk for dyslexia follow atypical neurodevelopmental paths. The signs listed previously comprise a pool of candidates for early predictors and precursors of dyslexia, which await validation.

Predicting delayed letter knowledge development and its relation to grade 1 reading achievement among children with and without familial risk for dyslexia.

The authors examined the developmental trajectories of childrens early letter knowledge in relation to measures spanning and encompassing their prior language-related and cognitive measures and environmental factors and their subsequent Grade 1 reading achievement. Letter knowledge was assessed longitudinally at ages 4.5, 5.0, 5.5, and 6.5 years; earlier language skills and environmental factors were assessed at ages 3.5 and 4.5 years; and reading achievement was assessed at the beginning and end of Grade 1. The analyses were conducted on a longitudinal data set involving children with and without familial risk for dyslexia. Emerging from the trajectory analysis of letter knowledge were 3 separate clusters: delayed (n = 63), linearly growing (n = 73), and precocious (n = 51). The members of the delayed cluster were predominantly children with familial risk for dyslexia, and the members of the precocious cluster were predominantly control group children. Phonological sensitivity, phonological memory, and rapid naming skills predicted delayed letter knowledge. Environmental predictors included level of maternal education and the amount of letter name teaching. Familial risk for dyslexia made a significant contribution to the predictive relations. Membership in the delayed cluster predicted poor reading performance at Grade 1.

Modeling the Early Paths of Phonological Awareness and Factors Supporting its Development in Children With and Without Familial Risk of Dyslexia

The development of phonological awareness (PA) before school age was modeled in association with the development of vocabulary and letter knowledge, home literacy environment (HLE), childrens reading interest, and beginning reading skill in children with and without familial risk of dyslexia. A total of 186 children were followed from birth to the age of 6.5 years. Of these children, about half had a familial background of reading difficulties (the at-risk group), and the other half came from families without such background (the control group). The data from several measures and assessment time points were analyzed within an SEM framework, and a latent analysis of growth curves was employed. Vocabulary and letter knowledge were found to predict PA development, and vice versa, PA predicted them. The effect of HLE on PA was mediated by vocabulary skills, and of the HLE variables, the only variable predicting vocabulary development was shared reading. In spite of the difference in level, favoring the controls, the pattern of effects of vocabulary and letter knowledge on PA development was highly similar in children with and without familial risk for dyslexia. However, in the at-risk group, the HLE variables and childrens reading interest had stronger associations with each other and with skill development than in the control group, and vocabulary predicted parental reports on childrens reading interest in the at-risk group only.

Parental Contribution to Child's Early Language and Interest in Books.

The relationships between parents’ age, education, literacy activities and shared reading with the child and children’s language skills and early interest in books were examined in a longitudinal study of 108 children. Parents reported on their children’s lexical and grammatical development by using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (the CDIs) at the ages of 14 and 24 months. The Bayley Scales of Infant Development were administered to the children in a laboratory setting at 24 months. Information on parental background variables was obtained through a questionnaire before the children’s birth. Book reading habits were inquired when the children were 2 years of age. Mothers’ education, literacy activities and shared reading with the child were shown to be more strongly associated with the 2-year-olds’ lexical and grammatical skills than were those of father. A corresponding association to parental background variables emerged regardless of whether parental report data or scores on the structured test were employed as the child language measure. Shared reading with the father was found to be linked to children’s early interest in books. The children who exhibited greater interest in books were likely to be read to by mothers and fathers more frequently than other children. These children also had larger vocabularies than did children with low interest in books. The role of endogenous and exogenous variables in explaining children’s language skills and early book reading interest are discussed.RésuméLes liens entre, d’une part, l’âge des parents, leur niveau de formation, leurs activités en matière d’alphabétisation et les moments de lecture partagés avec l’enfant et, d’autre part, les aptitudes langagières des enfants et leur intérêt précoce pour les livres ont été examinés dans une étude longitudinale portant sur 108 enfants. Les parents ont fait un compte rendu sur le développement lexical et grammatical de leurs enfants en utilisant les Inventaires de développement communicationnel (Communicative Development Inventories, CDI) de MacArthur, à l’âge de 14 et de 24 mois. L’échelle de développement infantile de Bayley a été appliquée aux enfants dans des conditions de laboratoire à l’âge de 24 mois. Des renseignements sur les paramètres du milieu parental ont été recueillis par voie de questionnaire avant la naissance de l’enfant. Il a été dressé un relevé des habitudes de lecture de livres une fois que les enfants ont atteint l’âge de deux ans. Il ressort que le niveau de formation de la mère, ses activités en matière d’alphabétisation de l’enfant et les moments de lecture en commun avec l’enfant sont plus fortement assiociés avec les aptitudes lexicales et grammaticales de l’enfant de deux ans qui’ils ne le sont pour le père. Il peut être mis en évidence un lien concordant avec les paramètres du milieu parental indépendants de la méthode d’évaluation du langage chez l’enfant — compte rendu des parents ou notes obtenues au test structuré. La probabilité que les enfants témoignant d’un plus grand intérêt pour les livres soient des enfants à qui la mère ou le père ont fait de la lecture est plus grande que chez les autres enfants. Ces enfants avaient également un vocabulaire plus développé que les enfants témoignant d’un moindre intérêt pour les livres. Le rôle des variables endogènes et exogènes dans l’explication des aptitudes langagières des enfants et de leur intérêt précoce pour les livres fait l’objet d’une discussion.

Social interactional behaviors and symbolic play competence as predictors of language development and their associations with maternal attention-directing strategies

Abstract Children’s early social interactional behaviors and symbolic play competence were studied at 14 months in a sample of 111 mother-infant pairs. The categories of social interactional behaviors, joint visual attention, socially coordinated and object oriented interactions were assessed via observations of mother-infant joint play. An index of symbolic play was derived from the child’s solitary play, which was assessed independently. We examined both the interrelations of these two types of early language predictors, and their relation to children’s language skills and maternal attention-directing strategies. Measures of children’s language comprehension and production were obtained using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories at 14 months, and Reynell Developmental Language Scales at 18 and 30 months. We found that at 14 months, social interactional behaviors and symbolic play competence were not statistically significantly related to each other. In line with our hypotheses, social interactional skills were associated more strongly with language production, and symbolic play competence more strongly with language comprehension. Maternal attention-directing strategies were strongly related to both children’s social interactional behaviors and symbolic play competence. Our findings indicated that maternal strategies that expanded the infant’s level of functioning were more effective in stimulating the children’s language development than were the other types of strategies.

Language and Symbolic Play in Toddlers

Language-play relations were examined in 110 18-month-old toddlers by observing their play actions in the Symbolic Play Test and assessing their language skills with the CDI parental report and the Reynell Developmental Language Scales. Significant associations between both language comprehension and production (vocabulary, use of suffixes, utterance length) and play were found when percentage of symbolic play was used as the measure of play competence. The total play score which included both functional-relational toy manipulation and symbolic play was not as strongly associated with the language measures. In both play measures relations were, however, higher between play and language comprehension than between play and language production. Out of the symbolic play categories other-directed pretence discriminated children’s play best. The relation between language and play was also supported by a subgroup analysis which showed that early talkers displayed significantly more symbolic play than late talkers. Children belonging to the latter group had a small productive vocabulary and they did not yet exhibit any sentence combinations or grammatical suffixes. The total play score correlated significantly with language comprehension among late talkers, whereas a significant connection was found between language comprehension and percentage of symbolic play among early talkers. Methodological issues concerning the assessment of toddlers’ play will be discussed.

Shared reading interaction in families with and without genetic risk for dyslexia: implications for toddlers’ language development

Shared reading represents a unique context for language learning. Little is known, however, about the quality of shared reading and its developmental implications in families with reading disabilities. In the present study, these questions were addressed in the context of a longitudinal follow-up. Maternal interactional behaviors and childrens participation in a book reading situation were analyzed at 14 months of age in a subsample involving 39 mothers who were diagnosed as reading disabled and had a familial background of reading difficulties (the RD group) and 89 normally reading mothers (the NR group) and their children. Information on the childrens concurrent and subsequent vocabulary comprehension and production was obtained at 14 and 18 months. The results indicated that the children who displayed a high interest and engagement in shared reading at 14 months had more advanced language skills 4 months later. Also found was support for a link between maternal strategies and childrens subsequent vocabulary comprehension and production. In accordance with the literature, maternal activation was more strongly related to the childrens language development than the mere describing of the elements in the book. No differences emerged between the NR and RD groups in the frequencies of maternal interactional behaviors, childrens participation in shared reading, or their language skills at this early age; maternal orienting of the childrens attention was, however, found to be positively related to later language development in the NR group, while in the RD group the association was negative. Copyright

Interest in early shared reading: Its relation to later language and letter knowledge in children with and without risk for reading difficulties

Children’s interest in shared reading (14 and 24 months) and its relation to their later language and letter knowledge (age 3;6) were investigated in a follow-up study. The participants were 156 children and their mothers. Half of these children (N = 74) came from families where one or both of the parents were diagnosed as reading disabled (the at-risk group), the other half (N = 82) belonged to the control group. The results revealed that children with and without familial risk for reading difficulties did not differ from each other in the interest they showed towards shared reading. Interestingly, only children in the control group appeared to benefit from shared reading interactions in their later language and letter knowledge.

Effects of Multidomain Risk Accumulation on Cognitive, Academic, and Behavioural Outcomes

This longitudinal study examined the predictive associations between cumulative multidomain risk factors and cognitive (IQ), academic (reading fluency), and social adaptive outcomes at 8 to 9 years among 190 children with or without familial risk for dyslexia. Other risk factors included parental and neurocognitive risks assessed when the children were 1 to 6 years of age. Risks accumulated more among children with familial risk for dyslexia than among children without familial risk. A higher number of risks was associated with poorer performance in all outcome measures as postulated by the cumulative risk model. However, when the effects of individual risk variables were controlled for at the outset, the cumulative risk indices did not have incremental effects beyond those of individual risks. This suggests that the detrimental effect of several risks was due to the content-specific effect of individual risks. Children with familial risk were not differentially affected by the number of risks.

Associations Between Toddler-Age Communication and Kindergarten-Age Self-Regulatory Skills

PURPOSE In this study, the authors aimed at gaining understanding on the associations of different types of early language and communication profiles with later self-regulation skills by using longitudinal data from toddler age to kindergarten age. METHOD Children with early language profiles representing expressive delay, broad delay (i.e., expressive, social, and/or symbolic), and typical language development were compared in domains of kindergarten-age executive and regulative skills (attentional/executive functions, regulation of emotions and behavioral activity, and social skills) assessed with parental questionnaires. RESULTS Children with delay in toddler-age language development demonstrated poorer kindergarten-age self-regulation skills than children with typical early language development. Broad early language delays were associated with compromised social skills and attentional/executive functions, and early expressive delays were associated with a generally lower level of kindergarten-age executive and regulative skills. Regression analyses showed that both earlier and concurrent language had an effect especially on the attentional/executive functions. CONCLUSIONS The findings suggest that different aspects of toddler-age language have differential associations with later self-regulation. Possible mechanisms linking early language development to later self-regulative development are discussed.