DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE

IN EXCEPTIONAL
CIRCUMSTANCES

BY
MERLIN A
BASLP 4 TH SEMESTER
 NEGLECT AND ABUSE

✓ Speech and language impairment in the context of

children who have experienced abuse and neglect is
not well documented, with only a handful of
controlled studies and research reviews on the
relationships between maltreatment and children's
communication development
✓More prevalent in the literature are reports on the deleterious
effects of child abuse and neglect on overall childhood
development, purporting effects on cognitive, affective, social,
and neurological development.

✓ However, the growth of communication skills is integral to a

child's early development and is closely related to cognitive
and social-emotional development.
✓ The experience of abuse and/or neglect has
profound implications for a child's developing
communication, supporting the inclusion of speech
pathology in approaches to working with children and
families in abusive and neglectful environments.
DEVELOPMENTAL OUTCOMES OF CHILD
ABUSE AND NEGLECT

Short-term impact

The developmental outcomes for children who have

experienced abuse and/or neglect are often devastating.
Maltreated children have been reported to have:

• impaired physical and cognitive development (Cahill,

Kaminer & Johnson, 1999; Hoffinan-Plotkin &
Twentyman, 1984; Oates, Gray, Schweitzer, Kempe &
Harmon, 1995; Vondra, Barnett & Cicchetti, 1990);
overall developmental delay (Oates et al, 1995; Prino
•

& Peyrot, 1994);

• lower social maturity and social behaviour

difficulties (Bousha & Twentyman, 1984; Darwish,
Esquivel, Houtz & Alfonso, 2001; Herrenkohl &
Herrenkohl, 1981; Hoffinan-Plotkin & Twentyman,
1984);
•greater incidence of withdrawn behaviour (Herrenkohl
& Herrenkohl, 1981; Hoffinan-Plotkin & Twentyman,
1984);

• poor language development (Oates, 1986).

Long-term consequences

The experience of abuse and/or neglect may also have a

profound long-term effect on psychosocial functioning.
The consequences for children may include:

• an increased likelihood of psychiatric disorder such as

depression, suicide and self-destructive behaviour
(Burdekin, 1993; Read, 1997);
• psychopathology (Cicchetti & Toth, 1995);

• conduct disorder and delinquency (Kaufman, 1991);

• diminished life coping skills (Farber & Egeland, 1987);

• an inability to form meaningful relationships (Burdekin,

1993).
COMMUNICATION DEVELOPMENT IN THE
PRESENCE OF ABUSE AND NEGLECT

Interactions with the primary caregiver

✓ The nature of parent-child interactions in abusive families is

often not conducive to supporting the acquisition of
competent communication skills (Allen & Wasserman,
1985
✓Children who are maltreated are often exposed to
lower rates of verbal stimulation, and negative
maternal communication incorporating rejection and a
lack of warmth, consistency, sensitivity and
contingency (Coster & Cicchetti, 1993).

✓ These factors have a significant impact on

the child's developing communication.
IMPLICATIONS FOR DEVELOPING SPEECH AND
LANGUAGE SKILLS

✓ Children who have been abused or neglected have

been observed to have significant delays in receptive
and expressive language skills (Hammond, Nobel-
Gould & Brooks, 1989).
✓These difficulties tend to be characterized by
delayed vocabulary development, grammatical
difficulties, difficulties sustaining conversation,
and use of shorter, less complex utterances than
non-abused children (Coster, Gersten, Beeghly
& Cicchetti, 1989
✓ Hansen (1999) found that high-level
language difficulties were present among
school-aged children who had experienced
neglect in their first three years of life.
IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL-AFFECTIVE
COMMUNICATION

✓ The use of language to perform social functions,

known as pragmatic skills, is often affected in
children who have experienced maltreatment.

✓ Abused children have been observed to be less

initiative and less responsive conversational
partners, who avert their gaze during interactions
(Law & Conway, 1992).
 TWINS

✓Since the early last century, scientific studies have

documented slower rates of language development in
twins compared to single-born children. On average,
twins have scored lower than single-born children on
a range of tests of verbal competence, and this effect
has been more evident in male twins
 The extent of language delay in twin children?

The evidence deriving from studies of the nature and

prevalence of language delay in twins suggests:

✓ Twins, particularly male, have a higher risk of language

delay.

✓ Language delay is typically mild and there is suggestion

that it reduces by middle childhood.
✓The greater variation of language scores suggests
twins might be more sensitive to factors affecting
language development.

✓ The long-term course and consequences of twin

language development is not known.
 What are the causes of language delay in twin
children?

Explaining the considerable variation in the rate of language

development, both within twins, and between twins and
singleton populations is an important focus as it may direct
parents, teachers, and clinicians in the prevention and
remediation of language delay. The twin situation clearly
increases the risk of delay but this does not mean that delay
is inevitable.
The weight of evidence suggests that the mild language
delay evident in twin children when compared with
singletons:

✓ Is not attributable to factors unique to twins.

✓ Is not attributable to obstetric or perinatal events that

have not caused overt neurological damage.

✓ Is largely explained by social experiences in the early

social environment of twins
language delay in twins results from quality of
language environment intervention should focus on
improving language experiences for twin children
both in and out of the home
 LOW SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUND

✓ SES refers to one access to financial, educational,

and social resources, and the social positioning,
privileges, and prestige that are derived from these
resources (Mueller & Parcel 1981, Entwisle
&Astone 1994, Duncan et al. 2015).
✓ Although SES is recognized to be a
multidimensional construct that has been
measured in various ways (Oakes & Rossi 2003),
most contemporary investigations center on
parental education, family income, and parental
occupation, or some combination of these three
indices
 WHO ARE THE CHILDREN FROM LOW-
SOCIOECONOMIC-STATUS HOMES?

✓ The statistics for children living in low-income

and poor families are appalling.
✓ The United States has among the highest levels of
childhood poverty outside of the developing
world.
✓ Children under age 5 are more vulnerable to
poverty than are older children. One in four
infants, toddlers, and preschoolers currently live
in poor families, compared with only 19% of
children between 12 and 17 years.

✓ There are also striking racial/ethnic differences in

the poverty rate among children.
✓ Children living in poverty are exposed to a variety
of toxic stressors, such as food insecurity, abuse, and
neglect, as well as limited educational resources and
opportunities.

✓ These children are at higher risk of having physical

health problems, such as lead poisoning and low
birth weight, and have a higher mortality rate during
infancy and childhood than their more affluent peers
(Brooks-Gunn & Duncan 1997, Shonkoff 2000).
THE RELATION BETWEEN SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS
AND VERBAL ABILITY ACROSS LANGUAGE
DOMAINS

✓ Children from low-SES backgrounds, in general lag

behind their more affluent peers on measures of
language comprehension and production from infancy
through high school
 Prelinguistic Development

Over their first 12 months, infants develop several

foundational communication skills that support positive
language development and predict later language
trajectories, such as gaze following (Brooks & Meltzoff
2005), pointing (Tomasello et al. 2007), and gesturing
(Iverson & Goldin-Meadow 2005).
 Although SES effects on standardized language
assessments do not emerge in the child development
literature until early in the second year of life, there is
evidence for earlier differences in the brain areas that
subserve language acquisition as well as the behavioral
precursors to language acquisition, such as the proclivity
to explore the physical environment,
produce gestures, and communicate with nonverbal
intentionality.
Vocabulary Development

✓ The most striking evidence of SES disparities is

observed in children’s expressive and receptive
vocabulary.

✓ As early as 18 months, infants in high-SES families

had larger expressive vocabularies compared with
their peers in low-SES families (Fernald et al.
2013).
✓ By the age of 3 years, children from high-income
households already produced twice as many words
as did their peers from low-income households,
according to well-known research by Hart &
Risley (1995).
Grammatical Development

✓ In addition to vocabulary, SES-related differences

also exist in grammatical development.

✓ SES predicted the complexity and diversity of

syntactic structures children produced during mother-
child interaction (Vasilyeva et al. 2008,
Huttenlocheretal. 2010),as well as children’s
performance on standardized tests of grammatical
development (Morisset et al. 1990, Dollaghan et al.
1999).
Recent findings from a normative sample of
preschool children tested on a computerize language
assessment indicated that children from low-SES
homes had syntax comprehension scores age 5
that were not significantly different from children
from higher-SES homes at age 3, revealing a
gap of nearly 24 months on test items including wh-
questions and embedded clauses (Hirsh-Pasek
et al. 2015b).
 Phonological development

✓ Phonological awareness, which refers to children’s

understanding of the sound structures of word

✓Children with low phonological awareness are at

risk of having reading difficulties (Lonigan 2003),
which further leads to negative attitudes toward
reading (Oka & Paris 1986), less engagement in
reading practices (Allington 1984), and lower
reading comprehension skills (Brown et al. 1986).
 Narrative

✓ low-SES children’s strength in narrative skills is

often underestimated by teachers, because of the
mismatch between home cultures and the main
stream method of instruction in schools (Dyson &
Genishi 2009)
THREE POTENTIAL SOURCES OF SOCIOECONOMIC
STATUS RELATED DIFFERENCES IN LANGUAGE
DEVELOPMENT

✓ SES-related differences in language learning

opportunities, experience, and exposure exert varying
levels of influence on language development in
childhood, depending on the child’s characteristics, the
quality and quantity of input available in parent-child
interactions, and the provision of age-appropriate
materials in the home environment and rich experiences
outside the home
Child Characteristics

✓ Despite consistent milestones in typical development,

children bring unique variability to the task of language
acquisition.

✓ Many child characteristics are important for language

development,
including physical and mental health, social–emotional
skills (e.g., temperament, affect, internalizing and
externalizing behavior, self-efficacy),

approaches to learning (e.g., openness, curiosity,

persistence, attentiveness, cognitive learning style),

and executive functioning skills (e.g., working memory,

attentional flexibility, inhibitory control, self-regulation).
Parent–Child Interaction

✓ A second body of research suggests that certain

components of SES may influence the ways in which
caregivers communicate with their children, which in
turn results in variations in children’s language
development.
Availability of Learning Materials: Resources at Home and
in the Community

✓ Another source of variation through which SES

influences children’s ability is the availability of learning
materials not only within the home but also in the
community at large.

✓ Research suggests that, compared with children from

middle- or high-SES families, children from low-SES
backgrounds are exposed to limited language and
cognitive stimulation both in the home and in the
community.
REFERENCES

Speech and language impairment

A neglected issue for abused and neglected children
Author: Kellie Grant and Fred Gravestock

Twin children’s languagedevelopment

Author: KarenThorpe

Identifying Pathways Between Socioeconomic Status and

Language Development
Author : AmyPace,1 Rufan Luo,2 Kathy Hirsh-Pasek,3
and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff