Psychosocial deprivation and receptive language ability: a two-sample study

Receptive and expressive vocabulary performance in 2- to 5-year-olds in care: The role of different care types and temperament

The detrimental role of institutionalization in children's development has prompted the introduction of alternative care types designed to offer more personalized care. The current study aimed to test whether children in alternative care types (care villages, care homes, and foster care) performed better on vocabulary than those in institutions. The role of temperament, specifically perceptual sensitivity and frustration, and the interaction between temperament and care types on vocabulary performance were also explored. The study involved 285 2- to 5-year-old children from different care types, and they were assessed through receptive and expressive vocabulary tests and temperament scales. The results of the linear mixed model revealed that children in alternative care types exhibited significantly higher vocabulary scores compared with those in institutions. Moreover, perceptual sensitivity showed a positive association with receptive and expressive vocabulary skills and seemed to act as a protective factor by mitigating the lower vocabulary scores in institutions. Frustration moderated vocabulary outcomes differently for children in institutions and foster care, aligning with the diathesis-stress model and vantage sensitivity theory, respectively. The findings emphasize the positive role of alternative care types in vocabulary performance and the importance of children's temperamental traits in this process.

Romania's Abandoned Children: The Effects of Early Profound Psychosocial Deprivation on the Course of Human Development

Understanding the impact that early psychosocial neglect has on the course of human development has implications for the millions of children around the world who are living in contexts of adversity. In the US, approximately 76% of cases reported to child protective services involve neglect; world-wide, there are more than 150 million orphaned or abandoned children, including 10.5 million orphaned because of COVID-19. In much of the world, children without primary caregivers are reared in institutional settings. We review two decades of research based on the only randomized controlled trial of foster care as an alternative to institutional care. We report that children randomly assigned to continued care as usual (institutional care) suffer from persistent deficits in social, cognitive, and emotional development, and show evidence of disruptions in brain development. By contrast, children randomly assigned to foster care show improvements in most domains of functioning, although the degree of recovery is in part a function of how old they were when placed into foster care and the stability of that placement. These findings have important implications for understanding critical periods in human development, as well as elucidating the power of the psychosocial environment in shaping multiple domains of human development.

Temporal stability of parent-reported behavior problems in late talkers over 2 years: a prospective case-control study from toddlerhood to preschool age

Background

Late talking (LT) in toddlers is a risk factor for language weakness that may interfere with the development of using language to regulate behavior and emotion and contribute to the development of behavior problems from early childhood. This study examined the temporal stability of parent-reported behavior problems among Mandarin-speaking LT toddlers from ages 2 to 4 in Taiwan.

Methods

Thirty-one LT and 31 typical language development (TLD) toddlers were assessed for their vocabulary production at age 2 with the Words and Sentences Forms of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Developmental Inventories Toddler Form (Taiwan version). Additionally, participants’ receptive and expressive language abilities were assessed using the receptive and expressive language subscales of the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition. At age 4, the Child Language Disorder Scale-Revised was applied and included the two core subtests for auditory comprehension and expressive communication. At ages 2 and 4 years, behavior problems were assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist.

Results

There was a higher percentage of participants with persistent behavior problems among LT toddlers than among TLD toddlers. Moreover, toddlers with larger vocabularies were less likely to develop withdrawal behaviors by preschool age.

Conclusions

This study supported the temporal stability of parent-reported behavior problems among LT toddlers across early childhood. Early identification of and intervention for behavior problems associated with LT in toddlerhood is essential to alleviate their behavior problems later in preschool years.