Brain Measures of Toddlers’ Shape Recognition Predict Language and Cognitive Skills at 6–7 Years

Borgström, Kristina; Torkildsen, Janne von Koss; Sahlén, Birgitta; Lindgren, Magnus

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01945

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Indeed, both late talkers (Jones, 2003; Perry & Kucker, 2019) and children with DLD (Collisson et al., 2014) are less likely to attend to shape when generalizing novel nouns. Relatedly, work by Borgström and colleagues shows parallels between early shape recognition at 20‐months and vocabulary at 24‐months (Borgström et al., 2015) and language skills at age 6 (Borgström et al., 2019). Thus, it is possible that the Persisting Late Talkers in our sample might have had fewer names for shape‐based categories in their toddler vocabularies because they had early difficulties extracting abstract object shape, causing them to have a harder time learning names for categories of objects with complex shapes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…In fact, late talkers have particular difficulty selectively attending to the shape of objects. For example, they struggle with recognizing highly familiar objects from Styrofoam shape caricatures relative to both age-matched and younger vocabulary-matched peers with typically-sized vocabularies (Jones & Smith, 2005), suggesting potential differences in the way they visually process objects (Borgström et al, 2015(Borgström et al, , 2019, which is likely to have cascading effects on later vocabulary (Cf. Smith, 2009).…”

Section: 21mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Late bloomer or language disorder? Differences in toddler vocabulary composition associated with long‐term language outcomes

Perry

Kucker

Horst

et al. 2022

Developmental Science

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Children with delays in expressive language (late talkers) have heterogeneous developmental trajectories. Some are late bloomers who eventually “catch‐up,” but others have persisting delays or are later diagnosed with developmental language disorder (DLD). Early in development it is unclear which children will belong to which group. We compare the toddler vocabulary composition of late talkers with different long‐term outcomes. The literature suggests most children with typical development (TD) have vocabularies dominated by names for categories organized by similarity in shape (e.g., cup), which supports a bias to attend to shape when generalizing names of novel nouns—a bias associated with accelerated vocabulary development. Previous work has shown that as a group, late talkers tend to say fewer names for categories organized by shape and are less likely to show a “shape bias” than TD children. Here, in a retrospective analysis of 850 children, we compared the vocabulary composition of groups of toddlers who were late bloomers or persisting late talkers. At Time 1 (13‐27 months), the persisting late talkers said a smaller proportion of shape‐based nouns than both TD children and late bloomers who “caught up” to typically sized vocabularies months later (18‐38‐months). Additionally, children who received a DLD diagnosis between 4 and 7 years said a significantly smaller proportion of shape‐based nouns in year two than TD children and children with other diagnoses (e.g., dyslexia). These findings bring new insight into sources of heterogeneity amongst late talkers and offer a new metric for assessing risk. Research Highlights Toddler vocabulary composition, including the proportion of names for categories organized by shape, like spoon, was used to retrospectively compare outcomes of late talking children Persisting Late Talkers said a smaller proportion of shape‐based nouns during toddlerhood relative to Late Bloomers (late talkers who later caught up to have typically‐sized vocabularies) Children with later DLD diagnoses said a smaller proportion of shape‐based nouns during toddlerhood relative to children without a DLD diagnosis The data illustrate the cascading effects of vocabulary composition on subsequent language development and suggest vocabulary composition may be one important marker of persisting delays

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