Depressive symptoms and emotion regulation strategies in children with and without developmental language disorder: a longitudinal study

Abstract

BackgroundDepressive symptoms are common in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). However, risk and protective factors contributing to these problems are currently underspecified.AimsThe current longitudinal study examined the role of emotion‐regulation (ER) strategies in the severity of depressive symptoms in children with and without DLD, taking into account the severity of communication problems of children with DLD.Methods & ProceduresWe followed clinically referred children with DLD (n = 114, 49% girls) and without DLD (n = 214, 58% girls) between the ages of 8 and 16 years across an 18‐month period. Participants completed self‐report questionnaires at three time points. Parents of children with DLD reported on their child's communication problems.Outcomes & ResultsMultilevel analyses confirmed higher levels of depressive symptoms in youngsters with DLD compared with peers without DLD, with a decrease across time in the DLD group. In both groups, higher levels of approach and increasing avoidant strategies aimed at distraction or trivializing a problem explained lower depressive symptoms, whereas more worry and externalizing strategies contributed to more depressive symptoms. Within the DLD group, semantic language problems were associated with higher depressive symptoms. However, this relation was mediated by the tendency to worry or use externalizing strategies.Conclusions & ImplicationsResults suggest that interventions for children with DLD should focus on enhancing their adaptive ER strategies to help them cope with daily stressors just as in the general population.

Positive Aspects of Emotional Competence in Preventing Internalizing Symptoms in Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder: A Longitudinal Approach

“…Instead, the communication problems may cause an inability to effectively differentiate and communicate emotions, which in turn puts children at risk for internalizing problems. As in previous studies, we found mixed results between the severity of communication problems in children with DLD and their internalizing problems (St Clair et al 2010;Van Daal et al 2007).…”

“…Only pragmatic problems, such as the initiation of conversations, non-verbal communication, use of context, and stereotypical language use, represented a risk factor for higher levels of internalizing problems (St Clair et al 2010). Similarly, the level of somatic complaints of 5-year-olds with DLD were unrelated to their phonological, semantic, and syntactic language problems, whereas social anxiety was related to more phonological and semantic language problems (van Daal et al 2007). Adolescents with DLD also reported more social anxiety when they had more expressive language problems, but this relation was fully mediated by their social skills (Wadman et al 2011).…”

“…As mentioned briefly above, children and adolescents with DLD also tend to experience socio-emotional difficulties and internalizing symptoms (Redmond and Rice 1998;St Clair et al 2010) including increased levels of somatic complaints (Gregl et al 2014;Maggio et al 2014;Redmond and Rice 1998;van Daal et al 2007) and social anxiety (Beitchman et al 2001;Wadman et al 2011). Somatic complaints, such as headaches, stomach-aches, fatigue, or other physical ailments are not uncommon in youths (e.g., about 30% of 8-to 14-year-olds report somatic complaints; Rieffe et al 2004), and have been linked to increased stress levels, negative emotions, and depressive or anxiety symptoms (e.g., Rieffe et al 2004;Shanahan et al 2015).…”

Behavioral, Emotional and School Adjustment in Adolescents with and without Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) Is Related to Family Involvement

“…Moreover, early language difficulties are known to be a good predictor of emotional problems in late childhood and adolescence [16]. In this vein, and since emotional problems seem to increase from childhood to adolescence, anxious and depressive traits are common among teenagers with this disorder [16,18]. Therefore, adolescents with DLD are more vulnerable to emotional disturbances than their typical peers [19] and report higher indexes of internalized and externalized emotional difficulties, more (and more severe) emotional symptoms, and poorer psychological functioning than typical children and adolescents [11,20,21].…”

Developmental Dysphasia at the Present Time

“…Norbury a Sonuga-Barke v roce 2017 přicházejí s důkazy, že na psychiatrických klinikách má celá jedna třetina nediagnostikovanou jazykovou poruchu, 40 % mladých delikventů vykazuje jazykové deficity, z toho čtvrtina splňuje kritéria jazykové poruchy a dívky s touto diagnózou jsou více ohroženy sexuálním zneužíváním. Nizozemsko-britská víceúrovňová analýza potvrdila vyšší úroveň depresivních symptomů u mladých lidí s jazykovou poruchou ve srovnání s intaktními vrstevníky (Bedem et al, 2018).…”