Language Outcomes in Adults with a History of Institutionalization: Behavioral and Neurophysiological Characterization

Abstract

Impoverished early care environments are associated with developmental deficits in children raised in institutional settings. Despite the accumulation of evidence regarding deficits in general cognitive functioning in this population, less is known about the impact of institutionalization on language development at the level of brain and behavior. We examined language outcomes in young adults and adolescents raised in institutions (n = 23) as compared to their socioeconomic status and age peers raised in biological families (n = 24) using a behavioral language assessment and linguistic event-related potentials (ERPs). Controlling for intelligence, adults with a history of institutionalization demonstrated deficits in lexical and grammatical development and spelling. Analyses of ERP data revealed significant group differences in the dynamic processing of linguistic stimuli. Adults with a history of institutionalization displayed reduced neural sensitivity to violations of word expectancy, leading to reduced condition effects for temporo-spatial factors that tentatively corresponded to the N200, P300/N400, and phonological mismatch negativity. The results suggest that language is a vulnerable domain in adults with a history of institutionalization, the deficits in which are not explained by general developmental delays, and point to the pivotal role of early linguistic environment in the development of the neural networks involved in language processing.

Auditory Mismatch Negativity Response in Institutionalized Children

“…It is argued that an atypical neural response to semantic incongruity may reflect underspecified lexical representations or altered functional connectivity in children raised in IC in Russia. Data acquired from adults who were raised in institutions in the Russian Federation suggest that detrimental effects of institutionalization can be traced to adulthood and are manifested in atypical N400 and N170 ERP components (Petrov et al, 2018; Kornilov et al, 2019). It has been shown that adults with a history of institutionalization display reduced neural sensitivity to violations of word expectancy.…”

Language Development of Children Raised in Institutional Settings: Behavioral and Neurophysiological Findings

“…The lack of N400 effect in response to semantic incongruity in the IC group in the current study can be interpreted as an indication of less efficient semantic processing that can result from underspecified lexical representations in children raised in impoverished environments. Results of the previous studies also show decreased N400 effect to semantic incongruity that was registered in semantically overlapping mismatch condition in adults with a history of IC (Kornilov et al., 2019). While the findings of the current study suggest that there are no statistically significant group differences between children in the IC and BFC group with regard to processing semantic incongruity, we hypothesize that the modest sample size might explain our inability to detect group differences; therefore, these findings should be interpreted with caution.…”

An Event‐Related Potentials Study of Executive Functioning in Adults With a History of Institutionalization

“…Participants completed a set of behavioral assessments, along with a demographic questionnaire and self‐reported medical history. As in our previous research (Kornilov et al., 2019), we used the Culture‐Fair Intelligence Test, CFIT (Cattell & Cattell, 1973) Scale 2 to assess nonverbal intelligence. This paper and pencil format test contains four timed subtests: a series of subtests assesses the ability to complete a progressive series; in a Classification subtest, participants are asked to mark the item that does not belong with the others; a Matrices subtest requires the individual to mark the item that fits into a pattern; a Conditions subtest, where the respondent selects a geometric drawing that fulfills specified conditions.…”

“…Previous studies demonstrate that institutional care is associated with a variety of developmental deficits in children and adolescents on a behavioral and neurobiological level (Marshall , Fox, & BEIP Core Group, 2004; Nelson, Fox, & Zeanah, 2014). Negative consequences of IC have been documented for cognitive (Pollak et al., 2010; Wade, Fox, Zeanah, & Nelson, 2019), language (Kornilov et al., 2019), and socio‐emotional (Moulson et al., 2015) domains of development.…”