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Dosage, Severity, Frequency, and Chronicity Effects of Adversity Exposure on Children's Grammar Abilities
Issue Date
2021-12-31Author
Selin, Claire
Publisher
University of Kansas
Format
88 pages
Type
Dissertation
Degree Level
Ph.D.
Discipline
Child Language
Rights
Copyright held by the author.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Children exposed to adversity (e.g., chronic poverty, traumatic events, child maltreatment) are at increased risk for performing below age-expectations on norm-referenced language assessments, but it is unknown whether the risk is higher for specific language impairment. Previous research has not included samples with sufficient exclusionary criteria, assessments with sufficient diagnostic accuracy, nor comprehensive adversity measurement. Given hypothesized epigenetic mechanisms linking extrinsic factors (e.g., adversity exposure) with intrinsic predisposition (e.g., genetic risk), an increased prevalence of specific language impairment is expected. The current study investigated whether adversity exposure and which adversity features may increase risk for specific language impairment. The syntax subtest of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation Norm-Referenced (DELV-NR) assessment was administered to 30 school-aged children with known histories of adversity exposure. Their primary caregiver also completed a comprehensive adversity exposure measure, which captured adverse event type, frequency, and severity. From the adversity exposure measure, the adversity feature predictors of dosage, frequency, chronicity, and severity were created. General linear models were conducted to examine whether the adversity feature predictors interacted with specific language impairment status to predict grammar performance. Overall, the sample performed significantly lower on the DELV-NR syntax subtest (M = 8.07, SD = 1.96) than the expected population mean of 10, and a higher percentage of participants (20%) met diagnostic criteria for specific language impairment than the expected prevalence in the general population. The specific language impairment and typical language groups did not significantly differ in adversity dosage, frequency, chronicity, or severity; however, participants in the specific language impairment group were 1.46 times more likely to have experienced physical trauma than the participants in the typical language group. After accounting for maternal education and nonverbal cognition, specific language impairment status significantly predicted grammar performance on the DELV-NR syntax subtest, accounting for 66% of the sample variance, but adversity feature predictors did not. Children with known histories of adversity exposure are at heightened risk for grammatical deficits and specific language impairment; however, the children with specific language impairment in this sample did not experience a higher dosage nor more frequent, chronic, or severe adversity. The only difference between groups was increased exposure to physical trauma (e.g., physical abuse, victimization) as compared to the typical language group. Future research is needed to investigate the prevalence of specific language impairment in this population and potential causal mechanisms linking adversity exposure to increased rates of specific language impairment.
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