This article discusses findings from the first 10 years of the Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Impairment (LOCHI) Study, which includes more than 450 deaf and hard of hearing Australian children whose hearing losses were identified variously through newborn hearing screening or later paths to confirmation and intervention.

Research findings: Developing adequate socioemotional competencies is of great relevance for later health and academic outcomes. Shared book reading creates valuable social situations that provide opportunities to talk about characters' emotions and social interactions with children and thus might contribute to children's socioemotional…

Cooperation between preschools and parents is one key dimension of pedagogical quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC). We examined the structural characteristics of ECEC that predict preschool cooperation activities and how they are associated with children's language and social-emotional skills at the age of 3. The results are based…

Background: Sleep affects children's cognitive development, preparedness for school and future academic outcomes. People with Down syndrome (DS) are particularly at risk for sleep-disordered breathing (SDB). To our knowledge, the association between SDB and cognition in preschoolers with DS is unknown. Methods: We assessed sleep by using…

Background: Language development has been characterised by significant individual stability from school entry. However, the extent to which trajectories of language growth vary in children with language disorder as a function of co-occurring developmental challenges is a question of theoretical import, with implications for service provision.…

The aim of the present study was to investigate the associations between social-emotional and language development in a sample of 3-5-year-old children in community-based early childhood education and care (N = 90). Children's theory of mind understanding, affect recognition and language abilities were tested with neuropsychological measurements,…

The quality of a child's early language and communication environment (ELCE) is an important predictor of later educational outcomes. However, less is known about the routes via which these early experiences influence the skills that support academic achievement. Using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (n = 7,120) we…

Little is known about their stability and the factors that influence their persistence or change over the life-course. To address this, we use data from 158 participants from the Special Needs and Autism Project cohort studied at three time-points from 12 to 23 years. We used latent growth models to study the role of child, family, and contextual…

Following a biopsychosocial model, the study investigated the role of child factors (gender, IQ), maternal factors (psychological distress, maternal education and vocabulary, maternal distress) and environmental factors (SES) in the relationship between language impairment and behaviour problems in preschool children. Participants were drawn from…

The present research explored the relation between socio-cognitive skills, as Theory of Mind and affective empathy, social behaviour, attachment style and scholastic success in children, aged from 8 to 11 years (N = 159; 90 females, 69 males; M[subscript age] = 9,60; DS = 0.78). Several assessment tools were administered to children on mentalizing…

Background: The youngest children in an academic year are reported to be educationally disadvantaged and overrepresented in referrals to clinical services. In this study we investigate for the first time whether these disadvantages are indicative of a mismatch between language competence at school entry and the academic demands of the classroom.…

Objective: To estimate associations between trajectories of conduct problems and social-cognitive competences through childhood into early adolescence. Method: A prospective population-based cohort, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) recruited in the prenatal period (13,988 children alive at 12 months) formed the basis…