Background: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have problems acquiring language, affecting their communicative participation, social--emotional functioning (SEF) and quality of life (QoL). Aims: To investigate whether communicative participation mediates the relation between language and SEF and QoL. Methods & Procedures: In a…

Background: There is empirical evidence that a developmental language disorder (DLD) in early childhood leads to behaviour problems. However, it is still not clear how changes in language proficiency in these children influence the presence of behaviour problems. Aims: The aim of this study is to examine if changes in language proficiency are…

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the longitudinal, bidirectional relations between receptive and expressive Spanish and English language and internalizing and externalizing behavior problems in a sample of 97 preschool children from Spanish-speaking, homes who were enrolled in a U.S. Head Start program. Eight cross-lagged path…

Purpose: Cross-informant ratings are considered best practice for assessing children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, informant disagreement often occurs, which can pose significant challenges to various aspects of clinical services. This study explored the degree of parent and speech-language pathologist (SLP) agreement on ratings of…

The purpose of this study is to examine the bidirectional relationship between children's language development and challenging behaviors as well as the moderating roles of gender and race/ethnicity. We conducted a number of structural equation modeling analyses with a national representative sample (N = 2,462) of Head Start children from the 2014…

We examined the relations between language skills and behavior problems and whether social skills mediated these relations among preschool children enrolled in Head Start programs. Participants included 242 preschool children and their parents in Head Start programs. Over a 2-year period, parents and teachers reported children's behavior problems…

The purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal, bidirectional relationship between language skills and behavior problems in a sample of 194 preschool children enrolled in Head Start programs. Children were individually assessed using the "Preschool Language Scale-5," and teachers completed the "Child Behavior…

Research suggests that children with behavioural difficulties exhibit "positive illusory bias" (PIB), in which they overestimate their competencies leading to a perception of self that is more positive than the perceptions held by their peers, parents or teachers. However, research to date has focused on children of elementary school age…

A community sample of 192 parents reported on their children's restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) at mean ages 15 months (N = 138), 26 months (N = 191), and 77 months (N = 125) using the Repetitive Behavior Questionnaire-2 (RBQ-2). Consistent with previous factor analytic research, 2 factors were found at each age: 1 comprising repetitive…

Introduction: Children and young adults with Down syndrome can demonstrate increased behavior problems compared to their typically developing peers through childhood and adolescence. Though current tools measure behavior problems in persons with intellectual disabilities, they do not capture all the behavioral problems that can occur in…

Socio-emotional development is increasingly recognised as playing a central role in children's academic achievement. However, little is known about the socio-emotional development of language-minority children on entry to school and how these children fare in comparison to their language-majority peers. To address this gap, longitudinal data on…

Background: Existing research suggests that there is a relationship between greater exposure to center-based child care and child behavioral problems though the mechanism for the impact is unclear. However the measure used to document child care has usually been average hours, which may be particularly unreliable in the early months when fewer…

This study examined the efficacy of a multimodule parenting intervention, "My Baby & Me," that began prenatally and continued until children reached 2.5 years of age. The intervention targeted specific parenting skills designed to alter trajectories of maternal and child development. Of 361 high-risk mothers (193 adolescents, 168…

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated with many different levels of language and social impairment, differences in levels of cognitive impairment, varying levels of aberrant behavior, and discrepancies in the presence or amount of restrictive and repetitive behavior. The heterogeneity found within the ASD population is coupled with…

Aim: General developmental outcome is known to be good in school-aged children who experienced febrile seizures. We examined cognitive and behavioural outcomes in preschool children with febrile seizures, including language and executive functioning outcomes. Method: This work was performed in the Generation R Study, a population-based cohort…