TOPIC

Paediatric language research

Everything we have read on paediatric language. Each paper is summarised from the full article rather than its abstract, so the limitations are in there too, and the funding wherever the paper declares it.

479 PAPERS · PAGE 7 OF 10 · NEWEST FIRST

• SLPNarrative Review2023Combining Languages in Bilingual Input: Using Experimental Evidence to Formulate Bilingual Exposure Strategies.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRThis review synthesizes experimental evidence on how bilingual children learn words from mixed-language input. It discusses theoretical mechanisms like code-switching and distributed exposure but offers no tested interventions or clinical protocols to change therapy practice.
• SLPOther2023Predictors of Emotional Prosody Identification by School-Age Children With Cochlear Implants and Their Peers With Normal Hearing.Ear and hearingSchool-age children with cochlear implants identified spoken emotions less accurately than normal-hearing peers. Older age was linked to better scores in both groups. In children with implants, longer device use and higher problem-solving ability were linked to better scores.
• PTOTSLPOther2023Comparison between the socio-educational profiles of children with verbal and non-verbal Autism Spectrum Disorder.CoDASChildren with verbal autism scored higher than those with non-verbal autism across all seven developmental areas, including imitation, perception, motor skills, and cognition. Age differences between the groups likely influenced these results, so the gap may not be due to language alone.
• SLPOther2023Performance in decoding and writing of children with Developmental Language Disorder: preliminary data.CoDASChildren with developmental language disorder decoded words and non-words much more slowly and made more errors than matched peers. Their dictation showed many spelling errors, especially natural spelling errors.
• SLPCohort2023Grammaticality Judgments of Tense and Agreement by Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder Across Dialects of English.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRChildren with DLD judged grammar poorly across both Southern White English and African American English, regardless of dialect. Typical speakers showed dialect-specific patterns, especially for verbal -s. Do not assume a child's production of a form predicts how they judge it, particularly in DLD.
• SLPSurvey2023Evidence-based practice and clinical practice in child language: an online survey with Brazilian speech-language pathologists.CoDASMost Brazilian child language therapists value evidence-based practice but struggle with the skills to use it. Few have training in critical appraisal or English, limiting access to key databases. Barriers are knowledge gaps and lack of peer support, not time.
• SLPQualitative2024Exploring the Psychosocial Experiences of Individuals with Developmental Language Disorder During Childhood: A Qualitative Investigation.Journal of autism and developmental disordersMothers and adults with developmental language disorder described anxiety driven by intolerance of uncertainty, social frustration from misunderstanding peers, and exhaustion. Children showed strengths in empathy, creativity and resilience. Parents reported isolation and stress due to lack of support.
• SLPOther2023Performance of preschool and schoolchildren on the ProNOH protocol: macrostructure aspects.CoDASThe ProNOH protocol successfully distinguished storytelling ability between age groups in 97 typically developing Brazilian children. Scores rose significantly with age, particularly between five and six years, and correlated strongly with story coherence. These data provide reference values for assessing narrative macrostructure.
• PTOTSLPCohort2024An observational study of parental language during play and mealtime in toddlers at variable likelihood for autism.Journal of child languageParents spoke more and used more directives during play, while mealtime drew out more questions and descriptive adjectives. For toddlers at elevated likelihood for autism, parental language did not differ from lower-likelihood peers based on status alone, but varied with the child's specific skills.
• SLPSurvey2024Checklist of relevant ICF categories for speech and language development.CoDASParents and speech-language pathologists disagreed on which factors matter most for typical preschool language development. Pathologists rated mental functions and language acquisition higher. Parents rated environmental factors, like nuclear family and health services, as more relevant.
• SLPOther2024Fostering retention of word learning: The number of training sessions children retrieve words positively relates to post-training retention.Journal of child languageWords successfully retrieved by children across three or four training sessions showed better one-month retention than words retrieved in fewer sessions. Retrieval across five sessions did not improve retention beyond three or four. Continuing to test a word after initial success supports long-term memory.
• PTOTSLPCohort2023Associations between early language, motor abilities, and later autism traits in infants with typical and elevated likelihood of autism.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchIn infants with a family history of autism, fine motor and expressive language skills influenced each other bidirectionally from 10 to 24 months. Lower receptive language at 24 months and lower gross motor at 36 months predicted higher autistic traits at age 3.
• SLPCohort2023The Association Between Family Resources and Language Among Young Children Who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing.Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBPParents reporting better access to health necessities had children with higher language scores. These associations were strongest in children with mild to moderate hearing loss, but absent in those with severe to profound loss.
• SLPOther2024Exploring Motor Speech Disorders in Low and Minimally Verbal Autistic Individuals: An Auditory-Perceptual Analysis.American journal of speech-language pathologyMost low and minimally verbal autistic individuals showed speech motor impairments, primarily in articulation. These speech difficulties were strongly linked to lower expressive and receptive language scores. This suggests motor speech issues may contribute to language limitations in this population.
• SLPOther2024Use of digital devices, family functioning, and language development in preschool children: a cross-sectional study.CoDASChildren who spent more hours using smartphones, tablets, or computers scored lower on language tests. Families reporting higher cohesion and satisfaction had children with better language scores, while more disengaged families had children with lower scores. These were associations in one snapshot, not proof of cause.
• SLPOther2024Verb Vocabulary Supports Event Probability Use in Developmental Language Disorder.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRChildren with DLD understood reversible passives less accurately than peers. They used verb-based expectations when grammar cues were close to the verb, but became confused when the by phrase was distant. Knowing the verb better helped both groups.
• SLPRCT2024Retrieval Practice and Word Learning by Children With Developmental Language Disorder: Does Expanding Retrieval Provide Additional Benefit?Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRExpanding retrieval practice (increasing gaps between recall attempts) did not improve long-term word recall in children with DLD compared to equally spaced retrieval. While children recalled more words during early practice trials with expanding schedules, this advantage disappeared by the end of learning and did not translate to better retention one week later.
• SLPSurvey2024Parental perspectives on the impact of screen time on the language skills of typically developing Indian children.CoDASParents of Indian children aged 6 to 10 reported mixed effects of screen time on language. Most children used devices for 1 to 2 hours daily, often without limits. Supervised viewing and sharing experiences with parents were associated with better vocabulary and social communication.
• SLPOther2024Transcription Decisions of Conjoined Independent Clauses Are Equitable Across Dialects but Impact Measurement Outcomes.Language, speech, and hearing services in schoolsSeparating conjoined clauses into single utterances reduces MLU scores, hiding grammar differences between children with and without DLD. This practice affects all dialects equally, so it is not inequitable, but it makes clinical status and age effects harder to detect.
• SLPOther2023Hearing Loss in Children: Critical Medical Education Delivered as Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).Perspectives of the ASHA special interest groupsA free pediatric hearing loss course reached 6,556 learners in three years, with 1,540 completing it. Medical students said the shorter version improved their understanding of hearing loss, speech and language impact, and team care. It reports learner experience, not patient outcomes.
• SLPCohort2024The Growth of Complex Syntax in School-Age African American Children Who Speak African American English.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRSchool-age African American children who speak African American English showed slow growth in sentence combining by raw items, but not when compared with age norms. Higher dialect density was linked to lower starting scores, but it did not slow growth.
• SLPCohort2024Impact of Hearing Aids on Language Outcomes in Preschool Children With Mild Bilateral Hearing Loss.Trends in hearingPreschoolers with mild bilateral hearing loss who used hearing aids had better language scores than those who did not. However, hearing aid users also received speech therapy, so the specific benefit of the devices alone cannot be separated from the therapy.
• SLPCohort2024Lexical repertoire of 24 and 30-month-old children speaking Brazilian portuguese: preliminary results.CoDASBrazilian Portuguese children spoke a median of 283 words at 24 months and 401 at 30 months. This far exceeds the 50-word milestone, suggesting the CDC's delay of this benchmark to 30 months may cause missed referrals.
• SLPCohort2024Vowel distinctiveness as a concurrent predictor of expressive language function in autistic children.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchIn 27 autistic children, how distinct their vowel sounds were predicted expressive language skills, but only for those with limited speech. For children with stronger language, understanding of speech was the better predictor. This acoustic measure helps identify which children may struggle to develop spoken words.
• SLPOther2024Do focused interests support word learning? A study with autistic and nonautistic children.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchThe focused-interest condition did not produce a clear learning advantage for autistic children in the main analysis, but they learned new words in both interest and neutral trials. Nonautistic children learned only with neutral images.
• SLPQualitative2024IsiZulu-speaking caregivers' perceptions of child language stimulation.The South African journal of communication disorders = Die Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir KommunikasieafwykingsIsiZulu caregivers valued talking but often saw it as helping children ask for needs, not as a path to school or work. They wanted practical language stimulation training from health professionals, mainly through videos and group learning.
• PTOTSLPCohort2024Genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity in early neurodevelopmental traits in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study.Molecular autismEarly difficulties in social and communication skills at age three were associated with receiving a diagnosis of almost all neurodevelopmental conditions later in childhood. These traits were not neatly aligned with specific diagnoses, suggesting broad developmental challenges predict diverse outcomes.
• SLPCohort2023Parent-Reported Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder-Linked Behaviors, Fatigue, and Language in Children Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing.Perspectives of the ASHA special interest groupsParents of children with hearing aids reported more inattention and academic/social difficulties than parents of children with cochlear implants or typical hearing. Removing language-based test items reduced performance differences but not inattention reports. Fatigue correlated with reported symptoms.
• SLPCase-Control2024The Acquisition of Relative Clauses in Autism: The Role of Executive Functions and Language.Journal of autism and developmental disordersAutistic children’s relative-clause accuracy was not clearly lower than typically developing children’s, except in some object-clause conditions. Object relative clauses were harder than subject relative clauses for both groups.
• SLPCohort2024Early trajectories and moderators of autistic language profiles: A longitudinal study in preschoolers.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceBy 4.4 years, autistic preschoolers formed three distinct language groups: minimally verbal, language impaired, and language unimpaired. Early delay was common; language impaired children had higher verbal scores when they also had two-year ESDM.
• SLPCohort2024Associations of Infant Sleep Characteristics with Childhood Cognitive Outcomes.Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBPInfants who slept more at night than during the day had higher verbal IQs at age seven. This association remained significant after adjusting for race and ethnicity. Total sleep duration and early childhood cognition showed no clear link. The findings suggest sleep consolidation patterns in infancy may predict later language-based cognitive abilities.
• SLPPilot2024A preliminary study of the effects of stimulant medications on estimates of psycholinguistic abilities for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.Clinical linguistics & phoneticsChildren with ADHD scored higher on sentence recall and receptive vocabulary when tested on stimulant medication, with changes exceeding standard error margins. No significant improvements were found for reading, nonverbal IQ, or narrative tasks. This suggests medication status may influence specific diagnostic language markers.
• SLPCohort2024Comparing criteria for deviation from hearing aid prescriptive targets in children.International journal of audiologyTightening hearing aid fit to within 3 dB of target improves audibility and grammar skills in children, especially those with milder loss. Current 5 dB guidelines may be too loose for optimal language development. Speech recognition and vocabulary scores did not change with the stricter fit.
• SLPCohort2024Morphosyntactic profiles among preschoolers with and without speech sound disorders.Clinical linguistics & phoneticsPreschoolers with speech sound disorders but normal language made more errors on subject pronouns, irregular past tense verbs, and yes/no questions than typical peers. Irregular past tense errors were linked to poor phonological awareness. Other morphosyntactic areas showed no group differences.
• SLPOther2024A further look at two grammatical measures from children's language samples and their contribution to the diagnostic process.Clinical linguistics & phoneticsTwo language-sample measures sorted four- and five-year-olds with DLD from typical peers: a tense/agreement score missed one child, Sentence Point missed none. In children with DLD, scores did not track the SPELT-P2 grammar test. Use them with other assessments, not alone.
• SLPCohort2025The everyday speech environments of preschoolers with and without cochlear implants.Journal of child languagePreschoolers with cochlear implants hear similar amounts of speech and engage in as many conversational turns as their hearing peers. However, unlike hearing children, their language environment does not grow richer with age, and their own vocal output is less responsive to caregiver interaction.
• SLPOther2025Exploring the effectiveness of the Pragmatic Intervention Programme (PICP) with children with autism spectrum disorder and developmental language disorder: A non-randomised controlled trial.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceAfter 24 one-hour speech therapy sessions, the 22 children in the intervention group with autism or developmental language disorder were rated by parents and educators as meeting at least two of three individual pragmatic goals. Parent and educator reports and language scores also improved.
• SLPSystematic Review2025The use of Language ENvironment Analysis in autism research: A systematic review.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceLENA daylong recordings provide child vocalization counts, but they do not provide all information needed to judge language ability or communication intent in autism research. Use them with human transcription and formal language tests, especially outside ages 2 to 48 months.
• SLPCohort2024Comprehension of Miranda warnings in adults with chronic, moderate-severe traumatic brain injury.Journal of communication disordersAdults with chronic moderate-to-severe TBI understood Miranda warnings less accurately than non-injured peers. SLPs should evaluate legal comprehension for individuals with TBI interacting with the justice system, as complex language and stress may further impair their ability to exercise rights.
• SLPCohort2024Exploring cross-linguistic differences in parental input and their associations with child expressive language in ASD: Bulgarian versus English comparison.International journal of language & communication disordersBulgarian parents of children with ASD used fewer words but more verbs and statements than English parents, who used twice as many questions. However, parental question use predicted child expressive vocabulary equally well in both language groups.
• SLPCohort2024Speech Recognition and Spatial Hearing in Young Adults With Down Syndrome: Relationships With Hearing Thresholds and Auditory Working Memory.Ear and hearingYoung adults with Down syndrome localized sound as accurately as typical peers, but struggled to understand speech in noise. Their speech recognition difficulties were linked to hearing thresholds and auditory working memory, not general intelligence or vocabulary.
• SLPOther2024Learning Verbs in Sentences: Children With Developmental Language Disorder and the Role of Retrieval Practice.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRRetrieval practice helped children with DLD recall new verbs in practiced sentences, but this advantage disappeared after one week. They also struggled to use these verbs in new grammatical structures, unlike their typical peers.
• SLPOther2025Acoustic Exaggeration Enhances Speech Discrimination in Young Autistic Children.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchIn young autistic children with speech delay, brain responses to syllables were easier to distinguish when pitch range or consonant timing was exaggerated. This was a passive EEG finding, not proof that speaking this way improves speech or language.
• SLPOther2024Exploring vowel errors produced in nonword repetition in children with speech and language disorders.International journal of language & communication disordersChildren with developmental language disorder and childhood apraxia of speech both made more vowel errors repeating nonsense words than typical peers. Children with speech sound disorder did not differ significantly from any group. The study used six children per group, so these patterns are preliminary.
• SLPOther2024Consistency of hearing aid use, speech perception and vocabulary in hearing impaired children.CoDASBetter aided speech perception and auditory dosage, a combined measure of audibility and use, were linked to stronger vocabulary, but daily hours alone were not.
• SLPCohort2025Microstructure competences and grammatical errors of Danish-speaking children with developmental language disorder when telling and retelling narratives and engaging in spontaneous language.International journal of language & communication disordersDanish children with developmental language disorder made significantly more errors than age-matched peers in structured narratives, but not in spontaneous speech. They showed specific difficulties with word order and omissions, not just morphology. Structured tasks are needed to identify these issues.
• SLPCase-Control2024Inferring Word Class and Meaning From Spoken and Written Texts: A Comparison of Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRChildren with developmental language disorder were significantly less accurate at inferring missing word meanings than their peers, regardless of whether they were reading or listening. The difficulty was not specific to reading; it reflected a broader problem with language-based inference.
• SLPOther2025Remote Microphones Support Speech Recognition in Noise and Reverberation for Children With a Language Disorder.Language, speech, and hearing services in schoolsChildren with language disorders struggled more than peers to recognize speech in noise. A remote microphone system significantly improved their speech recognition in both noise and reverberation. However, this is a preliminary study of nine children, so it does not yet justify purchasing devices for clinical use.
• SLPRCT2025Deciphering the genetic basis of developmental language disorder in children without intellectual disability, autism or apraxia of speech.Molecular autismGenetic testing found pathogenic copy number changes in two families and a pathogenic ZNF292 variant in one sporadic case among 27 children with severe developmental language disorder. Most familial cases were unresolved, so no single genetic cause applies to most families.
• SLPQualitative2025Do you like my voice? Stakeholder perspectives about the acceptability of synthetic child voices in three South African languages.International journal of language & communication disordersStakeholders in South Africa accepted synthetic child voices in English, Afrikaans, and isiXhosa, though they rated the English child voice as less natural and harder to understand. They emphasized that children should choose their own voice to match their identity, and that partner support is critical for adoption.