Communication skills predict social-emotional competencies

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Child Language Acquisition
• Social-Emotional Development

Background:

• Early language difficulties in children often co-occur with social-emotional and behavioral problems.
• The causal relationship and underlying factors of these co-occurrences remain unclear.
• Existing research primarily focuses on children already using words, leaving a gap in understanding preverbal communication's role.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between preverbal communication and early language skills in infancy.
• To examine the subsequent impact on social-emotional competencies and problems in toddlerhood.
• To explore the influence of background factors on these developmental trajectories.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from the Finnish Steps Study cohort, including 395 children.
• Assessed infant language at 13 months using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory for Infants (CDI-I).
• Evaluated social-emotional development at under 17 months with the Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (BITSEA).

Main Results:

• Infants with lower preverbal gestural communication and receptive language skills showed a higher risk of social-emotional competency delays.
• No significant association was found between early communication skills and elevated social-emotional and behavioral problems.
• Early communication skills were linked to social-emotional competencies, not directly to behavioral problems in toddlerhood.

Conclusions:

• Lower early communication skills predict delays in social-emotional competency development.
• These social-emotional delays are a known risk factor for later social-emotional and behavioral issues.
• Monitoring infant communication is vital for parental guidance in supporting pragmatic and language development.