Associations between childhood receptive vocabulary and suicide attempt during adolescence and young adulthood

Children's language skills are key to good socioemotional development. Higher childhood receptive language scores were associated with lower internalizing behavioural problems, but little is known about their association with later suicide risk. We investigated associations between childhood receptive vocabulary scores and youth suicide attempt.

Data were from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (n = 1631). Childhood receptive vocabulary was assessed at ages 3.5, 5, 6, and 10 years using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised. Suicide attempt was self-reported between ages 13 to 23 years. Univariable and multivariable analyses were conducted to investigate the associations between receptive vocabulary scores and suicide attempt while accounting for the role of sex (interaction analysis).

Associations between receptive vocabulary scores and suicide attempt varied depending on both child sex and age (p_interactions = 0.022-0.120 at ages 3.5-10 years). In females, higher receptive vocabulary scores at age 3.5 years was associated with decreased odds of attempting suicide, OR = 0.82, 95% CI [0.68, 0.99], even after adjusting for covariates, OR = 0.84, 95% CI [0.68, 1.02]. Receptive vocabulary scores at ages 5 and 6 years were associated with suicide attempt, but only before adjusting for covariates. In males, no associations were found between receptive vocabulary scores at ages 3.5, 5, or 6 years and suicide attempt. Male receptive vocabulary scores at age 10 years were associated with a higher likelihood of reporting suicide attempt, although this did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance.

Attrition limits generalizability of findings.

These results emphasize the potential role of childhood receptive vocabulary skills as a vulnerability marker for youth suicide attempt risk.