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Objective: To identify profiles and predictors of maternal-reported infant sleep problems across the first postnatal year., Methods: Survey data examining maternal mental and physical health, intimate partner violence (IPV), and infant sleep problems and night waking were gathered from a cohort of 1,460 nulliparous women at 15 weeks' gestation and when their infants were 3, 6, 9, and 12 months old., Results: Latent class analysis revealed 5 profiles of infant sleep problems, including those who had few problems (24.7%), persistent moderate problems (27.3%), increased problems at 6 months (10.8%), increased problems at 9 months (17.8%), and persistent severe problems (19.4%). Persistent severe infant sleep problems were associated with prepartum and postpartum maternal depression (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 2.13, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.35-3.34, p < 0.01; AOR 2.52, 95% CI 1.64-3.87, p < 0.001, respectively), poorer prepartum and postpartum perception of health (adjusted mean difference [AMD] 23.48, 95% CI 24.9 to 22.1, p < 0.01; AMD 23.78, 95% CI 25.2 to 22.4, p < 0.001, respectively), increased postpartum anxiety (AOR 2.22, 95% CI 1.26-3.90, p < 0.01), and increased prevalence of IPV in the first year postpartum (AOR 1.86, 95% CI 1.20-2.87, p < 0.01)., Conclusion: Poorer prepartum and postpartum maternal mental and physical health, and IPV, were associated with maternal report of persistent severe infant sleep problems. Women experiencing prenatal physical and mental health difficulties may benefit from advice on managing infant sleep and settling. Health professionals working with unsettled infants must be equipped to enquire about and respond appropriately to disclosures of IPV.

Purpose: Evidence suggests that children living in adversity are at greater risk of poorer language than their peers with the quality of parental interactions potentially mediating this association. Studies typically measure the mediatory impact of generic interaction styles making it difficult to discern which particular aspects of the interaction are facilitating language. This study aims to bridge this gap by identifying specific maternal behaviours associated with concurrent infant communication, in a cohort of 12-month old infants and their mothers experiencing adversity., Method: A total of 249 mother-infant free-play videos were collected from women experiencing adversity in Victoria and Tasmania, Australia. From those videos, specific maternal behaviours, infant communication acts and the interaction quality were coded., Result: Maternal verbal imitations uniquely predicted concurrent use of infant vocalisations, total words and unique words. Furthermore, the more fluent and connected the mother-infant dyad, the stronger the association between imitations and all three infant measures., Conclusion: Frequent use of maternal imitations, within highly connected mother-infant dyads, may help mediate the impact of adversity on early communication. This information is important for early years professionals working with at-risk populations in augmenting current knowledge of risk and protective factors related to early language.

Objectives: To document the natural history of stuttering by age 4 years, including (1) cumulative incidence of onset, (2) 12-month recovery status, (3) predictors of stuttering onset and recovery, and (4) potential comorbidities. The study cohort was a prospective community-ascertained cohort (the Early Language in Victoria Study) from Melbourne, Australia, of 4-year-old children (n = 1619; recruited at age 8 months) and their mothers., Methods: Outcome was stuttering onset by age 4 years and recovery within 12 months of onset, defined using concurrent monthly parent and speech pathologist ratings. Potential predictors: child gender, birth weight, birth order, prematurity, and twinning; maternal mental health and education; socioeconomic status; and family history of stuttering. Potential comorbidities: preonset and concurrent temperament, language, nonverbal cognition, and health-related quality of life., Results: By age 4 years, the cumulative incidence of stuttering onset was 11.2% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 9.7% to 12.8%). Higher maternal education (P = .004), male gender (P = .02), and twinning (P = .005) predicted stuttering onset. At outcome, stuttering children had stronger language (mean [SD]: 105.0 [13.0] vs 99.6 [14.6]; mean difference 5.5, 95% CI: 3.1 to 7.8; P < .001) and nonverbal cognition (mean [SD]: 106.5 [11.4] vs 103.9 [13.7], mean difference 2.6, 95% CI: 0.4 to 4.8; P = .02) and better health-related quality of life but were otherwise similar to their nonstuttering peers. Only 9 of 142 children (6.3%; 95% CI: 2.9% to 11.7%) recovered within 12 months of onset., Conclusions: Although stuttering onset is common in preschoolers, adverse affects are not the norm in the first year after onset.

Background: Pre-school language impairment is common and greatly reduces educational performance. Population attempts to identify children who would benefit from appropriately timed intervention might be improved by greater knowledge about the typical profiles of language development. Specifically, this could be used to help with the early identification of children who will be impaired on school entry., Methods:   This study applied longitudinal latent class analysis to assessments at 8, 12, 24, 36 and 48 months on 1113 children from a population-based study, in order to identify classes exhibiting distinct communicative developmental profiles., Results: Five substantive classes were identified: Typical, i.e. development in the typical range at each age; Precocious (late), i.e. typical development in infancy followed by high probabilities of precocity from 24 months onwards; Impaired (early), i.e. high probabilities of impairment up to 12 months followed by typical language development thereafter; Impaired (late), i.e. typical development in infancy but impairment from 24 months onwards; Precocious (early), i.e. high probabilities of precocity in early life followed by typical language by 48 months. The entropy statistic (0.84) suggested classes were fairly well defined, although there was a non-trivial degree of uncertainty in classification of children. That half of the Impaired (late) class was expected to have typical language at 4 years and 6% of the numerically large Typical class was expected to be impaired at 4 years illustrates this. Characteristics indicative of social advantage were more commonly found in the classes with improving profiles., Conclusions: Developmental profiles show that some pre-schoolers' language is characterized by periods of accelerated development, slow development and catch-up growth. Given the uncertainty in classifying children into these profiles, use of this knowledge for identifying children who will be impaired on school entry is not straightforward. The findings do, however, indicate greater need for language enrichment programmes among disadvantaged children., (© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.)

Objective: To quantify the contributions of child, family, and environmental predictors to language ability at 4 years., Methods: A longitudinal study was performed with a sample of 1910 infants recruited at 8 months in Melbourne, Australia. Predictors were child gender, prematurity, birth weight and order, multiple birth, socioeconomic status, maternal mental health, vocabulary, education, and age at child's birth, non-English-speaking background, and family history of speech/language difficulties. Outcomes were Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Preschool, language scores, low language status (scores >1.25 SDs below the mean), and specific language impairment (SLI) (scores >1.25 SDs below the mean for children with normal nonverbal performance)., Results: A total of 1596 children provided outcome data. Twelve baseline predictors explained 18.9% and 20.9% of the variation in receptive and expressive scores, respectively, increasing to 23.6% and 30.4% with the addition of late talking status at age 2. A total of 20.6% of children (324 of 1573 children) met the criteria for low language status and 17.2% (251 of 1462 children) for SLI. Family history of speech/language problems and low maternal education levels and socioeconomic status predicted adverse language outcomes. The combined predictors discriminated only moderately between children with and without low language levels or SLIs (area under the curve: 0.72-0.76); this improved with the addition of late talking status (area under the curve: 0.78-0.84)., Conclusions: Measures of social disadvantage helped explain more variation in outcomes at 4 years than at 2 years, but ability to predict low language status and SLI status remained limited.